Chapter 22: Fighting a Legend

Chapter 21

Julie

The words appeared to be what the monster was waiting for, as soon as the last one was uttered it slammed into the remains of the gates and the wall shattered. Chunks of stone and mortar slammed into the beach around us and the water behind us and the Trojan Hydra was revealed in its terrible glory.

The first head was covered in red scales that bled into dark green as it reached the body, red saliva was dripping out of its mouth, causing little fires when it landed on rotting clothing or broken wood. The second head matched the first, but blue instead of red, and fog was flowing out of its mouth with every breath and frosting the remains of the gate. The third head, by comparison, was apparently unremarkable. That is, until it made a coughing motion over a pile of dead bodies, and green fluid flew from its mouth and melted the bodies into nothing.

“You have got to be kidding me,” stated Max. I turned back to Duke and found him talking to a skull. The skulls jaw was flapping and Duke was nodding like it was saying something. Then he sighed and the skull tilted on the blades handle, then fell off the sword. He walked up to us.

“From what the skull told me, that is probably the reason Eos came here. That is the Trojan hydra. A beast more mythical than most we will deal with as Demigods. If you havent figured it out, one head spouts acid, one fire, and the other ice. To top that off, it also has the normal properties of a Hydra, namely two heads for every one we cut off.”

“Oh that is just awesome,” Max said sarcastically. My brain was working kind of slowly, but I thought of something.

“A Hydra like the one Hercules fought?” I asked. Duke nodded. “What if we burn the wound after decapitation, like in the story?” Duke thought about it for a minute.

“I don’t know,” Duke said thoughtfully. “When it appeared the first time the Trojans were fighting against the Greek forces, and mostly it was sorcerers fighting the Hydra. That is why the Trojan Horse ploy worked. Just before the regular army found the gift, the sorcerers used their magical energies to imprison the monster in, what they thought, was an eternal slumber. They were too tired to inspect the gift, and too drunk with alcohol at the celebration to stop the troops from opening the gates. To further prevent anyone from waking the beast, the gods sunk the island.”

“So...” I was interrupted by the roar of the beast, all three heads were raised and screaming their rage. Behind it came out Eos. All three heads turned towards her, and it looked like they were listening. Then she pointed in our direction.

“Burn the stumps...got it.” Said Max as he brought out his weapons, his eyes a little wide. His hair began to raise from his head. Duke summoned his axe. I ran.

I turned my head back as I ran towards the water and planned as I ran. The boys stared after me dumbfounded for a few moments, then followed me. I reached the water as they caught up.

“What’s the plan?” Max asked as Duke started yelling about only cowards running. Then he noticed I had turned back towards the beast.

“Max here can probably cauterize the wound with electricity, but he needs to stay back to direct the blasts, with the water here, I can hopefully stop the frost and the fire stuff...otherwise were doomed...” I said. Before I had finished Duke apparently got what I was hinting at because he dashed off to the side where the beast couldn’t see him. Max was a quick second, spinning to face the beast. His hair started to raise up by itself so I guess it was getting ready.

The Beast rushed us, the red head focused on Max, while the blue and green were looking at me. Those eyes on me were so frightening that I fell to my knees in horror and forgot all that I was going to do. All I could think of was those two pairs of hate filled eyes staring at me, wanting to kill me. The hate coming from the monster told me, in no uncertain terms, that it would happily kill me and take my soul for no other reason that it would be amusing. In the eyes of such hate I was nothing more than a bump in the road.

That started to piss me off. Before my anger could bring me into actions, all three heads took in a deep breath. From within my chest came a scream that started out as a wail of terror, then became a roar of outrage as my anger took hold.

Then they loosed fire, frost and acid at us.

Chapter 23