Crack!

Instinctively, I flinched. A stick had just been broken by my feet.

Over the last two days or so, I'd been wandering the forests of Greece, trying to find enough meat to survive on for a week. The water was tolerable even if it was unclean and I was stealing from the nymphs.

I heard a fast flow of water off to my right. A branch fell from a tree, splashing into the water. It couldn't have been thrown off by the wind. It was too big and it had been stabilized by other branches.

'Make sure you've got a weapon first, brother," Hyas' now dead voice said in my mind.

I turned and brought out Hyas' bow. Pulling back an arrow, I crouched silently while moving towards the sound.

Whoosh

An arrow whizzed past my face from a hidden location.

Testing, I fired an arrow at the nearest branch.

No response.

Another arrow flew in, missing me but just barely and this time, I could see where it had come from. The tree that had housed the fallen branch had a clump of leaves that could perfectly conceal something.

Or someone.

I readied another arrow and aimed at the branch.

Suddenly, an arrow, probably by pure luck managed to graze my right foot, landing in the ground beside it.

"What's the direction of the arrow?" Hyas asked in my mind.

The arrowhead was pointing west

"You can come out now!" I yelled into the general direction that was the west.

I glanced back at the arrow. The arrowhead was now facing east. I blinked and it was now facing north. What in the w-

My thoughts were drowned out by confusion as a bag was wrapped over my head.

My dreams were pointless. Zeus and unknown gods partying with the Titans. Zeus was drinking some wine while Kronos patted his back appreciatively. "Come on, try this one, son!" Kronos laughed as he took out more wine. The Titan Hyperion was having a contest to see who was the brightest between him and a blonde dude. They were both smiling.

"I told you this wasn't him!" A voice yelled, waking me up from a long dream about Zeus and his friends partying with the Titans. I couldn't see, maybe because a bag was wrapped around my head. I couldn't see why I hadn't died of the lack of air yet.

"I thought Atlas banished him. Well, this... this boy seemed to look banished," Another voice said, this one higher pitched as if the speaker was a small girl.

"Needless to say, you wasted my magic arrows!" The other voice said back.

"They were worthless. Couldn't hit the boy at all."

"They're not supposed too!" The voice replied, "Oh, great. He's woken up."

The bag around me was taken off, revealing two girls sitting on rocks around a campfire inside a cave that looked like it would collapse any second. The entrance was angled in a way that an external viewer would've had to climb up a few feet to see it.

One lady was wearing a sleeveless black robe with a scowl piercing her mouth. I recognized her as Hecate, the goddess of Magic. She was a mystery to me, never heading over to Kronos' palace, always staying at shady hidden forest cabins located at the crossroads of paths.

The other looked barely 12 and had auburn hair accompanied by a bow strapped to her back. I'd like to add that she looked cute.

Immediately, the 12 year old's face revolted.

"Do you think I look cute, boy?" she asked.

What was the right response? Maybe I was supposed to say no. I wasn't sure. I really wasn't good at talking romantically to a love partner.

"Uh...uh..." was all I could manage.

A look of pure disgust grew on the 12 year old's face.

"Excuse me, Hecate. I must leave before something happens to our prisoner," she said.

She left through the entrance.

"Your partner doesn't seem to like me," I said, just for the sake of stirring up conversation.

"Ignore Artemis. She has always been on the same road when it comes to boys, always hating them," Hecate responded, "What I'm more interested in is who you are."

"Kathryx, son of Atlas," I responded flatly. Before, it had been a big honor to be a son of Atlas, Kronos' strongest serving titan. But at this point, he'd had so many children that nobody cared anymore. The Pleiades, the Hyades, the Hesperides and so on and so forth.

"I was expecting more bravado coming from a son of Atlas," Hecate responded.

"I've been humbled," I said.

"Zeus has been spreading rumors of a good enemy to attack, isolated in the woods. We're here to capture him."

"And I suppose that 'enemy' was me?"

Possibly. You could very well be Zeus' ally and we wouldn't know. Your mental barriers are stronger than we'd have expected."

I remembered the man I'd seen wandering through the forests, looking for the palace. So that had been Zeus. I'd better warn Kronos before Zeus put his, almost assuredly well crafted plan to use.

I tried moving my legs. I couldn't.

"Yes. We've taken precautions in case you're an enemy," Hecate said.

"Atlas is going to kill you," I said though I doubted Atlas would actually back up this statement. More likely, he'd kill me for dying to Hecate.

"Oh, don't worry. You really couldn't have made much of a difference in this war, being half mortal and what not," Hecate said.

"Let me out!" I screamed as loud as I could.

"Now, now. Calm down or I might have to paralyze your mouth too," Hecate responded.

Just then, an auburn haired girl walked into the room.

But she wasn't Artemis.

Several flying wind servants flew in and my paralyzed legs could move again. I clenched my fists, the power of Atlas surging through them. I was confident that I could propel Hecate all the way to Oceanus' realm.

Hecate disappeared in a black poof! of dust.

I turned to the girl.

Her auburn locks were really startling. Her face reminded me of Atlas' in a more, how should I say this, beautiful form. A white dress hung from her shoulders, extending down to her knees.

"I was wondering where you'd gone," She said.

"Quick. Zeus is back and he's trying to start a war with Kronos. We need to get back to the palace!" I said hurriedly, so much so that I slurred the word Kronos.

I grabbed Calypso's hand and ran out of the cave, using the sun to move in the direction of the palace.

Unsurprisingly, we were ambushed.

About halfway to the palace, an arrow blasted from a tree right at where Calypso's and I's hands were connected. Our hands split away from each other.

Taking Out Hyas' bow, I scanned the surroundings.

"Get to cover first!" Hyas' voice yelled at me.

"Calypso. Come here," I said, moving over to a long line of bushes that ran about twenty feet.

Another arrow flew at Calypso's head but I jus barely managed to shoot it out of the air with my own.

The arrows seemed to be coming from everywhere. And the frequency at which they were coming was increasing. Several landed near my feet and Calypso's shooter almost got a headshot.

One hunter made a blunder and fell from a tree. Calypso made her wind servants float her gently to the ground before another wave of arrows hit, causing the hunter to actually fall halfway down the tree.

The hunter was dressed in silver and she couldn't have been more than 10.

Child labor.

I fired experimentally into the trees but none of my supposed targets revealed themselves with such a crack on a branch.

And then,

Crack!

An arrow burst through into my ankle, causing extreme pain to me.

I gasped. My bow dropped. A few dozen arrows raced towards me as soon as I let go of it. Just as it seemed they were going to rip through me, Calypso ordered her servants to stop them, just barely halting the advance of the projectiles.

The arrows turned around. Calypso looked mad, as if she cared for my life and would kill the hunters for me.

"Don-" I managed .

Calypso got the message. The arrows dropped to the floor.

Excruciating pain was winding up through my feet. I knew that if my wound wasn't dealt with, I'd soon be rotting on the forest floor.

"Take the pain," Hyas' voice said and now, it was more real, more of his own voice than an echo of ghostly sounds.

With a great deal of effort, I took my bow out and fired at the tree.

Nothing.

And then, amazingly and badly, golden ichor, the blood of immortals dripped from the branch.

One last arrow was thrown at my head and I knew that the hunters had left.

"Do you think they're gone now?" Calypso asked.

"Possibly. We need to rush out of here as fast as possible and warn Kronos of Zeus," I said.

I tried getting up but my feet were still in aching pain.

Calypso tried dragging me but she could barely manage to drag me a few dozen meters.

"Here," Calypso said, handing over an Ambrosia cube. I ate it and the pain started receding like tides. But when I tried getting up, it still hurt much too much.

"I have a feeling we're going to be here a lot longer than a week."