Chapter 24

Stheno wailed in mental and emotional agony when she realized that rather than attacking the Amazon she had torn her sister's guts asunder. "You wretched excuse for a warrior!" Stheno called, attempting in her anger to goad Diana into a face to face fight which, fuelled the humiliation of falling for Diana's trick. "You coward!" she taunted again, her voice hoarse with anger.

"You confuse tactics for cowardice, Stheno," Diana called back, tying off the end of the lasso and allowing Euryale to hang for a moment longer. Diana did not need the lasso for Stheno, not yet at least, but she did wish she had her sword rather than Arthur's trident. She found the weapon comfortable as a projectile, to be throne like a javelin, but it was clumsier for close combat than her sabre was and she missed the quick slashing of her axe.

"Hiding in the shadows from a fate you fully deserve is a tactic? You disappoint me, Amazon," the Gorgon chuckled. Diana could hear her movements; she was not as careful as the youngest sister to hide her movements in the underbrush.

She knew the same tricks that worked on Euryale would not work on Stheno; the latter was more of a fighter than the prior would ever have become. And, taking this into consideration, Diana planned accordingly, assessing the situation as she would if she were sparring with Artemis, rest her soul in Tarterus the traitorous bitch. The attack would, naturally, have to be a surprise, using an advantage she had over the Gorgon, which would not be strength. Speed? Perhaps, but there was one ability she had that Stheno did not possess.

Flight.

Even though she had to remain under the canopy, Diana could significantly improve her chances of landing a successful blow on the Gorgon if she used her ability to fly as an advantage, limited as she would be, rather than keeping to the ground. Even if she had to stay under the tree tops to avoid being spotted my Circe's guards, she would still be able to disguise her steps and keep her tracks from being seen.

Diana's boots left the ground and she silently rose into the air, no longer making the slightest noise aside from the rustle of the leaves around her as she climbed above the Gorgon's twisting form, keen eyes following the tail back to the body. She had placed the trident on her back in order to rig up Euryale's body, but now she carefully removed it, letting the shaft extend to full length.

The tail of the half serpent monster grew wider the closer to the body Diana got. She could see the Gorgon thrashing, slithering carelessly, recklessly through the vines, slashing almost indiscriminately through the trees and vines, trying to get to where she assumed Diana had gone.

"Come out come out where ever you are," the monster screeched, trying to antagonize Diana. "And here I thought you Amazons were brave, now I find you're no braver than the coward Athena and the bully Poseidon!" She laughed a bitter, hollow sound, as if she barely believed her words herself but was speaking them aloud that they might bolster her confidence against Diana.

Diana let her body rest silently on a large branch, watching the woman beneath her, refusing to give into the goading from Stheno. The less she heard, the more angry she got, twining herself into circles, eventually entangling her long tail around several large trunked trees, trees so deeply rooted that even the strongest of the three Gorgons couldn't up root them.

The serpentine body jerked several times before it finally clued in to Stheno that she was stuck. It was then that Diana decided that the time came for an attack.

Diana readied her trident, aiming the tines down, timing it just right. The drop saw the trident, backed by Diana's weight and the force of her arms thrusting downward, through Stheno's skull and through her neck, with two of the tines actually coming straight through the Gorgon's body and face. Blood spurted out of her mouth, coating her lips and teeth almost instantly.

Diana twisted her wrist, the trident ripping out the side of Stheno's face, the opposite tine spinning through her spinal cord and neck tissue, tearing through chunks of flesh and bone as if they were nothing. The Amazon queen smirked, she was starting to like this weapon. Diana continued to drive down until the Gorgon bent and drove into the ground, the tips of the trident digging into the soft, moist earth.

Her knees straightened and Diana pulled the weapon from the dying mythical beast, twisting the shaft so it retracted back into the handle. Diana was covered in blood from the two elder Gorgons, but she had yet to encounter the youngest, wiliest of the three, the Gorgon Medusa.

She trekked back to where the remains of Euryale were, twitching still as the nerves finally died from loss of blood, untying the lasso from the ground and letting the corpse land in a heap, further coating her in the insides of the creature. Without emotion she worked the blood soaked knots out of the golden lasso, releasing Euryale's throat from its snare and recoiling the whole mess, attaching it to her hip.

Water. Diana needed to find water. She didn't want this blood drying on her. The blood soaked queen stood silently, listening for any sounds that might signal water, letting her blue eyes close against the invasive sounds of the forest. Happily, she heard no sounds of slithering serpentine bodies, nor the draw of a bow. Medusa was a talented archer, her skill level was almost on par with those of the Amazons themselves, so Diana would be on the alert for the sound of a bow string being drawn.

In the distance, Diana was able to hear the faint trickle of water, to the North if she was correct. In order to travel silently, she didn't want to give away her position before she was ready, or before she had let Medusa know her sisters, her Immortal Sisters, were dead.