Inferno Ascended

Running carelessly towards the sounds of fighting, they ran into more cacodemons surrounding Alexandre.

Young Kroton had just plucked a hatchet from his nearest opponent's hand, and thrust it into his chest with a savage leap and all his might. 

It was a faun, a humanoid creature with the underside of a goat. Glax wasted no time and shot another 'faun' who was going to attack the teenager in the back with a spear. The cacodemon screeched and spun, its bright blue blood running where the bullet came out. 

Glax fired another shot, which this time missed the creature.

Rasmus dealt with a third, while Glax realized that the last bullet in the rifle had seized. 'Shit, what a good time for this…'

The cacodemon in the form of a faun coming towards him to ram him realized that the human was unarmed, and bared his teeth.

Tossing the weapon into the nearest bush, he just had time to reach up and grab the creature by the goat's horns.

For a moment there was a fierce contest of forces, the faun pushing and Glax holding him back. 

His strength, which he had been ignoring until a few days ago, was enough for that. Gax felt his sandals slip and sink into the muddy ground, dragging through the fetid mud. He grunted and mustered more strength to turn his body to his side and then toss the faun to the ground.

With a bang, the faun landed on its back on the ground, its animal paws slipping as it tried to rise quickly. He was about to get up when Glax stepped on him.

Cacodemons had no fear or survival instinct, they just continued until they were killed or killed. Glax pulled out his gladius and buried it in the fake faun's throat before he could get to his feet.

'Jackpot!' He thought, as the creature exploded into tiny orbs.

Then he threw himself at the fake faun that had knocked Alekos to the ground, knocking him off balance. The Valosian overpowered him, wrapping an arm around his neck in a lock, and grabbing one of his horns to pin him to the ground. It was enough time for his ward to get on his feet, grab his fallen spear, and transfix it where supposedly a heart was.

A fresh burst of orbs, and Glax felt full of energy.

He could hardly believe it! He had a lot more strength than he imagined! "Need help, Ras?"

"Nah!" Ras was finishing his opponent in his usual violent and straightforward style.

Glax stared at his pupil, who was panting and bloodied and making a pained face.

"What did I tell you? There was a reason for you not to come." He scolded Alekos.

"Don't talk to me like that. You are no longer my master. You said it yourself." Alexander checked his spear for broken, and wiped it on the hem of his tunic. The fur over his shoulders was ragged and bloodied, and he wiped his face with his arm.

"So what are you doing here?" Glax asked.

"I'm on a mission. I have to find the people who stole the Fist of Chriseis. She was my cousin and best relative. This has nothing to do with you." Alekos spat on the floor, wiping his bleeding nose at the same time.

"OK. Let me see this. I still have some dryad meds." The Valosian reached out to his young cousin's face.

Alexander dodged like a cat. Glax laughed. "What's that, dude. Stop being sly. You know you got everyone on the ship worried, don't you? Or did they agree with this madness?"

"I ran away before we got to Thisos."

Glax imagined everything the particular boy had gone through to get there.

"Oh. You are tough. Someone will write this one day."

Alekos even tried, but he couldn't hide his smile. 

But then he straightened up. "It was good to see you, Lord Glax. At least I saw you stop pretending you don't know how to fight. But now I have to…" He started to walk, but felt pain and stopped.

Glax sighed.

"Come on, Alekos, don't be stubborn. You're already here, you've already proven your worth. And your insanity. You are so much better than me. Now join us and help us, instead of being alone. When they say that an Echelian doesn't break the line, it means that he doesn't act alone."

"You're no longer going to say anything nonsensical about how I have to watch from atop a Trojan horse, are you?" The Kroton teenager asked suspiciously.

"You already know, I won't repeat it." Glax puffed out his chest.

"All right. I'll go with you. But you're not my master anymore, don't forget. I'll accompany you as..."

"Please. Let me be your master. I want to go down in history like the master of Alexandre the Great."

"Come on, Lord Alexandre, give the Glax a chance. Champions of Armorion have a passing reputation," said Rasmus, also cleaning himself up.

"Don't send me away again, Master! I won't forgive you!" The boy scowled, surrendering.

Glax nodded to the student, satisfied with the arrangement.

Briaxis handed the rifle to the Valosian. "I found this on the floor, lochios. Is it yours?"

"Uh, yeah. It's part of my undercover for the Prometheans." Glax cracked a smile.

"The orbs have entered you." Briaxis wasn't going to pretend he didn't see it, Glax realized.

"It's an artifact given to me by a god, Briaxis. What matters is that it will make our path easier." It was the simplest way to end the matter.

Naturally that was also a plausible explanation and Briaxis simply fell silent and lost the slight air of condescension he had had with the 'newbies' thus far.

After giving Alekos the last potion of Lady Aiops and checking everyone's wounds, they continued on their journey. Deep down, Glax was more reassured knowing Alekos was around. Now that he was sure Nikandros was a madman, and he didn't trust Megara or Iasos, at least the boy was far from the betrayals of his own family. 

And Glax hadn't lied. Such determination from the boy impressed him. He swam and ran and rode, convinced patrols to let him through, all in record time.

And he wasn't doing too bad fighting monsters, although he was outnumbered.

They couldn't avoid two more encounters with cacodemons, and finally they were too tired to continue after only 3 hours of travel. 

Briaxis chose for them a place under a colossal statue of a Cyclops.

They built a small fire and ate their rations, and after talking for a while, they decided by chance who would keep watch for the short time the group would sleep. Heramis was the worst place to sleep, and lighting a fire was foolhardy. But they shouldn't be standing at a temperature of 3 degrees without something to warm them up.

The winner was Glax. He wrapped himself in the sheepskin that was in his pack and stood up to ward off sleep while the others took shelter and fell asleep almost immediately. Because of their awkward positions, all three began to snore.

Glax rolled his eyes.

"Surely no critter or cacodemon will come, terrified of this scary growling creature that takes shelter here," he grumbled.

After eating he felt refreshed, just a little sleepy, actually. The revelations of the past few days were still messing with his mind. 

The Chronos Disk served to tame his power! That's why his power over time was diminished when he had his clock. But now that the souls the artifact was collecting were malfunctioning, he felt more and more powerful.

At the same time, he knew he was connected to the object. And I wasn't sure what would happen if the Chronos Disk really broke.

He also had other questions and assumptions dancing in his mind like fireflies.

Hermes appeared to Glax - the real Glax - when he was injured and thought he was going to die. And gave him a drink. 

'Did that freak make me immortal?'

He shook his head. He wasn't even a Stygian. He knew it was part of the plan that secretly Hermes and whatever Olympian was hiding in the shadows of the palace that day had. Hermes' backup plan for Hades' fantastical contingency plan to contain Anankethon's advance.

He walked around the huge statue torn in half. His colleagues were sleeping under a sheltered bay facing west, and Glax circled the ruin to keep moving and keep warm.

Aware of all the strange sounds and apparitions of light amidst the fog of the battlefield, he was about to enumerate to himself all the information he had about himself, or rather Glax. But a distinct pattern of light caught his eye.

It looked like a small, fuzzy green dot clouded by a dense fog, but it didn't allow him to see more than that.

Was it a wild animal of this dark land? Or another kind of cacodemon?

'Wait... Is the fog moving with it?'

The Valosian quickly scaled the wreckage of the statue and this gave him a slight advantage, being able to see a few meters above the mist. Quickly locating the spot of light, Glax realized it was a Stygian flashlight on a pole, the best way to light the way.

'Humans?'

No matter who it was, he must have a powerful reason to be walking through the middle of Heramis at night. 

After a few minutes, Glax was sure.

It could only be Doros and his lackeys.