Sword of Olympus by P.M. Hansen

Author:P.M. Hansen [Hansen, P.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780992431501
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty Four

A SPIDER’S WEB

Hera, once Queen of the Olympians, walked the halls of her temple in Larissa, capital city of the Lapiths. How ironic, she thought. Their city was named after the local nymph queen, in recognition of the land surrounding the city having been gifted to the Pelasgians by the original magical inhabitants that this land had once belong to. But the Lapiths had subsequently driven the Pelasgians out, and taken their lands and city by force. Hera also knew that the current king, Pirithous, the son of Ixion, had begun to pursue a campaign of aggression against the dryads and other magical creatures. She laughed at the paradox. She had never much liked the Lapiths, yet they would serve her purpose. During the past Age, before the great flood, Pirithous’s father had tried to rape the queen of the gods. His punishment was to be tied to a wheel and whirled through the air by force of the winds for all time.

She smiled cruelly at the thought. He hadn’t really tried to rape her, she had led him on, led him to believe that she – Queen of immortal Olympus – would actually sleep with a mortal king from the Race of Bronze. His punishment was double. In order to test whether Hera’s claims were true, Zeus had fashioned a cloud in her image and laid it next to Ixion. Sure enough, the fool tried to have intercourse with it. The cloud was so well fashioned by Zeus that it gave birth to a monster called Centaurus – half-man, half-horse. Thus the kings of the Lapithai were related to those disgusting creatures called Centaurs. No wonder that King Pirithous had worked so hard to kill or dislodge them from the forests of Mount Pelion. They were a constant reminder of the shame brought upon his family by his father.

But Hera planned to give the Lapiths a chance to redeem the honour of their leading House – or so they would think. Her real goal was the destruction of the Hellenes. The Lapithai and their kings were merely pawns in a much larger game – one whose stake was not only control of this realm, but of Olympus as well.

Coronus, son of Caeneus, was first Strategos of the Lapithai. Hera had summoned him, calling him to her temple in a dream, summoning him to serve the queen of the gods. She felt the mature warrior approach long before he reached the temple grounds and hid her presence from his sight. She watched him approach in silence, hidden as she was from his mortal gaze. In quiet contemplation, Coronus mounted the marble steps, pushed open the large, gold-inlaid doors and entered the temple.

He was a strong, muscular man – a warrior – his body covered in bronze armour, a sword and shield by his side. He wore a bronze helmet with a large horsehair plume and high cheek guards adorned with Hera’s patron animal, the peacock. The goddess smiled to herself as she watched him remove the helmet and kneel before her statue.

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