Wonder Woman: Heartless by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Serial Box
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Wonder Woman: Heartless

Strife

Tessa Gratton

Smoke occludes the slate-blue sky and the roar of fire is loud enough to overcome the moans of the dying. It is a temple that burns, and all the laurel and black hemlock trees surrounding it. Sparks lift high, catching on the red Roman flags that crown the watchtowers now empty of men.

A soldier slams the iron edge of his round shield into his enemy’s vulnerable face—both their helmets are long lost. The shield cracks across the enemy’s cheekbone and he falls back, but the soldier presses in, slipping in the bloody mud, and drives his spatha into the enemy’s gut, pushing up under the scales of armor. He knows the best vulnerabilities because he’s wearing the same.

He kneels, bends over the body of his former comrade as he clutches the grip of his spatha. “You will be forgotten by Mars and all,” he spits. Then he grits his bloody teeth into a snarl and summons the red-hot power of the amulet. The enemy’s back arches, shoving at the blade in his gut, and he screams as his heart tears itself free, pulsing and glowing with vibrant scarlet threads of magic.

The enemy dies.

The soldier jerks his spatha free and leans away, falling onto his hip beside the dead man. His breath is jagged in his throat, pain a sharp ache down his left side, his ears ringing with more than fire and screams.

But he feels incredible. He is too huge for his body; he cannot be contained by this mortal flesh—not with the bright power of all these hearts beating inside him, not with the strength of Mars turning his blood into the fire of the gods!

The island’s rocky feet splay away from him, dipping into the clear turquoise of the Mediterranean. The soldier is alone now, surrounded by a score of his fellow soldiers, all dead, with their chests broken open. Heartless, lifeless. They were assigned to the watchtowers, here to guard the mainland against pirates, but they discovered a piece of gold that must have been a pirate treasure hidden here. The soldiers gleefully tore the temple apart, and found treasure indeed. The temple belonged to the only god who could have loved such greedy, violent men.

A low laugh begins in the soldier’s belly. “Bless you, Fearless One,” he manages to say, even as his own chest contracts sharply. He flattens his hand over the amulet. “Oh God of War, every last one of them is yours in vengeance. And so shall I be.”

With the strength of every heart he took, the soldier cracks open the island with his bare hands, pushing back the trees, and compels the dirt and rock and roots to swallow up his former cohort.

When it is done, his body is wasted through, nothing but ash and pure fire—the rage of Ares—and all that falls into the mass grave is a small shield amulet.

#

From Diana’s apartment window, she could only see a distant haze of smoke. She pressed her hand to the glass for a moment, then turned to Harmonia.

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