Time Remaining: 10 Months, 24 Days
Adresteia decided to indulge Odysseus. Tampering with the gods' belongings was always risky, but the reverence she once had for them had dropped to nearly nil, while her tactical appreciation for weaponry remained stronger than ever.
The forge was harder to get into than Hera’s laboratory had been, but with a little electrical manipulation, the door was cajoled into opening. The room was hot, the furnace still glowing after all of these years – Adresteia had assumed her creators abandoned the island because the subterranean volcano had cooled, depriving the facility of its geothermal power source, but evidently they’d simply finished with what they were doing and had moved on.
Where Odysseus had clearly been revulsed by the twisted, inhuman corpses on Hera’s floor, here he ran about with child-like wonder, asking an endless stream of questions as he studied weapons hung on the walls and in racks, and armor hung on mannequins.
He lingered for a time on one rack and finally asked, "What is this? It looks like an axe, but the head is not sharp?"
"This," Adresteia said, "Is a Promethean Rifle."
"Rifle?"
"It's a weapon, a very deadly weapon," she explained, "It rapidly fires steel-jacketed projectiles nearly three times faster than the speed of thunder. It can kill a god, even. Prometheus conceived the weapon's design during the Titanomachies, but lacking the tools and equipment to manufacture them as he would have liked, he had to create each part by manipulating the aether..."
"Manipulating the aether?"
"Gods can create small objects at will," Adresteia explained, "But Prometheus was the only one in his generation who could create objects with iron in them, and the parts used in this weapon require phenomenal precision for it to work. Supposedly he made dozens, but only one - the one he carried into battle against the Titans Kasios and Tiamat - was actually functional. His troops carried the nonworking weapons into battle that day, so that when Prometheus attacked with his own..."
"Their enemies overestimated the power of the force they were facing. Very clever. Is this the real one? Or one of the fakes?"
"Ares has the real one," Adresteia said, "but Hephaestus has been disinclined to craft the projectiles the weapon requires, so he only keeps it as a conversation piece."
"I don't generally think of Ares as the sort to be inclined to conversation..."
"People tend not to understand him," Adresteia said, "He's Hera's favorite, her darling prince, but she still raised him to be a weapon, like me. Violence isn't a passion for him, just something he's been made to be very good at. He'd much rather be chopping wood in the mountains than spilling entrails on a battlefield."
Another piece of equipment, a suit of armor, drew Odysseus's eye next. It was plated in brilliant gold laid over brown leather, and covered the entire body like a second skin. The back of the armor had loops and cylinders of metal, and the joints were reinforced with some sort of rods attached to small wheels. The helmet was very similar to an ordinary infantryman's helmet, but the horse-hair mane was replaced with a pair of closely spaced metal fins, and the narrow slit between the cheeks that connected to the eye-line was wider, and filled in with a glossy black material.
"What's this?"
"You've heard of the Golden Fleece?"
"Yes! My father was on the Argo when Jason sailed to reclaim it from the easterners."
"Your father... Laertes... Oh... Larry?"
"Larry?"
"We all called him Larry back then. Larry of Ithaca."
"You were on the Argo with my father?"
"Yes."
"And this is the Golden Fleece of Ares?"
"No, the Golden Fleece itself is gone. After we retrieved it, Ares reclaimed it and wore it into battle with the serpent Níðhöggr. He and Athena succeeded in banishing the creature to the frozen lands far to the north, but the beast's fiery breath irreparably damaged the fleece. This, I would imagine, is Hephaestus's attempt to reproduce it."
“Can a man such as myself wear this?” he asked Adresteia.
“I wouldn’t risk it if you aren’t a demigod.”
“Supposedly, my grandfather was Hermes.”
“Hermes's sons or daughters might be safe wearing it; his grandson, probably not.”
“Could someone like Prince Achilles wear it, then? Some call Queen Thetis a goddess, and some even claim that Zeus was his real father."
"Then yes, if that's all true then Achilles could probably wear it one day."
Odysseus thought about the upcoming celebration in Thessaly. How much would it impress everyone if he were to bring this as a tribute to his hosts? Certainly better than bringing fish again this year.
Adresteia might have noticed Odysseus fiddling with the metal suit, but she became distracted by a similar looking, bronze and gold suit of armor in a nearby alcove. It looked like armor, but she couldn’t see any way for a man to breathe inside of it. Large, shiny gold panels were attached to the back, like wings, and three-sided spikes were mounted on the backs of its knuckles. She read the schematic diagram on the panel next to it.
“Tactical Autonomous Light Offense System, Version 2.2,” Adresteia wondered at the use of the word, ‘autonomous’, but was broken free of her thoughts when she heard a loud clatter. She looked back to see Odysseus standing sheepishly over the suit of armor, he’d been admiring.
“It’s fairly heavy,” he admitted, “but mostly awkward to try and… Oh hey! Look!”
The suit of armor contracted, compressed, and folded over on itself repeatedly until it was simple cube – no lighter, but certainly more manageable.
“What are you doing?”
Odysseus shrugged, “What was the point of coming down here if we were only going to look?”
“What are you possibly going to do with it?”
“Give it to Achilles when I go to Peleus and Thetis’s anniversary celebration. I’m sure he’ll grow into it.”
“And you want a gift – that all of the guests, including Hephaestus will see – to be something that was obviously stolen from Hephaestus?!”
“It’s not stealing,” Odysseus said, “It’s an abandoned suit of armor, in an abandoned building, on an abandoned island. It’s finders keepers. I’ll tell everyone we chanced upon this island on our voyage – which we did – and chanced upon this building – which in no way looks like a temple or a tomb – and I found this amazing armor. No one has to know that I knew who it belonged to.”
“So when one of your gods comes to you and accuses you of theft, your plan is to lie?”
“Well, does he have magical lie-detecting powers?”
“Not really,” Adresteia shrugged. It had taken Hephaestus decades to realize Aphrodite was sleeping with Ares.
“Then I’ll take the risk,” Odysseus said as he hefted the cube.
“Well,” Adresteia said, “if we’re looting we might as well do it right. Grab that spear, too.”
“Are you going to find something for yourself?”
“I can’t exactly carry a sword around as a bird, I think.”
No sooner than Adresteia said that, she heard a whirring noise behind her, like a low whistle. She turned around and saw that the other suit of armor was slowly beginning to move, its dark eye slats glowing red.
“Malaka,” Odysseus cursed, “Time to run.”
Adresteia realized the human was right – it was best to go while the machine was warming up. Standing and fighting would likely be a losing game – the machine was inanimate, it had no soul or life force, and could not be terrorized or dominated. Using her powers on it would drain her own energies rapidly, leaving her completely vulnerable. She ran after Odysseus, pulling a rack of weapons over as she passed and hoping it might stymy the automaton. It plowed through the heavy pile of metal as if it were nothing more than some irritating shrubbery.
The two explorers ran up the stairs, Odysseus still lugging the armor-cube and the long spear. If the cube was slowing him down, Adresteia couldn’t tell it, but then the human had said he was descended from Hermes, so maybe he was just that fast. The spear, however, nearly tripped them twice on the way up the steps, so Adresteia finally took the exotic weapon away from him, twisted its shaft, and collapsed it into a short sword.
“Well, that’s neat,” Odysseus nodded. The steady tromp of metal feet on the stone steps sounded below them. They continued running back to the first floor. Odysseus could see sunlight reflecting erratically off of bronze shields – his men had arrived to explore the building.
“They cannot see me like this,” Adresteia dissipated the light in her hand, “It could compromise…
“Our operational security, yes, I know,” the mechanical man was still trudging up the steps below. “Can you wear this?” he pushed the cube towards her and took the collapsible spear.
It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder, “I suppose I might be able to.”
“There’s a side room over there,” Odysseus pointed, “Get dressed. I’ll distract the… thing.” Adresteia grabbed the cube and bolted into the room. Unfortunately, she had no idea how to unfold it.
Back in the hallway, Odysseus shouted to his men to get out of the building and ready themselves for battle. Unfortunately, aside from the shields and some hunting implements, his men had brought none of their weapons or armor from the ship. He ran to them and hefted one of the bronze-covered shields, still wielding the collapsed spear as a short sword.
“What are we fighting, captain?” Acrysius said, hefting a hunting axe.
“Something made of metal,” Odysseus said, “Like that thing Jason was supposed to have fought on Crete, but thankfully smaller than he claimed. We’ll see how it fairs against arrows. Spread out into the brush and ready your hunting bows. It’s slow and likely tough, so treat it like a bear. Aim for the joints and eyes. I’ll draw it into the open.
Odysseus pounded his weapon against his shield, the clang of metal ringing down the hallway. Two red lights – the machine’s eyes – appeared in the darkness.
“Come and get it!” Odysseus shouted. The machine tromped forward, steadily, and Odysseus backed out the door into the open air. The automaton followed him into the sunlight, and stopped.
Odysseus wanted to give his men clearer shots, so he taunted and bated the machine. The wings on the back of the automaton raised and tilted towards the sun, and its red eyes glowed more intensely. The massive metal man flexed its arms and shoulders, as if it were seething with anger, and then it charged forward. It certainly couldn’t have outrun a man in a sprint, but given its slow pace coming up the stairs, the sudden burst of speed took Odysseus by surprise.
The automaton threw a punch, backed by the full force of its charge, and its spiked hand came clear through Odysseus’s bronze shield. Clawed metal fingers gripped the torn bronze and leather, and yanked the shield off Odysseus’s arm, tossing it aside. It swung at Odysseus with its other arm, but the man rolled to the other side of it and stabbed what he hoped was a soft bit with his blade. The weapon penetrated, but not more than an inch.
“Aim for the black parts!” Odysseus shouted, “And fire!”
The half dozen men scattered among the surrounding trees and bushes drew their bows and fired as Odysseus jumped clear, pelting the machine with arrows. Some stuck in its joints, forcing the machine to stop and yank them out. Odysseus dropped the spear, grabbed up his own bow and arrows, and started firing. The automaton moved towards the nearest archer, but the man fell back into the forest, so it shifted its attention back to Odysseus. Odysseus retreated, and the other man started shooting again.
Odysseus had anticipated the fight being much like an encounter with a bear, and he’d been more right than he expected. The thing’s instinct was to attack whatever was closest, rather than to choose its prey and pursue it, meaning their tactics were confusing it.
Acrysius nearly struck it in the eye, and the machine seemed to take that personally. It stopped trying to follow them, and two iron tubes, one behind each shoulder, ratcheted up from its back and spewed forth balls of fire like small volcanos. The small meteors came back down around the men, snapping trees and setting the brush ablaze. One struck close enough to a sailor – Alecto – to severely burn and lacerate one arm. To their credit, his men continued firing, but seeing Alecto bleeding badly from an indirect hit, Odysseus pushed him into Acrysius’s arms and shouted for his men to retreat.
Odysseus took his remaining arrows in hand, and charged at the machine. It stopped firing its weapons to engage him, but Odysseus ducked under its swing, sliding across the dirt, and jammed an arrow into the black, leather like material behind its left knee. The machine turned awkwardly, trying to hit Odysseus with the sword-like feathers on its wings. The arrow head snapped off as the machine’s leg pivoted, and the sparks shot out as something inside the joint bit into the metal arrowhead like a grindstone.
Despite the hindrance, Odysseus didn’t have time to get back on his feet. He rolled once to dodge a massive punch that shook the ground, but that left him sprawled on his back – the machine had him dead to rights. Odysseus hoped the damage he did to its leg would slow it enough that his comrades could escape to the safety of their ship. He closed his eyes, began to say a prayer, but was jarred from his last words by the massive clang of metal slamming into metal.
Adresteia, clad in the gold armor Odysseus had found, plowed into the machine using her shoulder like a battering ram. The machine staggered back, and Adresteia swung at its head, punching it squarely on the chin with the sound of a gong. She struck its face again from the left, and then jabbed it hard in the abdomen from the right. It punched back with its spiked knuckles, but Adresteia sidestepped, grabbed its wrist, and directed the machine’s momentum towards the ground as she braced her foot against its instep and yanked its arm backwards. The machine tripped over her lower leg and fell to the ground on one hand. Keeping her grip on the other wrist, Adresteia twisted its arm as she pivoted and put her foot in the center of its back.
“The spear!” she shouted to Odysseus. Her voice echoed coming out of the enclosed helmet.
Odysseus scrambled for the weapon and tossed it to her, but the arm Adresteia was holding suddenly went loose, as if someone had cut the strings of a puppet. The machine rolled over under her, indifferent to the torsion it put on its dead arm. It struck her with its wings, knocking her off. The arm stirred to life again, as the machine landed on its side, and digging into the dirt, the automaton began to slowly raise itself up. Adresteia grabbed the collapsed weapon off the ground, extended it back to its full length, and jammed it through the back of the machine’s ankle, driving the weapon clear through the joint and into the soil, pinning it. Silvery liquid – like molten lead – bled from the joint as the machine struggled to free itself.
Odysseus grabbed one of the bronze shields the men had brought and threw it to Adresteia before picking up another shield and bashing the machine with it. Adresteia joined in, beating on the machine until the soft parts on the backs of its joints were broken, more liquid metal pouring out of them, and the frantically flapping wings were mangled and bent. The big black pipes on its back started to move again, but Odysseus drew his hunting knife and jammed it inside one of the pipes before sprinting away with Adresteia. She used the stolen armor to shield Odysseus’s body from the blast of the functioning weapon, while Odysseus’s knife caused the other weapon to backfire. The loud bang released a shower of molten metal, and removed one wing, one arm, and a significant portion of the machine’s torso and head. For a moment, it tried to drag itself towards them with its remaining arm, but its red eyes dimmed, and it slowed to a stop, still as stone.
Adresteia got off of Odysseus, removed the armor, and as it folded itself back up again, she returned to her eagle form. Odysseus picked up the armor cube, and walked over to inspect the damaged machine. He gripped the spear and jostled it. When there was no reaction, he pulled the spear out.
“You know,” Odysseus said, “If I take this thing home, I might be able to put it back together again.”
Adresteia glared at him.
“Yeah, on second thought, maybe I should just take a souvenir,” Odysseus jammed the spear into the back of the machine’s already damaged neck, and pried the head off.
Adresteia decided to indulge Odysseus. Tampering with the gods' belongings was always risky, but the reverence she once had for them had dropped to nearly nil, while her tactical appreciation for weaponry remained stronger than ever.
The forge was harder to get into than Hera’s laboratory had been, but with a little electrical manipulation, the door was cajoled into opening. The room was hot, the furnace still glowing after all of these years – Adresteia had assumed her creators abandoned the island because the subterranean volcano had cooled, depriving the facility of its geothermal power source, but evidently they’d simply finished with what they were doing and had moved on.
Where Odysseus had clearly been revulsed by the twisted, inhuman corpses on Hera’s floor, here he ran about with child-like wonder, asking an endless stream of questions as he studied weapons hung on the walls and in racks, and armor hung on mannequins.
He lingered for a time on one rack and finally asked, "What is this? It looks like an axe, but the head is not sharp?"
"This," Adresteia said, "Is a Promethean Rifle."
"Rifle?"
"It's a weapon, a very deadly weapon," she explained, "It rapidly fires steel-jacketed projectiles nearly three times faster than the speed of thunder. It can kill a god, even. Prometheus conceived the weapon's design during the Titanomachies, but lacking the tools and equipment to manufacture them as he would have liked, he had to create each part by manipulating the aether..."
"Manipulating the aether?"
"Gods can create small objects at will," Adresteia explained, "But Prometheus was the only one in his generation who could create objects with iron in them, and the parts used in this weapon require phenomenal precision for it to work. Supposedly he made dozens, but only one - the one he carried into battle against the Titans Kasios and Tiamat - was actually functional. His troops carried the nonworking weapons into battle that day, so that when Prometheus attacked with his own..."
"Their enemies overestimated the power of the force they were facing. Very clever. Is this the real one? Or one of the fakes?"
"Ares has the real one," Adresteia said, "but Hephaestus has been disinclined to craft the projectiles the weapon requires, so he only keeps it as a conversation piece."
"I don't generally think of Ares as the sort to be inclined to conversation..."
"People tend not to understand him," Adresteia said, "He's Hera's favorite, her darling prince, but she still raised him to be a weapon, like me. Violence isn't a passion for him, just something he's been made to be very good at. He'd much rather be chopping wood in the mountains than spilling entrails on a battlefield."
Another piece of equipment, a suit of armor, drew Odysseus's eye next. It was plated in brilliant gold laid over brown leather, and covered the entire body like a second skin. The back of the armor had loops and cylinders of metal, and the joints were reinforced with some sort of rods attached to small wheels. The helmet was very similar to an ordinary infantryman's helmet, but the horse-hair mane was replaced with a pair of closely spaced metal fins, and the narrow slit between the cheeks that connected to the eye-line was wider, and filled in with a glossy black material.
"What's this?"
"You've heard of the Golden Fleece?"
"Yes! My father was on the Argo when Jason sailed to reclaim it from the easterners."
"Your father... Laertes... Oh... Larry?"
"Larry?"
"We all called him Larry back then. Larry of Ithaca."
"You were on the Argo with my father?"
"Yes."
"And this is the Golden Fleece of Ares?"
"No, the Golden Fleece itself is gone. After we retrieved it, Ares reclaimed it and wore it into battle with the serpent Níðhöggr. He and Athena succeeded in banishing the creature to the frozen lands far to the north, but the beast's fiery breath irreparably damaged the fleece. This, I would imagine, is Hephaestus's attempt to reproduce it."
“Can a man such as myself wear this?” he asked Adresteia.
“I wouldn’t risk it if you aren’t a demigod.”
“Supposedly, my grandfather was Hermes.”
“Hermes's sons or daughters might be safe wearing it; his grandson, probably not.”
“Could someone like Prince Achilles wear it, then? Some call Queen Thetis a goddess, and some even claim that Zeus was his real father."
"Then yes, if that's all true then Achilles could probably wear it one day."
Odysseus thought about the upcoming celebration in Thessaly. How much would it impress everyone if he were to bring this as a tribute to his hosts? Certainly better than bringing fish again this year.
Adresteia might have noticed Odysseus fiddling with the metal suit, but she became distracted by a similar looking, bronze and gold suit of armor in a nearby alcove. It looked like armor, but she couldn’t see any way for a man to breathe inside of it. Large, shiny gold panels were attached to the back, like wings, and three-sided spikes were mounted on the backs of its knuckles. She read the schematic diagram on the panel next to it.
“Tactical Autonomous Light Offense System, Version 2.2,” Adresteia wondered at the use of the word, ‘autonomous’, but was broken free of her thoughts when she heard a loud clatter. She looked back to see Odysseus standing sheepishly over the suit of armor, he’d been admiring.
“It’s fairly heavy,” he admitted, “but mostly awkward to try and… Oh hey! Look!”
The suit of armor contracted, compressed, and folded over on itself repeatedly until it was simple cube – no lighter, but certainly more manageable.
“What are you doing?”
Odysseus shrugged, “What was the point of coming down here if we were only going to look?”
“What are you possibly going to do with it?”
“Give it to Achilles when I go to Peleus and Thetis’s anniversary celebration. I’m sure he’ll grow into it.”
“And you want a gift – that all of the guests, including Hephaestus will see – to be something that was obviously stolen from Hephaestus?!”
“It’s not stealing,” Odysseus said, “It’s an abandoned suit of armor, in an abandoned building, on an abandoned island. It’s finders keepers. I’ll tell everyone we chanced upon this island on our voyage – which we did – and chanced upon this building – which in no way looks like a temple or a tomb – and I found this amazing armor. No one has to know that I knew who it belonged to.”
“So when one of your gods comes to you and accuses you of theft, your plan is to lie?”
“Well, does he have magical lie-detecting powers?”
“Not really,” Adresteia shrugged. It had taken Hephaestus decades to realize Aphrodite was sleeping with Ares.
“Then I’ll take the risk,” Odysseus said as he hefted the cube.
“Well,” Adresteia said, “if we’re looting we might as well do it right. Grab that spear, too.”
“Are you going to find something for yourself?”
“I can’t exactly carry a sword around as a bird, I think.”
No sooner than Adresteia said that, she heard a whirring noise behind her, like a low whistle. She turned around and saw that the other suit of armor was slowly beginning to move, its dark eye slats glowing red.
“Malaka,” Odysseus cursed, “Time to run.”
Adresteia realized the human was right – it was best to go while the machine was warming up. Standing and fighting would likely be a losing game – the machine was inanimate, it had no soul or life force, and could not be terrorized or dominated. Using her powers on it would drain her own energies rapidly, leaving her completely vulnerable. She ran after Odysseus, pulling a rack of weapons over as she passed and hoping it might stymy the automaton. It plowed through the heavy pile of metal as if it were nothing more than some irritating shrubbery.
The two explorers ran up the stairs, Odysseus still lugging the armor-cube and the long spear. If the cube was slowing him down, Adresteia couldn’t tell it, but then the human had said he was descended from Hermes, so maybe he was just that fast. The spear, however, nearly tripped them twice on the way up the steps, so Adresteia finally took the exotic weapon away from him, twisted its shaft, and collapsed it into a short sword.
“Well, that’s neat,” Odysseus nodded. The steady tromp of metal feet on the stone steps sounded below them. They continued running back to the first floor. Odysseus could see sunlight reflecting erratically off of bronze shields – his men had arrived to explore the building.
“They cannot see me like this,” Adresteia dissipated the light in her hand, “It could compromise…
“Our operational security, yes, I know,” the mechanical man was still trudging up the steps below. “Can you wear this?” he pushed the cube towards her and took the collapsible spear.
It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder, “I suppose I might be able to.”
“There’s a side room over there,” Odysseus pointed, “Get dressed. I’ll distract the… thing.” Adresteia grabbed the cube and bolted into the room. Unfortunately, she had no idea how to unfold it.
Back in the hallway, Odysseus shouted to his men to get out of the building and ready themselves for battle. Unfortunately, aside from the shields and some hunting implements, his men had brought none of their weapons or armor from the ship. He ran to them and hefted one of the bronze-covered shields, still wielding the collapsed spear as a short sword.
“What are we fighting, captain?” Acrysius said, hefting a hunting axe.
“Something made of metal,” Odysseus said, “Like that thing Jason was supposed to have fought on Crete, but thankfully smaller than he claimed. We’ll see how it fairs against arrows. Spread out into the brush and ready your hunting bows. It’s slow and likely tough, so treat it like a bear. Aim for the joints and eyes. I’ll draw it into the open.
Odysseus pounded his weapon against his shield, the clang of metal ringing down the hallway. Two red lights – the machine’s eyes – appeared in the darkness.
“Come and get it!” Odysseus shouted. The machine tromped forward, steadily, and Odysseus backed out the door into the open air. The automaton followed him into the sunlight, and stopped.
Odysseus wanted to give his men clearer shots, so he taunted and bated the machine. The wings on the back of the automaton raised and tilted towards the sun, and its red eyes glowed more intensely. The massive metal man flexed its arms and shoulders, as if it were seething with anger, and then it charged forward. It certainly couldn’t have outrun a man in a sprint, but given its slow pace coming up the stairs, the sudden burst of speed took Odysseus by surprise.
The automaton threw a punch, backed by the full force of its charge, and its spiked hand came clear through Odysseus’s bronze shield. Clawed metal fingers gripped the torn bronze and leather, and yanked the shield off Odysseus’s arm, tossing it aside. It swung at Odysseus with its other arm, but the man rolled to the other side of it and stabbed what he hoped was a soft bit with his blade. The weapon penetrated, but not more than an inch.
“Aim for the black parts!” Odysseus shouted, “And fire!”
The half dozen men scattered among the surrounding trees and bushes drew their bows and fired as Odysseus jumped clear, pelting the machine with arrows. Some stuck in its joints, forcing the machine to stop and yank them out. Odysseus dropped the spear, grabbed up his own bow and arrows, and started firing. The automaton moved towards the nearest archer, but the man fell back into the forest, so it shifted its attention back to Odysseus. Odysseus retreated, and the other man started shooting again.
Odysseus had anticipated the fight being much like an encounter with a bear, and he’d been more right than he expected. The thing’s instinct was to attack whatever was closest, rather than to choose its prey and pursue it, meaning their tactics were confusing it.
Acrysius nearly struck it in the eye, and the machine seemed to take that personally. It stopped trying to follow them, and two iron tubes, one behind each shoulder, ratcheted up from its back and spewed forth balls of fire like small volcanos. The small meteors came back down around the men, snapping trees and setting the brush ablaze. One struck close enough to a sailor – Alecto – to severely burn and lacerate one arm. To their credit, his men continued firing, but seeing Alecto bleeding badly from an indirect hit, Odysseus pushed him into Acrysius’s arms and shouted for his men to retreat.
Odysseus took his remaining arrows in hand, and charged at the machine. It stopped firing its weapons to engage him, but Odysseus ducked under its swing, sliding across the dirt, and jammed an arrow into the black, leather like material behind its left knee. The machine turned awkwardly, trying to hit Odysseus with the sword-like feathers on its wings. The arrow head snapped off as the machine’s leg pivoted, and the sparks shot out as something inside the joint bit into the metal arrowhead like a grindstone.
Despite the hindrance, Odysseus didn’t have time to get back on his feet. He rolled once to dodge a massive punch that shook the ground, but that left him sprawled on his back – the machine had him dead to rights. Odysseus hoped the damage he did to its leg would slow it enough that his comrades could escape to the safety of their ship. He closed his eyes, began to say a prayer, but was jarred from his last words by the massive clang of metal slamming into metal.
Adresteia, clad in the gold armor Odysseus had found, plowed into the machine using her shoulder like a battering ram. The machine staggered back, and Adresteia swung at its head, punching it squarely on the chin with the sound of a gong. She struck its face again from the left, and then jabbed it hard in the abdomen from the right. It punched back with its spiked knuckles, but Adresteia sidestepped, grabbed its wrist, and directed the machine’s momentum towards the ground as she braced her foot against its instep and yanked its arm backwards. The machine tripped over her lower leg and fell to the ground on one hand. Keeping her grip on the other wrist, Adresteia twisted its arm as she pivoted and put her foot in the center of its back.
“The spear!” she shouted to Odysseus. Her voice echoed coming out of the enclosed helmet.
Odysseus scrambled for the weapon and tossed it to her, but the arm Adresteia was holding suddenly went loose, as if someone had cut the strings of a puppet. The machine rolled over under her, indifferent to the torsion it put on its dead arm. It struck her with its wings, knocking her off. The arm stirred to life again, as the machine landed on its side, and digging into the dirt, the automaton began to slowly raise itself up. Adresteia grabbed the collapsed weapon off the ground, extended it back to its full length, and jammed it through the back of the machine’s ankle, driving the weapon clear through the joint and into the soil, pinning it. Silvery liquid – like molten lead – bled from the joint as the machine struggled to free itself.
Odysseus grabbed one of the bronze shields the men had brought and threw it to Adresteia before picking up another shield and bashing the machine with it. Adresteia joined in, beating on the machine until the soft parts on the backs of its joints were broken, more liquid metal pouring out of them, and the frantically flapping wings were mangled and bent. The big black pipes on its back started to move again, but Odysseus drew his hunting knife and jammed it inside one of the pipes before sprinting away with Adresteia. She used the stolen armor to shield Odysseus’s body from the blast of the functioning weapon, while Odysseus’s knife caused the other weapon to backfire. The loud bang released a shower of molten metal, and removed one wing, one arm, and a significant portion of the machine’s torso and head. For a moment, it tried to drag itself towards them with its remaining arm, but its red eyes dimmed, and it slowed to a stop, still as stone.
Adresteia got off of Odysseus, removed the armor, and as it folded itself back up again, she returned to her eagle form. Odysseus picked up the armor cube, and walked over to inspect the damaged machine. He gripped the spear and jostled it. When there was no reaction, he pulled the spear out.
“You know,” Odysseus said, “If I take this thing home, I might be able to put it back together again.”
Adresteia glared at him.
“Yeah, on second thought, maybe I should just take a souvenir,” Odysseus jammed the spear into the back of the machine’s already damaged neck, and pried the head off.
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