Achilles’s call was echoing throughout the whole of the Fields of Asphodel, growing louder and louder, gaining speed and intensity and gravitas as it carried on. Its infectious energy was electric, jolting from mouths to ears, demanding obedience.

The King of Heroes had called, and Asphodel answered.

Streams of Brights were pouring into the vicinity, bigger and bigger groups finding each other on the journey to Achilles and joining together to form hordes. Thousands were gathering. Naively, I had expected a small group to come, perhaps because the demigod had said even if he ordered his followers to go with me, we wouldn’t succeed without him. I had been picturing dozens of potential soldiers, maybe a hundred. This was…

“Crazy.” I said, shaking my head. If all this, and it was still expanding in number, was not enough alone to escape the Fields, travel the Underworld, breach Elysium and come back safely to build our army, what in Olympas’s name were we up against?

His Ghostly spear unraveled into streamers of wavering light and fog, shifting into an upraised podium that let Achilles be seen by all. Though his expression didn’t change and though I did not hear anything with my ears, I knew that the Blurs he had bound together with the Ghostforging must have been raging and wailing inside his mind and soul.

While in spear form the spectral substance was a luminous, shining white that was clean and pure, I found it interesting that in both the podium and throne form the fused souls’ features and faces were clearer and the color a murkier grey. The density apparently changed what could be perceived of the beings that made the matter of the material.

Achilles leapt onto the raised platform and surveyed the crowd regally. Silence fell like night and then he smiled and the glint of white was like the sun rising at dawn, blinding and overpowering. Still, the thousands gathered did not speak, but they started to pound against their chests, bringing their right fists against their hearts to the rhythm of an unseen and unheard drummer. I followed suit as did Pollixa and Krassas. Fish tapped his left foot to the beat but he seemed distracted by a pebble in the ground.

“Friends. Followers. Allies. I am tired of these grey lands, I am tired of the cold and the mist and the lifeless, shriveled wheat and grasses that cover Asphodel like sores on a plague victim. I am called the King of Heroes here, but in truth all I am is the steward of the breathless dead, holding watch for eternity as every human who enters here fades to less than nothing while only I remain. I weep for you and I rage for myself. I rage and weep because this is an INJUSTICE!” Achilles roared the last word.

Everything within earshot trembled like trees shaking in a hurricane.

“It is an injustice.” He said more quietly. “Why am I here and not in Elysium? Why are you here and not in Elysium? They say only the greatest of the great and the grandest of the grand may reside there, but why are we stuck here despite remaining Bright for centuries or millennia? We are stuck here, my friends, because the three Judges of the Underworld have banished us here without rational reason or good faith. Many of you have told me how you were not even individually judged, that all the souls received now are instantly sent to the Fields, but even still, the fact that I am here is proof that the Judges are nothing more than bitter men unfit to judge the color of the sky let alone the glory of a man.”

The tension in the air tasted to me like secrecy and treason. I liked it.

“I intend to rectify this injustice by any means necessary to accomplish that goal. We will break out of the Fields, breach Elysium, steal the Ambrosia and Nectar and raise an army of Brights from the Blurs, and then fight our way back to the mortal realm. My brothers and sisters, are you ready to see the sun again?” The King of Heroes said.

The roar was deafening.

…

It took us three weeks to make it to the walls encircling Asphodel. We didn’t need to eat or drink or sleep, and still it took us three long weeks to make it. Funnily enough, I was told that relative to the center of the Fields, where we had started and where the King of Heroes had camped out was pretty close to the boundaries. The Fields were just so damn big that it was a nightmare to get anywhere. Along the way, the King had taught me how to conceal my Brighthood just as he dimmed and increased the weight and glory of his presence. The trick was to mentally distance yourself from the feats and deeds that gave you strength and vitality in the afterlife. It was a process they called Shinecloaking.

Two thousand and five hundred Brights had answered the call and perhaps three hundred of them, counting myself and Achilles, possessed Ghostforged weapons. That worried me. I had fought Infernal Beasts in the Red Sands arena, but that had been as a Copper Imperator gifted with superhuman speed, strength and durability. Now I, and everyone of the Brights other than Achilles, was Unpathed. We’d heal quickly and it seemed impossible to kill us in a single blow even if you crushed the head, but that could very well mean that we were looking forward to an absolute beatdown over and over until reinforcements came to crush us. Weeks ago, I had thought about how many we had and how much resistance we would have to face, but now my worry was the answer to how many Beast guards we would have to face to be equaled was very, very few.

“Can we do this? Truly?” I asked Achilles quietly as I ran beside him, keeping my voice down.

“If we make no mistakes.” The King of Heroes replied. “If everything goes perfectly, our plan will be like a rock rolling down a hill. Slow at first, gradually picking up speed, and finally becoming unstoppable by anything in its path.”

“But if that rock gets stopped at the top of the hill…” I said.

“Then we’re royally fucked.” Achilles said with brutal honesty. “You and I as the leaders will be going to Tartaros and the rest will be Blurred until they’re nothing but smudges in the air.”

“How do we make it go right?’ I asked. “I mean, only three hundred of us are even armed and you’re the only one here who’s superhuman.”

“The others aren’t here to fight.” Achilles said.

“What? But you said-“ I said.

“I told them that because it makes them feel more important, but the true role of those without the stomach to create and wield Ghostforged weapons is to carry Ambrosia and Nectar from Elysium for us. We’ll get some weapons from the guards along the way, and I plan to raid Elysium’s armories, but there won’t be enough for everyone.” Achilles replied.

“That still doesn’t answer my question though, how are three hundred armed soldiers going to accomplish anything?” I said.

“You have me. But the name of the game is stealth. Don’t think of yourself as a soldier and certainly don’t think of yourself as a warrior. Think of yourself as an assassin. Don’t be seen, don’t be caught, and kill quickly and silently or the Infernal Beasts will raise the alarms and we’re all screwed. We’ll split the three hundred armed into ten groups of thirty fighters and bring along a few of the unarmed Brights as bait. Cruelty is in the Infernal Beasts’ nature, presented with victims or prey they will be drawn away from their posts.” The King of Heroes said.

“And then?” I said, following along with the train of thought.

Then twenty-nine of the thirty-man strike force hides in the ceilings of the sentry towers while one of us draws the Beasts back to their posts. Then we drop down on their heads.” Achilles.

“And hope no one screws up.” I said.

“Indeed.” He nodded. “I move fast enough and can throw my spear fast enough that I can cover for any of the groups within eyesight if there’s a problem, but we can’t rely on that with the distance we need to cover for a mass climbing to be undetected.”

As we approached the walls circling the Fields of Asphodel, I stared up at them. They were perhaps two hundred feet tall, crafted entirely from obsidian bricks. Periodically spaced every half mile with guard towers. Achilles conferred with the others and the thirty-man teams with one unarmed volunteer for bait came together. We were Shinecloaked, our Ghostforged weapons concealed as marble sized spheres hidden in our mouths, one member of the team wearing a backpack containing a long rope, both made from weaved plant fibers.

The ten teams split up to each take out a guard tower, and slowly in staggered waves, each member of a team slowly made their way to the wall to avoid suspicion from the sentries. There was only one other member of my strike force remaining with me, the others and Pollixa who was our bait having already started scaling. The remaining person was named Albas and he was a child though he was still sapient down here.

“How did you get Brighthood?” I asked him, pushing the Ghostforged marble into the side of my cheek.

“Fame and infamy like the rest of you.” He said, doing the same with his sphere, not taking his eyes off the wall.

“I mean, you’re so young.” I said.

“You’re not exactly elderly either.” Albas replied.

“You must have died at like thirteen.” I said.

“Fourteen,” He said, looking at me finally. “I’m remembered because I ordered the glassing of Mars during the First Martian Rebellion after the death of my father. Death toll of a billion and a half.”

“Oh.” I said. I had never even heard of a rebellion on the planet of Mars, but clearly enough people had that this child was immortalized.

Such coldness in his eyes when he talked about how many had died, a strange juxtaposition against how young he was. I wondered if that was how other people saw me, someone just on the brink of adulthood and yet already a coldblooded killer.

“Let’s speed this up.” Albas said. “With me.”

We ambled around, trying not to seem like we were intentionally trying to go anywhere near the wall, and then vigorously started climbing when the two of us got out of sight. When we reached the top, we waited alongside the others. Pollixa had climbed a short distance away from us and at the King of Heroes’s signal, she pulled herself on top of the wall and dropped her Shinecloak.

“Help! Help!” She called to the Infernal Beasts in the guard tower, her eyes wide and full of tears. “I don’t know where I am. Can you help me? I’m scared, please.”

The three Infernal Beasts, abominations of the human form mixed with jackal and pitbull, armored in yellowed bone and wielding bronze weapons that seethed with power took the bait hungrily and left their post.

Go time.

The rest of us clambered up and over, slipping into the sentry post and climbing up the side of the tower to hide in the rafters. Albas stayed behind on the floor of the post, ready to draw them out. I spat my marble out into my hand as I hung from the other arm and shifted it back into sword form, internally hearing the screams and gritting my teeth.

“Hey! Hey!” Albas yelled at the Beasts, giving them the finger and then proceeding to go on the filthiest rant I had ever heard, the guards racing back to deal with more exciting prey than Pollixa. They rushed, their fangs bared and their blades ready. Someone shifted slightly in the rafters and a Beast below me looked up in surprise.

I winked at the monster and then dropped with the others from the ceiling like thunderbolts, driving my sword through its skull.