The darkness around them seemed to have deepened with the arrival of the three newcomers, but the jewels embedded in the hilts of the Dragonknights’ blades suddenly flared up, burning the brightest that Milius had ever seen them. The brilliant emerald, sapphire, and violet lights shone through the gloom like multicoloured torches; the only time Milius could remember the swords reacting like this was the day that they had discovered the white marble tomb in which Alcyeoneus’s essence had been sealed, but he knew, somehow, that Alcyeoneus was not here with them — the presence of these three felt nowhere near as menacing as the Void Giant’s had.

The man in the middle, who wore a black, hooded cloak, turned his face towards Ariana, baring his teeth. And Milius recognized him as a Void Hunter, but it was not the one that Ariana had injured.

“You nearly killed my elder brother, little girl,” he hissed. “I'll take great pleasure in dismembering you, particularly.”

“I think not, Hunter,” Shya said. “You will not be committing any more heinous acts today. After what you and your brethren pulled at the Royal Palace, by my bow, you shall fall.”

The men who stood on either side of the Hunter both howled with derisive laughter. The first, whose hair was done in a series of tight, elegant curls, and who was wearing long black robes that fell to the ground over a lean, muscular, grey-skinned figure, said, “You would threaten us, mortal? When this is the fate that becomes even the gods of this world who dare to defy us?” As he spoke, he gestured at Diana, who was struggling to sit up behind them.

Milius privately agreed that the situation did not look too hopeful for them, but after all, he reasoned with himself, there had been only one Diana when they'd first attacked. Now, there were four of them.

“Surrender peacefully, or die,” the one to the right of the Hunter said in a flat, expressionless voice. “Your choice.”

They exchanged quick, tense looks. Then Milius looked up at the men again. “Hmm . . .” he said in mock-thoughtfulness. “No deal.”

Shakil moved with a swiftness that startled even Milius: he plunged Oceannerva’s blade into the ground, and at once, cracks began to spread outwards from the small circle that encompassed their group, streaming along their entire section of the canyon. The towering pillars came crumbling down, and the ground all around them began to burst apart, quaking so violently that even the three men lost their balance. Then Shakil pulled the sword from the ground, granting them immediate reprieve, and held the point out towards the Hunter and his allies; a stream of silver ran along the length of the blade and burst from the metal, exploding across the landscape and shrouding them in a dense cloud of pearly fog.

“What? What is this?” one of them cried.

“The dragons — where are the dragons?” said Diana’s voice from behind them, while their adversaries continued to howl in shock and fury.

Though the mist was obscuring his vision, Milius turned automatically to face her. But then he saw, to his surprise, that the goddess was still perfectly visible, her form outlined quite distinctly against the fog in the light from her blood, which was shining through the mist. “We left them back in the forest,” he told her. “Look at this,” he added to Shakil, Ariana, and Shya.

He wiped Palpatunde’s blade across a particularly thick pool of ichor, marring the gleaming surface, and then held the sword aloft. The blood continued to glow even along the burnished silver, illuminating their sphere of mist. Ariana and Shakil hastily copied him, adding further light to the preexisting pool, and Shya heaved the goddess from the floor. But right as they made to move off again, they heard an irritated shout from ahead.

“Oh, enough of this!”

Fingers snapped, then they heard a positive cacophony of bestial noises: huge wings flapping, creatures roaring and hissing, hooves stamping.

“AFTER THEM!”

The ground trembled beneath the weight of what sounded like an advancing army. Something whistled past their ear, and they looked up to see, by the light of their swords, a massive bat-like shadow circling around them.

“You take her,” Milius heard Shya grunt, and he looked around to see Shakil sheath his sword and take the goddess into his own arms with the tenderness one would reserve for a lover. Shya hoisted his bow and knocked an arrow at the string; it looked quite normal, but as Shya let it fly, the head burst into flames; it streaked through the air and collided with its target, striking it ablaze as it fell to the floor, disappearing amid the crimson flare.

“This way,” Milius said. They began to rush forward again, but with every move they made shadow creatures lurched out of the gloom. A massive black steed charged from their left, and Ariana fell to her knees, thrusting her sword into the air so that it ripped through the creature's underside as it bounded overhead. A wolf followed, along with several buzzards. Shya struck down two of the birds, and Milius plunged Palpatunde into the wolf's nuzzle, causing it to explode into wisps of black smoke, but he felt its energy pass into the blade, which was still covered in glowing ichor.

As he turned back to face the advancing, snarling crowd, energy charged along the blade, the same way mist had crept along Oceannerva’s metal, and Ariana swung along with him. Bursts of wind and violet energy exploded outwards, ripping through the mist, and shredded the oncoming swarm. But there were still too many.

They erupted out of the mist and onto a clear stretch of the canyon, and the swarm followed. Ariana, Shya, and Milius hacked and nocked, striking dozens of creatures out of the sky and around them in mere seconds.

There was a tremendous bellow of rage that shook the land far worse than Oceannerva’s magic, and they heard the area they had just escaped from crashing apart. A gale-force wind picked up, sweeping away the haze, and the figure of the man who had offered them the ultimatum of surrender or death came into view, now as large as any of the dragons that were waiting for them in the forest. He was looking around, his pitch-black eyes glowing with fury.

They hurried away before he could spot them, weaving out of their passageway and back towards the forest as fast as they could.

“Lady Diana,” Shakil said suddenly, as the other three continued to fend off the crowding shadow-beasts. “Can you tell us what happened? Who were they? Why did they attack you?”

“Zagreus . . . Mors,” she said faintly. “Children of the Void Giant. And the Hunter, Tartarus. They ambushed me while I was in the middle of a hunt. I was taken by surprise, nearly captured. But I escaped, and sent Basteyah to seek help.”

“Why do they want you?” Milius asked. “Surely there's a reason why they would go to all this trouble just to try to kill you?”

“I don't know. . . . Perhaps their father —”

She did not get the chance to finish. A shadow-lion had just streaked out of the woods on their right and leapt upon Shya, sending him flying.

“Shya!” Milius shouted.

Ariana wheeled around, Stormpyre raised. Another creature was swooping down upon them; as it pounced, she bounded into the air, propelled by the magic of her blade, and Milius leapt aside. He looked up just in time to see her dive from the tree she had landed on and launch herself towards the beast. She swung her blade, and a crescent-shaped gust of wind flew from the sword, cleaving the wolf in half.

Milius looked to his right, where yet another horde was approaching, but Shya had recovered. An arrow sank into the ground just before Milius, and the entire area exploded. The creatures vanished in a cloud of smoke and dust.

As Milius made to stand up, he realized that he couldn't move; he was stuck in place, held down by an all-too familiar paralysis.

“Don't you people have any other tricks?” he said irritably.

The Hunter merely laughed as Milius’s shadow began to creep upwards along his body. “Yes, I think we'll start with you first, Milius Manchester. Lord Alcyeoneus will be ever so grateful when he learns that you were the main factor in his revival. Perhaps he'll preserve your body as a keepsake for thanks. . . . Or simply make your death less painful than your friends’.” He began to laugh again, doubling the pressure on Milius’s body so that he felt like he was being crushed underneath a massive mound of rocks.

A streak of gold suddenly caught Milius’s vision, and for one wild second he thought Diana’s hunting partner, Basteyah, had rejoined the fray; then he heard a loud snapping sound as something spiraled around his body and clamped tightly against his chest, and he realized that Ariana had thrown her magic-nullifying whip.

“What —?” the Hunter gasped. Milius could feel his hold loosening, his shadow reverting to normal; the feeling returned in Milius’s body as the Hunter was expelled from his shadow, solidifying behind him, and as fast as he could, he ripped off the whip, seized Palpatunde, and thrust it into the other's chest.

Tartarus screamed as though his insides were on fire. Milius could feel the energy being pulled from his form, siphoned into the blade. He heard a strange rushing noise behind him, and Milius looked around to see one of Alcyeoneus’s sons, their curly-haired foe, appearing from the ground, near to Shakil, who had placed the goddess on the ground and was now fending off a pack of shadow creatures. Milius pulled Palpatunde from Tartarus’s chest and rolled aside just as a bolt of black lightning streaked past him. Shya and Ariana had paired up against the second god, but the first was now bearing down on Shakil.

He seized his bag of seeds and tossed two to the ground, where they were swallowed into the earth. A moment later, two golems reared from the ground and charged at the god, but he dispatched them with hardly any trouble, turning them to dust with a mere snap of his fingers.

The god smirked, advancing on Shakil with his shadow servants by his side, and Milius dashed after them. Shakil leapt forward, slashing and hacking at the god, who dodged almost lazily. He took another long stroke. The god ducked beneath the strike, but that seemed to be precisely what Shakil was waiting for. With tremendous speed, he diverted the angle of his sword arm and plunged the blade into the ground yet again, kicking the god forward so that he shifted out of the circle that would remain undisturbed by the sword’s magic.

At once, the entire forest began to rumble. The god lost balance, but just before Milius himself could fall, Shakil heaved the point from the floor and plunged it into his opponent’s chest. He let out a cry of pain, and Milius, righting himself again, darted forward; Shakil saw him coming and dove aside, and Milius fired. The energy stolen from his partner crashed into him, and he soared backwards.

The other creatures, who had been out of range of the blast, now swarmed around them, rushing towards them like a black tide. Milius couldn't see how they were going to get past them. He could still feel the effects of the Hunter's power, his muscles aching in protest with every move he made. But Diana was struggling to her feet.

“My Lady —!” Shakil protested, but Diana placed a hand on his shoulder and shook her head, smiling.

“You must go,” she said faintly. “Thank you for all that you have done today, but this was never your burden to bear. It is time. Shut your eyes."

“But —”

The goddess’s form began to glow, more brightly, even, than her blood.

“Shut your eyes!” she screamed. Her body was blazing now, painful to look at. Milius closed his eyes against the sudden glare, hoping against hope that Shakil, Ariana, and Shya would do the same. There was a flash of light that filled the entire forest, searing through Milius’s eyelids. He felt it wash over him, almost tangible, and then, silence.

Milius stood there, listening, waiting. . . . But there was no sound of movement from around him. Slowly, he opened his eyes. Shakil was standing before him, looking stunned. Ariana and Shya were approaching them, looking bewildered, and all around them the forest was empty; Zagreus, Mors, Tartarus, and their shadow creatures were gone. And so was Diana.