He caught the arrow. Again. Bastard caught his arrow.
“You’re all missing the point!”
Moros displayed an increasingly aggravating knack for doing that. But could he catch them all? Three, four, five at a time? The Shining Son was determined to put it to the test. He’d see Doom full of holes or he’d not carry the silver bow again. He drew another arrow from his quiver and nocked it, pulled the bow to half-draw.
“I don’t see an invitation in his hand!”
This one had well and truly trod all the way down the long path to madness. The kind of madness that could still kill, unfortunately. The kind of madness that could drag you down to join it in whatever pit in festered in.
The object of his vengeance hefted the spear and the poor, defiled body adorning it, and started his approach. He’d never been close to Aphrodite, she being one of the children of Zeus and Hera, the ‘pure’ ones (though even Hephaestus had maintained a more cordial relationship with him), but the sympathy that stung him right then hoped that she would never, ever see what Moros had done to her boy. That sympathy was the bond every parent held for her children. Instantly his eyes scanned the room, looking for some sign of his own son, some wrecked carcass that had once been Asklepios. That one had had to die for true, before he was raised to godhood; he would not have it again.
Not seeing Asklepios among the slain, he moved away from the crashed and burning ruins behind him, taking no notice of the sparks still showering up from the debris. He kept his front facing the Cthonian, and reversed slowly to keep the walls as close to his back as he dared. He moved carefully, but always quickly enough to keep them the same distance apart. The nearest corner had a few bits of burning flotsam lying about it, but nothing he couldn’t pass through with ease, and that was to the good.
Half a moment to aim, and he loosed again, immediately reaching behind him to draw another arrow. Instead, however, of continuing to sidle along the walls, he sped up and ducked around the corner, into the hallway through the bits of burning or charred ceiling and furniture that lay around it.