But something wasn't right. The warning bells in the back of her mind tolled loudly, blaring that something was nearby. Artemis stopped, flaring her senses outwards, her eyes and ears alert for any more movement.
Her senses found the monster that was close. It was the Lernean Hydra.
...
Artemis felt her ichor blood turn to ice, and a bolt of terror struck her, like a physical spear to the chest, as she watched Jennifer and Winifred shuffle forwards, dusting themselves off in front of the pillar where two hydra heads lay slumped on the floor. One had four arrows clustered around the eye sockets, with black blood oozing down the head. But the other had one eye that was unharmed. The lid of the eye suddenly snapped open, revealing a dark red pupil, inflamed with rage.
"JENNIFER MOVE!" Artemis screamed, hurrying to draw her bow. The hunt was startled into action, immediately reacting to her voice.
Jennifer looked over to her, alert, and she seemed to sense the imminent danger, turned towards the hydra. The monstrous head reared itself, about to smash down on the girl. Artemis loosed her arrow, but in the blink of an eye, another silver blur shoved Jennifer to the side. Then, the hydra's head rammed itself into the marble floor, where Jennifer had been standing just a second before.
Winifred had taken the crushing blow on her back.
The girl was launched ten feet, skidding against the floor, until she slammed into a pillar with a sickening thud, followed by a sharp crack of bone.
The yells of the hunt rung in Artemis's ears as they assaulted the wounded beast, already coiling in on itself in sluggish death throes. Her bow forgotten, Artemis dashed over to Winifred's unmoving body, where she lay crumpled on the floor. She took the last two meters in a slide and quickly felt for the girl's heartbeat with a twitching hand.
Somehow, she was alive, as Artemis felt the hurried weak pulse on her heart on the girl's jugular vein. There was blood though. Winifred's chest was a mess of broken ribs, which had pierced the skin, all severely out of line. Her left shoulder was broken, and dislocated at the point where she had taken the Hydra's battering ram of a head directly.
"WINIFRED!" Artemis looked up seeing Jennifer run over to her, eyes wide with terror, desperation gushing into the sound her broken voice.
The girl's voice must have stirred something in Winifred, for her eyes shuttered open, covered by a grey haze of pain and confusion. There was no time to waste.
Winifred was losing blood, and fast. Artemis went through a practiced motion, summoning all of her power to heal her hunter. Silver fabrics wrapped themselves around Winifred's middle, and the dislocated shoulder. There were feeble twitches from Winifred's fingers, and feet, as she spasmed in pain at the treatment, but Artemis was one-minded in her administrations. She couldn't lose a hunter. Not here, not now.
"Winifred, it will be ok, I have you." Artemis softly spoke to the girl, her heart swelling in pride for her hunter. Jennifer surely would have been crushed by the hydra had Winifred not intervened. Now she had to save her.
"oh, Winifred…." Jennifer whispered. Artemis heard the choked tiny voice of Jennifer, who was standing behind her.
"Jennifer, help me roll Winifred on to her back, we need to set her wounds. Do you have your ambrosia in your kit?" Artemis swiftly commanded, recognizing that they did not have time. Winifred's aura was fading, and they needed to act quickly.
"I… y-yes. My lady."
Artemis nodded, sensing the girl's fear, along with another deep emotion of companionship. She couldn't blame her, as the brief thought of Jennifer being inducted into the hunt entered her mind. Winifred had been the girl's primary friend for several decades, as she recovered from her early life. Artemis felt the same bolt of fear that had erupted from her as she saw Jennifer staring down the head of the enraged Lernean Hydra, and still raced against the dark thoughts that gathered in her mind, awaiting the searing bolt of pain that came with the death of a hunter.
"Good, Jennifer, have it ready. Winifred will need it once we set her bones."
Winifred only moaned at this information, her mind hazy enough to block out the pain. Artemis wished the girl was unconscious for this part, but it couldn't be helped. Together, her and Jennifer rolled the girl onto her back with delicate care, tears running down her face, along with her trembling hands. The dislocated shoulder sat awkwardly against the marble floor, causing Winifred to let out a sudden scream and the girl flailed her right arm in a wild attempt to right herself.
"Hold her!" Artemis commanded, wrapping the silver bandages tight around Winifred's shoulder. After a couple of seconds, Winifred's writhing body sudden slacked against their holds, and she went unconscious.
"My L-Lady… she's out."
"Thank the gods," Artemis replied. She gave the dislocated shoulder one glance over, and quickly located the breakage. The girl's shoulder was dislocated with a clean break on the scapula. Artemis ran her palms down Winifred's sides lightly, looking for more breakage. The ribcage was a mess, with a punctured lung, and at least three breakages on her lower ribs. She once again willed silver bandages to coil themselves around the areas where the bones needed to be set.
"Be ready Jennifer," Artemis warned, glancing away from Winifred to look at her young hunter in the eyes, "If you don't deliver the ambrosia in time, Winifred will die."
The hunter nodded seriously, her training cutting through the panic Artemis still noticed on her face, and she kneeled by Winifred's blank face which was white from blood loss.
"Now!" Artemis quietly ordered as she pulled the bandages taut against the dislocated bone breakages. There was a slight resistance, and then several distinct pops resounded through the unsettlingly silent hall as first the shoulder, then the ribs found their proper places. One of the bandages at the ribs immediately became soaked with blood, as the jutting rib bone snapping back into place now allowed blood to spurt out of the new hole.
Jennifer immediately shoved a square of ambrosia into Winifred's throat, and forced the girl to swallow it. The girl shuddered once, before slumping further into unconsciousness.
"Is she alright?" Jennifer questioned fearfully, cradling the older hunter's face in her hands.
Artemis checked quickly to see that her wounds weren't still oozing blood, and saw they were properly secured with pressure. Already, Artemis sensed the girl's aura stabilizing. It wouldn't be a quick healing process, even with a heavy dose of ambrosia.
But she would live.
"Yes, she will be alright," Artemis predicted, her own heart quickly dropping from the high of adrenaline and sheer power. The jolting twitches of silver sparks that erupted from within her slowly ebbed away, bringing Artemis down to earth.
Jennifer gently took Winifred's hand, and Artemis got to her feet, content knowing that Winifred would be in Jennifer's care.
She then cast her gaze over to the rest of the hall of the Parthenon. The hydra was dead, with Zoe and Phoebe standing over its corpse. But they, along with the other hunters around them, gazed over towards her. Seeing her own somber look, along with Jennifer still remaining by Winifred's side, her hunters sensed the severity of the situation.
Her hunters quickly ran over to her, likely fearing the worst. Most had seen and felt the keen pain of a lost sister in their elongated lifetimes, but the kindred mourning never truly faded with the ages. As they scampered over, Artemis bored her eyes into the body on the Lernean Hydra, crumpled in a sinister manner. 'How had it lived through her arrow? How had she failed?' She had allowed a hunter to almost lose her life, over an error of her own making. The searing sense of shame welled up inside her, and she was cast back to the island walled city, that had been so central to the Macedonian Expedition.
"INCOMING! SIMURGHS! WEST!" A man's voice screamed through the hasty fog of sleep.
The now familiar lookout's call immediately sprung her into action. The high soaring ramparts of the lumbering siege tower offered the best view of the incoming flying beasts, but exhaustion had caught up to Artemis, and she had reclined to take a quick nap. Next to her, the catapult crew groaned again in fear and languish as another flight of the dreadful beasts came into sight.
"Do these things even die!" A young soldier exclaimed.