Night had fallen.
The fire burned bright.
Dozens of skinned and jointed wild boars, mountain goats, and other large animals were propped over the flames, fat dripping and sizzling, rich aromas spreading through the air.
Chimera, the Harpiai, the Sphinx, and the Teumessian fox stared at the food slowly cooking to completion, swallowing at an increasingly rapid pace.
Their bestial instincts told them to charge in, seize everything, and eat their fill without waiting for anyone.
But one look at the silver-haired two-legged creature leisurely turning the roasting rack by the fire, and the restlessness inside them was swamped by something more primal as they settled obediently in a ring around the fire and waited for mealtime.
"All right. Eat."
At Lorne's word, the surrounding children of Typhon could hold back no longer.
They surged forward in a rush, fell upon their numbered portions, and proceeded to eat with the focused enthusiasm of creatures who had earned their meal through honest labor.
Watching the children of Typhon wearing expressions of deep contentment, Lorne gave a satisfied nod.
After the education of these past days, they were showing at least some signs of being brought to heel.
Part of it was the token the serpent mother had given him, which made it easy to establish a basic level of trust between himself and these children of Typhon.
Part of it was that most of Typhon's children, though divine monsters, had sufficient intelligence for communication, which made the taming process considerably more manageable.
And for those who refused to cooperate or behaved badly, there was always the direct approach of demonstrating exactly what he was capable of, followed by a targeted feeding session.
With several methods working together, the supposedly fearsome children of Typhon were now thoroughly cooperative and looked entirely to him for guidance.
It was just the process of going from wolf to dog, really.
Hm...far simpler than he had expected.
Just as Lorne was savoring this quiet moment of self-satisfaction, the whispered murmuring of divine monsters drifted from behind him.
"He is smiling again. Every time he shows up with that look, I get chills down my back."
"Hehe, what is so scary about a smile? You are all so silly."
"Fine, you are the clever ones."
The wisdom-goat head on Chimera's back gave the four chattering Harpiai a flat look and posed the question with cheerful malice.
"So, can anyone tell me what three plus four equals?"
The Harpiai raised their hands with great confidence and delivered their answers.
"Two!"
"Three!"
"Four!"
"Five!"
It was well established that birds were generally limited in their counting ability, and these winged divine monsters had clearly inherited the avian tradition of deeply questionable arithmetic.
Chimera's serpent tail head slid forward and inquired in a carefully casual tone.
"How strange. How could that be? Who got it wrong?"
"It is five, definitely five."
"Nonsense, four is correct."
"Three, it is obviously three."
The four Harpies, each with a different answer, got into a furious argument, and under the encouragement of the goat head and the serpent head, the argument quickly escalated into an internal brawl.
Within moments the area was a storm of flying sand, feathers, and noise.
Lorne looked at the rabbit leg in his hand, now thoroughly coated in dust, and his expression went dark.
Before Chimera had long to enjoy the chaos it had set in motion, the Sphinx beside it rose to her feet, padded forward, pushed in close, and fixed her blood-relative with an intense gaze.
"I acknowledge your wisdom.
Now attempt my riddle.
I have no past. I will become the past. No one has seen me. No one ever will. And yet I am the secret at the heart of every living breath. What am I?"
"Will you be quiet."
All three of Chimera's heads heard the tangled riddle, felt their combined brains ring, and roared in chorus, attempting to drive away the somewhat unhinged Sphinx.
"Why reject wisdom? Why choose ignorance? This world is sick. To live among the unknowing, I would rather be dead."
The Sphinx, considerably wounded, brought her grief-stricken feminine face into a mournful expression, delivered her lament in the cadence of an itinerant poem, then wrapped both arms around one of Chimera's lion heads and threw herself sideways toward the valley.
"You mad creature, why are you dragging me with you?"
Chimera, receiving the exact fate it deserved, bristled its fur across all three sections, lion head, goat head, and serpent head all shrieking and roaring together.
Boom.
The two divine monsters tangled and fought each other all the way down like a falling meteorite, ultimately carving a cone-shaped pit several meters deep in the valley floor.
Lorne did not spare the two children of Typhon who had gone over the cliff so much as a glance. He focused his efforts on rescuing the cookware and the unfinished food.
From that height, they could fall seventeen times and not lose a single hair. There was no chance of anything serious happening.
Over to one side, the Teumessian fox, who still had not fully mastered the common Titan language, had eaten its fill and found a quiet spot to lie down for a nap.
Unfortunately for the fox, the four Harpiai in the middle of their brawl were producing wind on one side and rain on the other.
After its fur was soaked through and it caught two sets of claws across the body, the Teumessian fox's temper hit its limit.
The great white fox reared up, swept its paws forward, and launched itself into the fray, joining the chaos with the four Harpiai in a full melee.
The most unfortunate creature of all, without question, was the Nemean Lion, bound in layer upon layer of rope on the ground.
Wind blades, torrential downpour, stomping, and collision, the cascading side-effects of the battle landed on the oversized cat one after another.
Trapped by its restraints, it could not move. It could only endure a repeated and thorough pummeling at the hands, claws, and paws of its siblings.
In the chaos, someone destroyed the most critical of the suppression curses. The Nemean Lion immediately surged to its feet, mane exploding outward, neck arching back in a roar, red-eyed and charging at Chimera, which had been stomping and clawing at it.
What had been a two-sided brawl became a three-way melee.
Melinoe sat on a flat rock nearby, chewing on a rabbit leg in one hand and waving a curse blade in the other, wearing the expression of someone who very much wanted the mayhem to continue.
"Fight, fight, keep going!"
Watching the carefully prepared dinner setting turn into a smoke-filled arena of combat, Lorne let a brilliantly warm smile spread across his increasingly dark expression, cracked his knuckles, rose from his place by the fire, and let the golden wheel behind him hum into motion.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
Half an hour later, the rowdy children of Typhon lay scattered across the ground in every direction, exchanging aggrieved looks and moaning with assorted complaints.
Melinoe, who had been a participant in the festivities herself, sat crouched on the ground holding a large new lump on her head, drawing tearful circles in the dirt.
Having completed the forceful restoration of order, Lorne returned to the fireside in considerably improved spirits, ate the rabbit leg he had confiscated from Melinoe, and turned through the small notebook the serpent mother had given him before departure.
Cerberus the three-headed hellhound was a happy, simple-minded dog who lived for eating, sleeping, and honey cakes, with a side interest in demolishing things.
No ambitions to speak of.
The Hydra was a sullen, reclusive girl who hid in her swamps and refused to come out, but had a strong vengeful streak once provoked.
The dragon Ladon and the Colchian dragon had inherited every flaw typical of their kind, obsessed with hoarding treasure, drowsy and half-asleep all day.
Chimera, king of the three-headed beasts, had the wisdom-goat, cunning-serpent, and courage-lion to cover offense and defense together, but all three heads constantly picked fights with each other and egged one another on.
The Nemean Lion was impervious to weapons and possessed overwhelming strength, but had severe intellectual limitations and was easily caught in a trap.
The Sphinx had a near-human level of intelligence but a deeply erratic personality, loved using riddles to show off her cleverness, and appeared to be using this juvenile behavior to perform her supposed uniqueness.
The four Harpiai were all incessant chatterboxes with no awareness of other people's faces or the appropriate moment to speak.
Fast in the air, but easily lured in once their curiosity was engaged.
These were Echidna the serpent mother's rough impressions and summary of her own children.
To help Lorne successfully bring them home, she had organized these observations into a notebook and sent it along with the serpent scale token to the temporary guardian she had chosen.
Add Melinoe, a prickly teenager in full-blown rebellion mode, and together they made a thoroughly complete collection of problem children.
Lorne let out a breath, produced a sheet of sheepskin parchment, and felt a small measure of relief at the few names remaining on it.
Bumpy in places, but the overall result was not unworthy of what the serpent mother had entrusted to him.
After all, the actual number of Typhon's proper children was not large.
He could count them on two hands.
Beyond the ones already in hand, not all of the remaining ones were possible to recruit.
Cerberus guarded the underworld and could serve as an inside source.
So there was no need to move him.
The Colchian dragon and the Trojan twin serpents were guardian beasts of two city-states, with too many eyes around to attempt taking them.
They would have to wait.
The Caucasian eagle was currently under Zeus's direct appointment to carry out Prometheus's punishment.
Also out of reach.
Ladon guarded the Garden of the Hesperides and had an official post.
Another one to pass over.
That left exactly one name on the list.
The Hydra.
If he remembered correctly, that particular girl was living out her reclusive existence in the Lernaean swamps of Argolis, waiting for the future Heracles to come and face her.
But that great hero was not going to get that chance.
With his mind made up, Lorne finished the last piece of meat on the rabbit leg, rose to his feet, tossed out a single casual instruction, and walked toward the cave where they would be resting for the night.
"Whoever made the mess is responsible for cleaning it up.
If it is not done before dawn, I am roasting the offender for breakfast."
The children of Typhon watched that demonic retreating figure, shivered in unison, and scrambled to their feet in a hurry, throwing themselves into the work of restoring the mountain forest they had reduced to a state of thorough devastation.
(End of Chapter)