The God Warriors Read Online Free PDF Page B

duplication among the races, for whatever reason. Call it a builder's template, if you want, and one that seems to have been used frequently.]
    Okay, I agree to be this champion. What do I have to lose anyways? John smiled to himself, feeling he'd made the right decision.
    [Thank you, John.] The power behind that thought sent his mind reeling. It had a distinctly feminine flavor, and he knew without doubt it was Ares’s mother, Hera.
    You are welcome, Mother. May I call you Mother?
    [Yes, my child. It pleases me that you would ask. Now, prepare yourself, for your time here is over. Prepare also to fight upon your merging.]
    What? But it was too late. Darkness descended.

Chapter 2
     

~Elsa~
    Like any woman, Elsa was moderately self-conscious about her appearance. She was heavily muscled, more so than many men, yet had slender hips flaring out into wide muscular thighs. No, she obviously was not a court beauty, but inwardly she felt she had a certain flair and vitality, especially with the white scar along her left jaw that highlighted her darkly tanned skin. The long raven black hair framing a face set with amber eyes only enhanced her appearance.
    That scar was a souvenir from a battle after she joined the Jordache guard detail. Upon joining, she soon found herself promoted to squad leader, which was not common but did have its precedents, for she'd had previous training and excelled during the weapons phase. Years later, a routine patrol near the Illian border had turned into a skirmish, then almost a slaughter, against them as she found herself at the forefront of the remaining seventy members of the previously two-hundred strong company. Six hours of vicious fighting later, they still stood, though they numbered only eight on their feet, all of them wounded. The enemy routed with over twice their number lying dead or wounded on the battlefield, proclaimed the victory theirs. The king, being impressed in the aftermath, granted her a company of her own.
    Her Da would have said these men and women were good material, but still needed work because it was his firm belief that a soldier could never train enough. A retired king's guardsman, he purchased a farm with his end of service entitlement and married her mother. Even though he wished for a boy, their first child was female: Elsa. Two more female children quickly followed as her father tried to produce the male offspring he truly desired. Finally giving up, he treated his eldest, Elsa, like a son. This meant she did an abnormal number of chores and helped plow the fields twice a year. Then, gifting Elsa a wooden sword on her fifth birthday, they practiced endlessly, eventually graduating to other weapons, then tactics as her training progressed under his tutelage. From swords to bows, staffs to axes, then mock wars with the village boys and a few girls, Elsa had grown into a strong, confident, and dominating female leader under her father's guidance.
    In addition, her Da was always right. If he said it would rain, then it would rain. If he said the winter would be colder than normal, then it would be. He said the neighboring kingdom of Belgresse would invade because of Jordache’s trade practices, and they sat down in the cellar amidst candles to wait it out. When next-door neighbor Tommy Kendrick came down sick with blisters all over his face and neck, Da had ordered his daughters to shun the Kendrick's until the disease ran its course. Da also ordered all neighboring farms to have no contact with the Kendrick's, and they had obeyed. In the end, three of Tommy's family had succumbed to the disease, including Tommy himself.
    For Elsa's entire life, she felt like she lived in the shadow of an invisible and unborn brother’s footsteps, but finally she came to realize her Da loved her without reservation, for herself and who she was and not for some fantasy, that he was very proud of the woman she'd become. When she informed her father that she would be leaving home to