by Rick Riordan
The giantess raised her knife.
Piper screamed in charmspeak: ‘MISS!’
At the same time, Annabeth kicked up with her legs to make herself a smaller target.
Periboia’s knife passed beneath Annabeth’s legs and stabbed the giantess’s own palm.
‘OWWW!’
Periboia dropped Annabeth – alive, but not unscathed. The dagger had sliced a nasty gash across the back of her thigh. As Annabeth rolled away, her blood soaked into the earth.
The blood of Olympus, Piper thought with dread.
But she couldn’t do anything about that. She had to help Annabeth.
Piper lunged at the giantess. Her jagged blade suddenly felt ice cold in her hands. The surprised giantess glanced down as the sword of the Boread pierced her gut. Frost spread across her bronze breastplate.
Piper yanked out her sword. The giantess toppled backwards – steaming white and frozen solid. Periboia hit the ground with a thud.
‘My daughter!’ King Porphyrion levelled his spear and charged.
But Percy had other ideas.
Enceladus had dropped him … probably because the giant was busy staggering around with Piper’s knife embedded in his forehead, ichor streaming into his eyes.
Percy had no weapon – perhaps his sword had been confiscated or lost in the fighting – but he didn’t let that stop him. As the giant king ran towards Piper, Percy grabbed the tip of Porphyrion’s spear and forced it down into the ground. The giant’s own momentum lifted him off his feet in an unintentional pole-vault manoeuvre and he flipped over onto his back.
Meanwhile Annabeth dragged herself across the ground. Piper ran to her side. She stood over her friend, sweeping her blade back and forth to keep the giants at bay. Cold blue steam now wreathed her blade.
‘Who wants to be the next Popsicle?’ she yelled, channelling anger into her charmspeak. ‘Who wants to go back to Tartarus?’
That seemed to hit a nerve. The giants shuffled uneasily, glancing at the frozen body of Periboia.
And why shouldn’t Piper intimidate them? Aphrodite was the most ancient Olympian, born of the sea and the blood of Ouranos. She was older than Poseidon or Athena or even Zeus. And Piper was her daughter.
More than that, she was a McLean. Her father had come from nothing. Now he was known all over the world. The McLeans didn’t retreat. Like all Cherokee, they knew how to endure suffering, keep their pride and, when necessary, fight back. This was the time to fight back.
Forty feet away, Percy bent over the giant king, trying to yank a sword from the braids of his hair. But Porphyrion wasn’t as stunned as he let on.
‘Fools!’ Porphyrion backhanded Percy like a pesky fly. The son of Poseidon flew into a column with a sickening crunch.
Porphyrion rose. ‘These demigods cannot kill us! They do not have the help of the gods. Remember who you are!’
The giants closed in. A dozen spears were pointed at Piper’s chest.
Annabeth struggled to her feet. She retrieved Periboia’s hunting knife, but she could barely stand upright, much less fight. Each time a drop of her blood hit the ground it bubbled, turning from red to gold.
Percy tried to stand, but he was obviously dazed. He wouldn’t be able to defend himself.
Piper’s only choice was to keep the giants focused on her.
‘Come on, then!’ she yelled. ‘I’ll destroy you all myself if I have to!’
A metallic smell of storm filled the air. All the hairs on Piper’s arms stood up.
‘The thing is,’ said a voice from above, ‘you don’t have to.’
Piper’s heart could’ve floated out of her body. At the top of the nearest colonnade stood Jason, his sword gleaming gold in the sun. Frank stood at his side, his bow ready. Hazel sat astride Arion, who reared and whinnied in challenge.
With a deafening blast, a white-hot bolt arced from the sky, straight through Jason’s body as he leaped, wreathed in lightning, at the giant king.
XLIV
Piper
For the next three minutes, life was great.
So much happened at once that only an ADHD demigod could have kept track.
Jason fell on King Porphyrion with such force that the giant crumpled to his knees – blasted with lightning and stabbed in the neck with a golden gladius.
Frank unleashed a hail of arrows, driving back the giants nearest to Percy.
The Argo II rose above the ruins and all the ballistae and catapults fired simultaneously. Leo must have programmed the weapons with surgical precision. A wall of Greek fire roared upward all around the Parthenon. It didn’t touch the interior, but in a flash most of the smaller monsters around it were incinerated.
Leo’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker: ‘SURRENDER! YOU ARE SURROUNDED BY ONE SPANKING HOT WAR MACHINE!’
The giant Enceladus howled in outrage. ‘Valdez!’
‘WHAT’S UP, ENCHILADAS?’ Leo’s voice roared back. ‘NICE DAGGER IN YOUR FOREHEAD.’
‘GAH!’ The giant pulled Katoptris out of his head. ‘Monsters: destroy that ship!’
The remaining forces tried their best. A flock of gryphons rose to attack. Festus the figurehead blew flames and chargrilled them out of the sky. A few Earthborn launched a volley of rocks, but from the sides of the hull a dozen Archimedes spheres sprayed out, intercepting the boulders and blasting them to dust.
‘PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!’ Buford ordered.
Hazel spurred Arion off the colonnade and they leaped into battle. The forty-foot fall would have broken any other horse’s legs, but Arion hit the ground running. Hazel zipped from giant to giant, stinging them with the blade of her spatha.
With extremely bad timing, Kekrops and his snake people chose that moment to join the fight. In four or five places around the ruins, the ground turned to green goo and armed gemini burst forth, Kekrops himself in the lead.
‘Kill the demigods!’ he hissed. ‘Kill the tricksters!’
Before many of his warriors could follow, Hazel pointed her blade at the nearest tunnel. The ground rumbled. All the gooey membranes popped and the tunnels collapsed, billowing plumes of dust. Kekrops looked around at his army, now reduced to six guys.
‘SLITHER AWAY!’ he ordered.
Frank’s arrows cut them down as they tried to retreat.
The giantess Periboia had thawed with alarming speed. She tried to grab Annabeth, but, despite her bad leg, Annabeth was holding her own. She stabbed at the giantess with her own hunting knife and led her in a deadly game of tag around the throne.
Percy was back on his feet, Riptide once again in his hands. He still looked dazed. His nose was bleeding. But he seemed to be standing his ground against the old giant Thoon, who had somehow reattached his hand and found his meat cleaver.
Piper stood back to back with Jason, fighting every giant who dared to come close. For a moment she felt elated. They were actually winning!
But too soon their element of surprise faded. The giants overcame their confusion.
Frank ran out of arrows. He changed into a rhinoceros and leaped into battle, but as fast as he could knock down the giants they got up again. Their wounds seemed to be healing faster.
Annabeth lost ground against Periboia. Hazel was knocked out of her saddle at sixty miles an hour. Jason summoned another lightning strike, but this time Porphyrion simply deflected it off the tip of his spear.
The giants were bigger, stronger and more numerous. They couldn’t be killed without the help of the gods. And they didn’t seem to be tiring.
The six demigods were forced into a defensive ring.
Another volley of Earthborn rocks hit the Argo II. This time Leo couldn’t return fire fast enough. Rows of oars were sheared off. The ship shuddered and tilted in the sky.
Then Enceladus threw his fiery spear. It pierced the ship’s hull and exploded inside, sending spouts of fire through the oar openings. An ominous black cloud billowed from the deck. The Argo II began to sink.
‘L
eo!’ Jason cried.
Porphyrion laughed. ‘You demigods have learned nothing. There are no gods to aid you. We need only one more thing from you to make our victory complete.’
The giant king smiled expectantly. He seemed to be looking at Percy Jackson.
Piper glanced over. Percy’s nose was still bleeding. He seemed unaware that a trickle of blood had made its way down his face to the end of his chin.
‘Percy, look out …’ Piper tried to say, but for once her voice failed her.
A single drop of blood fell from his chin. It hit the ground between his feet and sizzled like water on a frying pan.
The blood of Olympus watered the ancient stones.
The Acropolis groaned and shifted as the Earth Mother woke.
XLV
Nico
About five miles east of camp, a black SUV was parked on the beach.
They tied up the boat at a private dock. Nico helped Dakota and Leila haul Michael Kahale ashore. The big guy was still only half-conscious, mumbling what Nico assumed were football calls: ‘Red twelve. Right thirty-one. Hike.’ Then he giggled uncontrollably.
‘We’ll leave him here,’ Leila said. ‘Just don’t bind him. Poor guy …’
‘What about the car?’ Dakota asked. ‘The keys are in the glove compartment, but, uh, can you drive?’
Leila frowned. ‘I thought you could drive. Aren’t you seventeen?’
‘I never learned!’ Dakota said. ‘I was busy.’
‘I’ve got it covered,’ Nico promised.
They both looked at him.
‘You’re, like, fourteen,’ Leila said.
Nico enjoyed how nervous the Romans acted around him, even though they were older and bigger and more experienced fighters. ‘I didn’t say I would be behind the wheel.’
He knelt and placed his hand on the ground. He felt the nearest graves, the bones of forgotten humans buried and scattered. He searched deeper, extending his senses into the Underworld. ‘Jules-Albert. Let’s go.’
The ground split. A zombie in a ragged nineteenth-century motoring outfit clawed his way to the surface. Leila stepped back. Dakota screamed like a kindergartner.
‘What is that, man?’ Dakota protested.
‘This is my driver,’ Nico said. ‘Jules-Albert finished first in the Paris–Rouen motorcar race back in 1895, but he wasn’t awarded the prize because his steam car used a stoker.’
Leila stared at him. ‘What are you even talking about?’
‘He’s a restless soul, always looking for another chance to drive,’ Nico said. ‘The last few years, he’s been my driver whenever I need one.’
‘You have a zombie chauffeur,’ Leila said.
‘I call shotgun.’ Nico got in on the passenger’s side. Reluctantly, the Romans climbed in the back.
One thing about Jules-Albert: he never got emotional. He could sit in crosstown traffic all day without losing his patience. He was immune to road rage. He could even drive straight up to an encampment of wild centaurs and navigate through them without getting nervous.
The centaurs were like nothing Nico had ever seen. They had back ends like palominos, tattoos all over their hairy arms and chests, and bullish horns protruding from their foreheads. Nico doubted they could blend in with humans as easily as Chiron did.
At least two hundred were sparring restlessly with swords and spears, or roasting animal carcasses over open fires (carnivorous centaurs … the idea made Nico shudder). Their camp spilled across the farm road that meandered around Camp Half-Blood’s southeast perimeter.
The SUV nudged its way through, honking when necessary. Occasionally a centaur glared through the driver’s side window, saw the zombie driver and backed away in shock.
‘Pluto’s pauldrons,’ Dakota muttered. ‘Even more centaurs arrived overnight.’
‘Don’t make eye contact,’ Leila warned. ‘They take that as a challenge for a duel to the death.’
Nico stared straight ahead as the SUV pushed through. His heart was pounding, but he wasn’t scared. He was angry. Octavian had surrounded Camp Half-Blood with monsters.
Sure, Nico had mixed emotions about the camp. He’d felt rejected there, out of place, unwanted and unloved … but now that it was on the verge of destruction, he realized how much it meant to him. This was the last place Bianca and he had shared as a home – the only place they’d ever felt safe, even if only temporarily.
They rounded a bend in the road and Nico’s fists clenched. More monsters … hundreds more. Dog-headed men prowled in packs, their poleaxes gleaming in the light of campfires. Beyond that milled a tribe of two-headed men dressed in rags and blankets like homeless guys, armed with a haphazard collection of slings, clubs and metal pipes.
‘Octavian is an idiot,’ Nico hissed. ‘He thinks he can control these creatures?’
‘They just kept showing up,’ Leila said. ‘Before we knew it … well, look.’
The legion was arrayed at the base of Half-Blood Hill, its five cohorts in perfect order, its standards bright and proud. Giant eagles circled overhead. The siege weapons – six golden onagers the size of houses – were arrayed behind in a loose semicircle, three on each flank. But, for all its impressive discipline, the Twelfth Legion looked pitifully small, a splotch of demigod valour in a sea of ravenous monsters.
Nico wished he still had the sceptre of Diocletian, but he doubted a legion of dead warriors would make a dent in this army. Even the Argo II couldn’t do much against this kind of strength.
‘I have to disable the onagers,’ Nico said. ‘We don’t have much time.’
‘You’ll never get close to them,’ Leila warned. ‘Even if we get the entire Fourth and Fifth Cohorts to follow us, the other cohorts will try to stop us. And those siege weapons are manned by Octavian’s most loyal followers.’
‘We won’t get close by force,’ Nico agreed. ‘But alone I can do it. Dakota, Leila – Jules-Albert will drive you to the legion lines. Get out, talk to your troops, convince them to follow your lead. I’ll need a distraction.’
Dakota frowned. ‘All right, but I’m not hurting any of my fellow legionnaires.’
‘No one’s asking you to,’ Nico growled. ‘But if we don’t stop this war the entire legion will be wiped out. You said the monster tribes take insult easily?’
‘Yes,’ Dakota said. ‘I mean, for instance, you make any comment to those two-headed guys about the way they smell and … oh.’ He grinned. ‘If we started a brawl, by accident of course …’
‘I’ll be counting on you,’ Nico said.
Leila frowned. ‘But how will you –’
‘I’m going dark,’ Nico said. And he faded into the shadows.
He thought he was prepared.
He wasn’t.
Even after three days of rest and the wondrous healing properties of Coach Hedge’s gooey brown gunk, Nico started to dissolve the moment he shadow-jumped.
His limbs turned to vapour. Cold seeped into his chest. Voices of spirits whispered in his ears: Help us. Remember us. Join us.
He hadn’t realized how much he had relied on Reyna. Without her strength, he felt as weak as a newborn colt, wobbling dangerously, ready to fall at every step.
No, he told himself. I am Nico di Angelo, son of Hades. I control the shadows. They do not control me.
He stumbled back into the mortal world at the crest of Half-Blood Hill.
He fell to his knees, hugging Thalia’s pine tree for support. The Golden Fleece was no longer in its branches. The guardian dragon was gone. Perhaps they’d been moved to a safer spot with the battle so close. Nico wasn’t sure. But, looking down at the Roman forces arrayed outside the valley, his spirits wavered.
The nearest onager was a hundred yards downhill, encircled in spiked trenches and guarded by a dozen demigods. The machine was primed, ready to fire. Its huge sling cupped a projectile the size of a Honda Civic, glowing with flecks of gold.
With icy certainty, Nico realized what Octavian was up to.
The projectile was a mixture of incendiaries and Imperial gold. Even a small amount of Imperial gold could be incredibly volatile. Exposed to too much heat or pressure, the stuff would explode with devastating impact, and of course it was deadly to demigods as well as monsters. If that onager scored a hit on Camp Half-Blood, anything in the blast zone would be annihilated – vaporized by the heat, or disintegrated by the shrapnel. And the Romans had six onagers, all stocked with piles of ammunition.
‘Evil,’ Nico said. ‘This is evil.’
He tried to think. Dawn was breaking. He couldn’t possibly take down all six weapons before the attack began, even if he found the strength to shadow-travel that many times. If he managed it once more, it would be a miracle.
He spotted the Roman command tent – behind and to the left of the legion. Octavian would probably be there, enjoying breakfast at a safe distance from the fighting. He wouldn’t lead his troops into battle. The little scumbag would hope to destroy the Greek camp from a distance, wait for the flames to die down, then march in unopposed.
Nico’s throat constricted with hate. He concentrated on that tent, envisioning his next jump. If he could assassinate Octavian, that might solve the problem. The order to attack might never be given. Nico was about to attempt it when a voice behind him said, ‘Nico?’
He spun, his sword instantly in his hand, and almost decapitated Will Solace.
‘Put that down!’ Will hissed. ‘What are you doing here?’
Nico was dumbstruck. Will and two other campers were crouched in the grass, binoculars around their necks and daggers at their side. They wore black jeans and T-shirts, with black grease paint on their faces like commandos.
‘Me?’ Nico asked. ‘What are you doing? Getting yourselves killed?’
Will scowled. ‘Hey, we’re scouting the enemy. We took precautions.’
‘You dressed in black,’ Nico noted, ‘with the sun coming up. You painted your face but didn’t cover that mop of blond hair. You might as well be waving a yellow flag.’
Will’s ears reddened. ‘Lou Ellen wrapped some Mist around us, too.’
‘Hi.’ The girl next to him wriggled her fingers. She looked a little flustered. ‘You’re Nico, right? I’ve heard a lot about you. And this is Cecil from Hermes cabin.’