The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5)(101)

Piper hadn’t noticed it until then, but now she heard it: an ominous drone in the distance, like a hundred forklifts idling. She looked at the ground and noticed bits of gravel trembling, skittering southeast, as if pulled towards the Parthenon.

‘Right,’ Piper said. ‘We’ll meet up at the giant’s throne.’

At first it was easy.

Monsters were everywhere – hundreds of ogres, Earthborn and Cyclopes milling through the ruins – but most of them were gathered at the Parthenon, watching the ceremony in progress. Piper strolled along the cliffs of the Acropolis unchallenged.

Near the first onager, three Earthborn were sunning themselves on the rocks. Piper walked right up to them and smiled. ‘Hello.’

Before they could make a sound, she cut them down with her sword. All three melted into slag heaps. She slashed the onager’s spring cord to disable the weapon, then kept moving.

She was committed now. She had to do as much damage as possible before the sabotage was discovered.

She skirted a patrol of Cyclopes. The second onager was surrounded by an encampment of tattooed Laistrygonian ogres, but Piper managed to get to the machine without raising suspicion. She dropped a vial of Greek fire in the sling. With luck, as soon as they tried to load the catapult, it would explode in their faces.

She kept moving. Gryphons roosted on the colonnade of an old temple. A group of empousai had retreated into a shadowy archway and appeared to be slumbering, their fiery hair flickering dimly, their brass legs glinting. Hopefully the sunlight would make them sluggish if they had to fight.

Whenever she could, Piper slew isolated monsters. She walked past larger groups. Meanwhile the crowd at the Parthenon grew larger. The chanting got louder. Piper couldn’t see what was happening inside the ruins – just the heads of twenty or thirty giants standing in a circle, mumbling and swaying, maybe doing the evil monster version of ‘Kumbayah’.

She disabled a third siege weapon by sawing through the torsion ropes, which should give the Argo II a clear approach from the north.

She hoped Frank was watching her progress. She wondered how long it would take for the ship to arrive.

Suddenly, the chanting stopped. A BOOM echoed across the hillside. In the Parthenon, the giants roared in triumph. All around Piper, monsters surged towards the sound of celebration.

That couldn’t be good. Piper blended into a crowd of sour-smelling Earthborn. She bounded up the main steps of the temple, then climbed a section of metal scaffolding so she could see above the heads of the ogres and Cyclopes.

The scene in the ruins almost made her cry aloud.

Before Porphyrion’s throne, dozens of giants stood in a loose ring, hollering and shaking their weapons as two of their number paraded around the circle, showing off their prizes. The princess Periboia held Annabeth by the neck like a feral cat. The giant Enceladus had Percy wrapped in his massive fist.

Annabeth and Percy both struggled helplessly. Their captors displayed them to the cheering horde of monsters, then turned to face King Porphyrion, who sat in his makeshift throne, his white eyes gleaming with malice.

‘Right on time!’ the giant king bellowed. ‘The blood of Olympus to raise the Earth Mother!’





XLIII


Piper


PIPER WATCHED IN HORROR as the giant king rose to his full height – almost as tall as the temple columns. His face looked just as Piper remembered – green as bile, with a twisted sneer, his seaweed-coloured hair braided with swords and axes taken from dead demigods.

He loomed over the captives, watching them wriggle. ‘They arrived just as you foresaw, Enceladus! Well done!’

Piper’s old enemy bowed his head, braided bones clattering in his dreadlocks. ‘It was simple, my king.’

The flame designs gleamed on his armour. His spear burned with purplish fire. He only needed one hand to hold his captive. Despite all of Percy Jackson’s power, despite everything he had survived, in the end he was helpless against the sheer strength of the giant – and the inevitability of the prophecy.

‘I knew these two would lead the assault,’ Enceladus continued. ‘I understand how they think. Athena and Poseidon … they were just like these children! They both came here thinking to claim this city. Their arrogance has undone them!’

Over the roar of the crowd, Piper could barely hear herself think, but she replayed Enceladus’s words: these two would lead the assault. Her heart raced.

The giants had expected Percy and Annabeth. They didn’t expect her.

For once, being Piper McLean, the daughter of Aphrodite, the one nobody took seriously, might play to her advantage.

Annabeth tried to say something, but the giantess Periboia shook her by the neck. ‘Shut up! None of your silver-tongued trickery!’

The princess drew a hunting knife as long as Piper’s sword. ‘Let me do the honours, Father!’

‘Wait, Daughter.’ The king stepped back. ‘The sacrifice must be done properly. Thoon, destroyer of the Fates, come forward!’

The wizened grey giant shuffled into sight, holding an oversized meat cleaver. He fixed his milky eyes on Annabeth.

Percy shouted. At the other end of the Acropolis, a hundred yards away, a geyser of water shot into the sky.

King Porphyrion laughed. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, son of Poseidon. The earth is too powerful here. Even your father wouldn’t be able to summon more than a salty spring. But never fear. The only liquid we require from you is your blood!’