The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5)(42)

‘You worthless child!’ he roared. ‘I will rip the flesh from your limbs!’

‘Coach, go!’ Nico said.

The satyr sprinted towards the temple. He made the top of the podium in a single leap and scrambled up the left pillar.

Two wolves broke free from the thicket of bones. Reyna threw her knife and impaled one in the neck. Her dogs pounced on the other. Aurum’s fangs and claws slipped harmlessly off the wolf’s hide, but Argentum brought the beast down.

Argentum’s head was still bent sideways from the fight in Pompeii. His left ruby eye was still missing, but he managed to sink his fangs into the wolf’s scruff. The wolf dissolved into a puddle of shadow.

Thank goodness for silver dogs, Nico thought.

Reyna drew her sword. She scooped a handful of silver coins from Hedge’s baseball cap, grabbed duct tape from the coach’s supply bag and began taping coins around her blade. The girl was nothing if not inventive.

‘Go!’ she told Nico. ‘I’ll cover you!’

The wolves struggled, causing the bone thicket to crack and crumble. Lycaon freed his right arm and began smashing through his prison of ribcages.

‘I will flay you alive!’ he promised. ‘I will add your pelt to my cloak!’

Nico ran, pausing just long enough to grab Reyna’s silver pocketknife from the ground.

He wasn’t a mountain goat, but he found a set of stairs at the back of the temple and raced to the top. He reached the base of the columns and squinted up at Coach Hedge, who was precariously perched at the feet of the Athena Parthenos, unravelling ropes and knotting a ladder.

‘Hurry!’ Nico yelled.

‘Oh, really?’ the coach called down. ‘I thought we had tons of time!’

The last thing Nico needed was satyr sarcasm. Down in the square, more wolves broke free of their bone restraints. Reyna swatted them aside with her modified duct-tape-coin-sword, but a handful of change wasn’t going to hold back a pack of werewolves for long. Aurum snarled and snapped in frustration, unable to hurt the enemy. Argentum did his best, sinking his claws into the throat of another wolf, but the silver dog was already damaged. Soon he’d be hopelessly outnumbered.

Lycaon freed both his arms. He started pulling his legs from their ribcage restraints. There were only a few seconds until he would be loose.

Nico was out of tricks. Summoning that wall of bones had drained him. It would take all his remaining energy to shadow-travel – assuming he could even find a shadow to travel into.

A shadow.

He looked at the silver pocketknife in his hand. An idea came to him – possibly the stupidest, craziest idea he’d had since he thought, Hey, I’ll get Percy to swim in the River Styx! He’ll love me for that!

‘Reyna, get up here!’ he yelled.

She slammed another wolf in the head and ran. In mid-stride, she flicked her sword, which elongated into a javelin, then used it to launch herself up like a pole-vaulter. She landed next to Nico.

‘What’s the plan?’ she asked, not even out of breath.

‘Show-off,’ he grumbled.

A knotted rope fell from above.

‘Climb, ya silly non-goats!’ Hedge yelled.

‘Go,’ Nico told her. ‘Once you’re up there, hang on tight to the rope.’

‘Nico –’

‘Do it!’

Her javelin shrank back into a sword. Reyna sheathed it and began to climb, scaling the column despite her armour and her supplies.

Down in the plaza, Aurum and Argentum were nowhere to be seen. Either they’d retreated or they’d been destroyed.

Lycaon broke free of his bone cage with a triumphant howl. ‘You will suffer, son of Hades!’

What else is new? Nico thought.

He palmed the pocketknife. ‘Come get me, you mutt! Or do you have to stay like a good dog until your master shows up?’

Lycaon sprang through the air, his claws extended, his fangs bared. Nico wrapped his free hand around the rope and concentrated, a bead of sweat trickling down his neck.

As the wolf king fell on him, Nico thrust the silver knife into Lycaon’s chest. All around the temple, wolves howled as one.

The wolf king sank his claws into Nico’s arms. His fangs stopped less than an inch from Nico’s face. Nico ignored his own pain and jabbed the pocketknife to the hilt between Lycaon’s ribs.

‘Be useful, dog,’ he snarled. ‘Back to the shadows.’

Lycaon’s eyes rolled up in his head. He dissolved into a pool of inky darkness.

Then several things happened at once. The outraged pack of wolves surged forward. From a nearby rooftop, a booming voice yelled, ‘STOP THEM!’

Nico heard the unmistakable sound of a large bow being drawn taut.

Then he melted into the pool of Lycaon’s shadow, taking his friends and the Athena Parthenos with him – slipping into cold ether with no idea where he would emerge.





XVII


Piper


PIPER COULDN’T BELIEVE how hard it was to find deadly poison.

All morning she and Frank had scoured the port of Pylos. Frank allowed only Piper to come with him, thinking her charmspeak might be useful if they ran into his shape-shifting relatives.

As it turned out, her sword was more in demand. So far, they’d slain a Laistrygonian ogre in the bakery, battled a giant warthog in the public square and defeated a flock of Stymphalian birds with some well-aimed vegetables from Piper’s cornucopia.