The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #4)(6)

Annabeth and I hiked to the crest of the hill. The young guardian dragon was dozing, coiled around the pine tree, but he lifted his coppery head as we approached and let Annabeth scratch under his chin. Steam hissed out his nostrils like from a teakettle, and he went cross-eyed with pleasure.

“Hey, Peleus,” Annabeth said. “Keeping everything safe?”

The last time I’d seen the dragon he’d been six feet long. Now he was at least twice that, and as thick around as the tree itself. Above his head, on the lowest branch of the pine tree, the Golden Fleece shimmered, its magic protecting the camp’s borders from invasion. The dragon seemed relaxed, like everything was okay. Below us, Camp Half-Blood looked peaceful— green fields, forest, shiny white Greek buildings. The four-story farmhouse we called the Big House sat proudly in the midst of the strawberry fields. To the north, past the beach, the Long Island Sound glittered in the sunlight.

Still…something felt wrong. There was tension in the air, as if the hill itself were holding its breath, waiting for something bad to happen.

We walked down into the valley and found the summer session in full swing. Most of the campers had arrived last Friday, so I already felt out of it. The satyrs were playing their pipes in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow with woodland magic. Campers were having flying horseback lessons, swooping over the woods on their pegasi. Smoke rose from the forges, and hammers rang as kids made their own weapons for Arts & Crafts. The Athena and Demeter teams were having a chariot race around the track, and over at the canoe lake some kids in a Greek trireme were fighting a large orange sea serpent. A typical day at camp.

“I need to talk to Clarisse,” Annabeth said.

I stared at her as if she’d just said I need to eat a large, smelly boot. “What for?”

Clarisse from the Ares cabin was one of my least favorite people. She was a mean, ungrateful bully. Her dad, the war god, wanted to kill me. She tried to beat me to a pulp on a regular basis. Other than that, she was just great.

“We’ve been working on something,” Annabeth said. “I’ll see you later.”

“Working on what?”

Annabeth glanced toward the forest.

“I’ll tell Chiron you’re here,” she said. “He’ll want to talk to you before the hearing.”

“What hearing?”

But she jogged down the path toward the archery field without looking back.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Great talking with you, too.”

***

As I made my way through camp, I said hi to some of my friends. In the Big House’s driveway, Connor and Travis Stoll from the Hermes cabin were hot-wiring the camps SUV. Silena Beauregard, the head counselor for Aphrodite, waved at me from her Pegasus as she flew past. I looked for Grover, but I didn’t see him. Finally I wandered into the sword arena, where I usually go when I’m in a bad mood. Practicing always calms me down. Maybe that’s because swordplay is one thing I can actually understand.

I walked into the amphitheater and my heart almost stopped. In the middle of the arena floor, with its back to me, was the biggest hellhound I’d ever seen.

I mean, I’ve seen some pretty big hellhounds. One the size of a rhino tried to kill me when I was twelve. But this hellhound was bigger than a tank. I had no idea how it had gotten past the camp’s magic boundaries. It looked right at home, lying on its belly, growling contentedly as it chewed the head off a combat dummy. It hadn’t noticed me yet, but if I made a sound, I knew it would sense me. There was no time to go for help. I pulled out Riptide and uncapped it.

“Yaaaaah!” I charged. I brought down the blade on the monster’s enormous backside when out of nowhere another sword blocked my strike.

CLANG!

The hellhound pricked up its ears. “WOOF!”

I jumped back and instinctively struck at the swordsman—a gray-haired man in Greek armor. He parried my attack with no problem.

“Whoa there!” he said. “Truce!”

“WOOF!” The hellhound’s bark shook the arena.

“That’s a hellhound!” I shouted.

“She’s harmless,” the man said. “That’s Mrs. O’Leary.”

I blinked. “Mrs. O’Leary?”

At the sound of her name, the hellhound barked again. I realized she wasn’t angry. She was excited. She nudged the soggy, badly chewed target dummy toward the swordsman.

“Good girl,” the man said. With his free hand he grabbed the armored manikin by the neck and heaved it toward the bleachers. “Get the Greek! Get the Greek!”

Mrs. O’Leary bounded after her prey and pounced on the dummy, flattening its armor. She began chewing on its helmet.

The swordsman smiled dryly. He was in his fifties. I guess, with short gray hair and a clipped gray beard. He was in good shape for an older guy. He wore black mountain-climbing pants and a bronze breastplate strapped over an orange camp T-shirt. At the base of his neck was a strange mark, a purplish blotch like a birthmark or a tattoo, but before I could make out what it was, he shifted his armor straps and the mark disappeared under his collar.

“Mrs. O’Leary is my pet,” he explained. “I couldn’t let you stick a sword in her rump, now, could I? That might have scared her.”

“Who are you?”

Promise not to kill me if I put my sword away?”