The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5)(115)

Another cheer on Jason’s right as Percy and Annabeth reunited with the forces of Camp Half-Blood.

‘Greeks!’ Percy yelled. ‘Let’s, um, fight stuff!’

They yelled like banshees and charged.

Jason grinned. He loved the Greeks. They had no organization whatsoever, but they made up for it with enthusiasm.

Jason was feeling good about the battle, except for two big questions: Where was Leo? And where was Gaia?

Unfortunately, he got the second answer first.

Under his feet, the earth rippled as if Half-Blood Hill had become a giant water mattress. Demigods fell. Ogres slipped. Centaurs charged face-first into the grass.

AWAKE, a voice boomed all around them.

A hundred yards away, at the crest of the next hill, the grass and soil swirled upward like the point of a massive drill. The column of earth thickened into the twenty-foot-tall figure of a woman – her dress woven from blades of grass, her skin as white as quartz, her hair brown and tangled like tree roots.

‘Little fools.’ Gaia the Earth Mother opened her pure green eyes. ‘The paltry magic of your statue cannot contain me.’

As she said it, Jason realized why Gaia hadn’t appeared until now. The Athena Parthenos had been protecting the demigods, holding back the wrath of the earth, but even Athena’s might could only last so long against a primordial goddess.

Fear as palpable as a cold front washed over the demigod army.

‘Stand fast!’ Piper shouted, her charmspeak clear and loud. ‘Greeks and Romans, we can fight her together!’

Gaia laughed. She spread her arms and the earth bent towards her – trees tilting, bedrock groaning, soil rippling in waves. Jason rose on the wind, but all around him monsters and demigods alike started to sink into the ground. One of Octavian’s onagers capsized and disappeared into the side of the hill.

‘The whole earth is my body,’ Gaia boomed. ‘How would you fight the goddess of –’

FOOOOMP!

In a flash of bronze, Gaia was swept off the hillside, snarled in the claws of a fifty-ton metal dragon.

Festus, reborn, rose into the sky on gleaming wings, spewing fire from his maw triumphantly. As he ascended, the rider on his back got smaller and more difficult to discern, but Leo’s grin was unmistakable.

‘Pipes! Jason!’ he shouted down. ‘You coming? The fight is up here!’

LII

Jason

AS SOON AS GAIA ACHIEVED LIFTOFF, the ground solidified.

Demigods stopped sinking, though many were still buried up to their waists. Sadly, the monsters seemed to be digging themselves out more quickly. They charged the Greek and Roman ranks, taking advantage of the demigods’ disorganization.

Jason put his arms around Piper’s waist. He was about to take off when Percy yelled, ‘Wait! Frank can fly the rest of us up there! We can all –’

‘No, man,’ Jason said. ‘They need you here. There’s still an army to defeat. Besides, the prophecy –’

‘He’s right.’ Frank gripped Percy’s arm. ‘You have to let them do this, Percy. It’s like Annabeth’s quest in Rome. Or Hazel at the Doors of Death. This part can only be them.’

Percy obviously didn’t like it, but at that moment a flood of monsters swept over the Greek forces. Annabeth called to him, ‘Hey! Problem over here!’ Percy ran to join her.

Frank and Hazel turned to Jason. They raised their arms in the Roman salute, then ran off to regroup the legion.

Jason and Piper spiralled upward on the wind.

‘I’ve got the cure,’ Piper murmured like a chant. ‘It’ll be fine. I’ve got the cure.’

Jason realized she’d lost her sword somehow during the battle, but he doubted it would matter. Against Gaia, a sword would do no good. This was about storm and fire … and a third power, Piper’s charmspeak, which would hold them together. Last winter, Piper had slowed the power of Gaia at the Wolf House, helping to free Hera from a cage of earth. Now she would have an even bigger job.

As they ascended, Jason gathered the wind and clouds around him. The sky responded with frightening speed. Soon they were in the eye of a maelstrom. Lightning burned his eyes. Thunder made his teeth vibrate.

Directly above them, Festus grappled with the earth goddess. Gaia kept disintegrating, trying to trickle back to the ground, but the winds kept her aloft. Festus sprayed her with flames, which seemed to force her into solid form. Meanwhile, from Festus’s back, Leo blasted the goddess with flames of his own and hurled insults. ‘Potty Sludge! Dirt Face! THIS IS FOR MY MOTHER, ESPERANZA VALDEZ!’

His whole body was wreathed in fire. Rain hung in the stormy air, but it only sizzled and steamed around him.

Jason zoomed towards them.

Gaia turned into loose white sand, but Jason summoned a squadron of venti who churned around her, constraining her in a cocoon of wind.

Gaia fought back. When she wasn’t disintegrating, she lashed out with shrapnel blasts of stone and soil that Jason barely deflected. Stoking the storm, containing Gaia, keeping himself and Piper aloft … Jason had never done anything so difficult. He felt like he was covered in lead weights, trying to swim with only his legs while holding a car over his head. But he had to keep Gaia off the ground.

That was the secret Kym had hinted at when they spoke at the bottom of the sea.

Long ago, Ouranos the sky god had been tricked down to the earth by Gaia and the Titans. They’d held him on the ground so he couldn’t escape and, with his powers weakened from being so far from his home territory, they’d been able to cut him apart.