The Demigod Files(12)

At the word Hephaestus the dragon’s neck straightened. A shiver rippled through its metal body, throwing a new shower of mud clods all over us.

The dragon looked around as if trying to find an enemy.

‘We have to show it,’ Annabeth said. ‘Come on, dragon! This way to the son of Hephaestus! Follow us!’

Just like that, she drew her sword, and the three of us climbed out of the pit.

‘For Hephaestus!’ Annabeth yelled, which was a nice touch. We charged through the woods. When I looked behind us, the bronze dragon was right on our tail, its red eyes glowing and steam coming out its nostrils.

It was a good incentive to keep running fast as we headed for the Ant Hill.

When we got to the clearing, the dragon seemed to catch Beckendorf’s scent. It barrelled ahead of us, and we had to jump out of its way to avoid getting flattened. It crashed through the trees, joints creaking, feet pounding craters into the ground.

It charged straight for the Ant Hill. At first, the Myrmekes didn’t know what was happening. The dragon stepped on a few of them, smashing them to bug juice. Then their telepathic network seemed to light up, like: Big dragon. Bad!

All the ants in the clearing turned simultaneously and swarmed over the dragon. More ants poured out of the hill – hundreds of them. The dragon blew fire and sent a whole column of them into a panicked retreat. Who knew ants were flammable? But more kept coming.

‘Inside, now!’ Annabeth told us. ‘While they’re focused on the dragon!’

Silena led the charge; it was the first time I’d ever followed a child of Aphrodite into battle. We ran past the ants, but they ignored us. For some reason they seemed to consider the dragon a bigger threat. Go figure.

We plunged into the nearest tunnel and I almost gagged from the stench. Nothing, I mean nothing, stinks worse than a giant ant lair. I could tell they let their food rot before eating it. Somebody seriously needed to teach them about refrigerators.

Our journey inside was a blur of dark tunnels and mouldy rooms carpeted with old ant shells and pools of goo. Ants surged past us on their way to battle, but we just stepped aside and let them pass. The faint bronze glow of my sword gave us light as we made our way deeper into the nest.

‘Look!’ Annabeth said.

I glanced into a side room, and my heart skipped a beat. Hanging from the ceiling were huge, gooey sacks – ant larvae, I guess – but that’s not what got my attention. The cave floor was heaped with gold coins, gems and other treasures – helmets, swords, musical instruments, jewellery. They glowed the way magic items do.

‘That’s just one room,’ Annabeth said. ‘There are probably hundreds of nurseries down here, decorated with treasure.’

‘It’s not important,’ Silena insisted. ‘We have to find Charlie!’

Another first: a child of Aphrodite uninterested in jewellery.

We forged on. After six more metres, we entered a cavern that smelled so bad my nose shut down completely. The remains of old meals were piled as high as sand dunes – bones, chunks of rancid meat, even old camp meals. I guess the ants had been raiding the camp’s compost heap and stealing our leftovers. At the base of one of the heaps, struggling to pull himself upright, was Beckendorf. He looked awful, partly because his camouflage armour was now the colour of garbage.

‘Charlie!’ Silena ran to him and tried to help him up.

‘Thank the gods,’ he said. ‘My – my legs are paralysed!’

‘It’ll wear off,’ Annabeth said. ‘But we have to get you out of here. Percy, take his other side.’

Silena and I hoisted Beckendorf up, and the four of us started back through the tunnels. I could hear distant sounds of battle – metal creaking, fire roaring, hundreds of ants snapping and spitting.

‘What’s going on out there?’ Beckendorf asked. His body tensed. ‘The dragon! You didn’t – reactivate it?’

‘Afraid so,’ I said. ‘Seemed like the only way.’

‘But you can’t just turn on an automaton! You have to calibrate the motor, run a diagnostic… There’s no telling what it’ll do! We’ve got to get out there!’

As it turned out, we didn’t need to go anywhere, because the dragon came to us. We were trying to remember which tunnel led to the exit when the entire hill exploded, showering us in dirt. Suddenly we were staring at open sky. The dragon was right above us, thrashing back and forth, smashing the Ant Hill to bits as it tried to shake off the Myrmekes crawling all over its body.

‘Come on!’ I yelled. We dug ourselves out of the dirt and stumbled down the side of the hill, dragging Beckendorf with us.

Our friend the dragon was in trouble. The Myrmekes were biting at the joints of its armour, spitting acid all over it. The dragon stomped and snapped and blew flames, but it couldn’t last much longer. Steam was rising from its bronze skin.

Even worse, a few of the ants turned towards us. I guess they didn’t like us stealing their dinner. I slashed at one and lopped off its head. Annabeth stabbed another right between the feelers. As the celestial bronze blade pierced its shell, the whole ant disintegrated.

‘I – I think I can walk now,’ Beckendorf said, and immediately fell on his face when we let go of him.

‘Charlie!’ Silena helped him up and pulled him along while Annabeth and I cleared a path through the ants. Somehow we managed to reach the edge of the clearing without getting bitten or splashed, though one of my sneakers was smoking from acid.