The Demigod Files(8)

But that time with the bronze dragon? I thought for sure my friends and I were going to end up as Kibbles ’n’ Dragon Bits.

The evening started simply enough.

It was the end of June. I’d come back from my most recent quest about two weeks before, and life at Camp Half-Blood was returning to normal. Satyrs were chasing the dryads. Monsters howled in the woods. The campers were playing pranks on one another and our camp director, Dionysus, was turning anyone who misbehaved into a shrub. Typical summer-camp stuff.

After dinner, all the campers were hanging out at the dining pavilion. We were all excited because that evening capture the flag was going to be totally vicious.

The night before, Hephaestus’s cabin had pulled off a huge upset. They’d captured the flag from Ares – with my help, thank you very much – which meant that the Ares cabin would be out for blood. Well… they’re always out for blood, but this night especially.

On the blue team were Hephaestus’s cabin, Apollo, Hermes and me – the only demigod in Poseidon’s cabin. The bad news was that for once Athena and Ares – both war god cabins – were against us on the red team, along with Aphrodite, Dionysus and Demeter. Athena’s cabin held the other flag and my friend Annabeth was their captain.

Annabeth is not somebody you want as an enemy.

Right before the game, she strolled up to me. ‘Hey, Seaweed Brain.’

‘Will you stop calling me that?’

She knows I hate that name, mostly because I never have a good comeback. She’s the daughter of Athena, which doesn’t give me a lot of ammunition. I mean, ‘Owl-head’ and ‘Wise Girl’ are kind of lame insults.

‘You know you love it.’ She bumped me with her shoulder, which I guess was supposed to be friendly, but she was wearing full Greek armour, so it kind of hurt. Her grey eyes sparkled under her helmet. Her blonde ponytail curled around one shoulder. It was hard for anyone to look cute in combat armour, but Annabeth pulled it off.

‘Tell you what.’ She lowered her voice. ‘We’re going to crush you tonight, but if you pick a safe position… like right flank, for instance… I’ll make sure you don’t get pulverized too much.’

‘Gee, thanks,’ I said, ‘but I’m playing to win.’

She smiled. ‘See you on the battlefield.’

She jogged back to her teammates, who all laughed and gave her high fives. I’d never seen her so happy, like the chance to beat me up was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

Beckendorf walked up with his helmet under his arm. ‘She likes you, man.’

‘Sure,’ I muttered. ‘She likes me for target practice.’

‘Nah, they always do that. A girl starts trying to kill you, you know she’s into you.’

‘Makes a lot of sense.’

Beckendorf shrugged. ‘I know about these things. You ought to ask her to the fireworks.’

I couldn’t tell if he was serious. Beckendorf was lead counsellor for Hephaestus. He was this huge dude with a permanent scowl, muscles like a pro ballplayer, and hands calloused from working in the forges. He’d just turned eighteen and was on his way to NYU in the autumn. Since he was older, I usually listened to him about stuff, but the idea of asking Annabeth to the Fourth of July fireworks down at the beach – like, the biggest dating event of the summer – made my stomach do somersaults.

Then Silena Beauregard, the head counsellor for Aphrodite, passed by. Beckendorf had had a not-so-secret crush on her for three years. She had long black hair and big blue eyes, and when she walked the guys tended to watch. She said, ‘Good luck, Charlie.’ (Nobody ever calls Beckendorf by his first name.) She flashed him a brilliant smile and went to join Annabeth on the red team.

‘Uh…’ Beckendorf swallowed like he’d forgotten how to breathe.

I patted him on the shoulder. ‘Thanks for the advice, dude. Glad you’re so wise about girls and all. Come on. Let’s get to the woods.’

Naturally, Beckendorf and I took the most dangerous job.

While the Apollo cabin played defence with their bows, the Hermes cabin would charge up the middle of the woods to distract the enemy. Meanwhile, Beckendorf and I would scout around the left flank, locate the enemy’s flag, knock out the defenders and get the flag back to our side. Simple.

Why the left flank?

‘Because Annabeth wanted me to go right,’ I told Beckendorf, ‘which means she doesn’t want us to go left.’

Beckendorf nodded. ‘Let’s suit up.’

He’d been working on a secret weapon for the two of us – bronze chameleon armour, enchanted to blend into the background. If we stood in front of rocks, our breastplates, helms and shields turned grey. If we stood in front of bushes, the metal changed to a leafy green. It wasn’t true invisibility, but we’d have pretty good cover, at least from a distance.

‘This stuff took forever to forge,’ Beckendorf warned me. ‘Don’t mess it up!’

‘You got it, Captain.’

Beckendorf grunted. I could tell he liked being called Captain. The rest of the Hephaestus campers wished us well, and we sneaked off into the woods, immediately turning brown and green to match the trees.

We crossed the creek that served as the boundary between the teams. We heard fighting in the distance – swords clashing against shields. I glimpsed a flash of light from some magical weapon, but we saw no one.