Chapter 1

Minotaur Steaks & Other Wartime Problems

I stood there, up on Half-blood hill, watching the cyclops fall again for the countlessth time. My squad had killed the Minotaur just two minutes ago. It had been two terrible weeks, killing mon- sters and burying the dead. All of us up top had hoped fighting a common enemy would bring the Greeks and Romans together, but that wasn't the case. The Greeks and Romans were angrier than every. The Romans wanted to make us look like chumps and the Greeks didn't want the help of the Romans.

"Luke, where are we going now?"

I looked back towards Jacob, a Roman with an already thin- ning hairline. I felt bad for him. He looked fifty even though he was my age.

"We'll push further out," I said.

Connor piped up: "We can't. Chris and Katie are injured. If we don't have more reinforcements, we'll get creamed."

I looked back at our two fallen friends. I'd have to send the younger ones to take them back.

"Jim, Amy, take them back," I addressed the whole squad, "We have to keep moving forward if Reyna's squad has any chance of making it past the front line."

Our small brigade ran past the carnage towards the next obsta- cle. God, I needed a break. I bet I sounded like a general to you guys. I had changed a bit, but not too much.

Dr. Thorn, the Southern Manticore, burst out of the pines, tossing trees in every direct. The eight of us scattered. I ducked under a tree that was hurdling at my head and charged Dr. Thorn. He thrust his hand out, and with my demigod reflexes, I slid away and brought my sword down on his forearm. Black oozing puss came from his arm, coating my sword. I didn't think any of it until I tried to slash this freak of nature's leg. Nothing happened.

Dr. Thorn grinned before swiping me aside. Connor took my place and beat Dr. Thorn back. The others surrounded and over- whelmed him. They stabbed and kicked at Dr. Thorn, avoiding his tale.

Katie saw Dr. Thorn's defenses were down, sprinted several meters behind him and shot an arrow straight into the small of his back. Simultaneously, his stinger thrust at Katie. I ran as fast as I could, pulling myself up and slammed my sword down on Dr. Thorn's tail. He let out one last profanity before falling.

"Thanks," Katie said shakily.

"No problem." I looked up. Reyna's squad was falling back. We should to. "All right, let's get back," I shouted.

This was a typical day, you know: get up, take a shower, eat canned SPAM or whatever was found (we'd eaten Minotaur steaks), brush teeth, get fully dressed, have a quick chat with the squad, go kill some monsters, attend to supernatural wounds, eat a disgusting lard and scraps sandwich for dinner, lie alone in my tent wondering if I should give up now, and fall asleep before do- ing this all over. Like I said, normal routine.

The eleven of us went to our little encampment. Reyna's new dork of an augur came up with the idea of artificial tribunes which was a fancy term for assigned groups. I told you the Greeks and Roman had to work together in the beginning, I didn't tell you that we had no say over our own Greek squad. This way we wouldn't be Greeks and Romans fighting at the same time. We'd just be people. I felt like that was punishment from Reyna.

We started to talk around the camp fire once everyone had calmed down.

"When do you think this will be over?"
"Ages. Maybe our grandkids will be fighting this war."
Jacob said tiredly, "It can't be that long since the doors of death are closed now.

"I don't know, I talked to the council, and they said it might take some time," I said.

"When is the council going to do something good, eh?" asked Butch.

"Watch it," I said. "The council is doing its best. It's amazing we've gotten this far."

"Well, I think we need to go back to our Greek army and win this ourselves."

I shot Butch a look. "The artificial tribunes are fine. We took down thirty-two monsters today and pushed forward almost a mile. That's an accomplishment."

"Luke's right, we shouldn't be fighting," said Connor.

Butch stood up, knocking over a thermos of coffee. "Shut up, Connor. Not everyone follows Luke the traitor—"

With his chest heaving, Dakota stood up and put his finger in Butch's face. "Don't mess with Connor."

"Don't mess with me," said Butch.
"No, I said don't mess with him, comprende?"
"Shut up, I shouted.
The two of them ignored me and started to circle each other.

They looked like giant man babies since they were bald and had fat rolls. I didn't snicker since I had to stop the two three-hun- dred pound man babies.

"Ay, knock it off."

Butch got under Dakota and wrapped himself around his leg, trying to pull him the ground. Dakota slapped him in the face and tackled him. I thought it was funny that a Roman was defending a Greek. Maybe the tribes worked.

I finally stood up, but it was too late. Thalia had come from be- hind a tent shouting at the two to stop fighting. They complied because Thalia was scary as Hades.

"Luke, control them."
"I was going to," I said sheepishly. "So, what's up?"
Thalia handed me a letter. "It's from Reyna."
"She can't speak to me?"
Thalia shook her head. I could see it in her stormy eyes, the un-settlement. None of us knew how Reyna was doing after I, you know, made out with Thalia. I unfolded the letter. It said:

To Luke Castellan:
I request your presence at 05:00 tomorrow. Expect a long discussion.

—Reyna Ramirez-Arellano

To tell the truth, Thalia had to help me read the letter. I could barely read with the dyslexia, and my eyes were crossing from the lack of sleep. Five o' clock in the morning was early and I'd have to stay there for a while. Well, a couple Red Bulls would fix this situation.

"You all right, Luke?"

I nodded. "Yeah, it's just..." I sighed. "I don't know. I wished I never broke her heart."

"Don't we all," shouted Butch from across the fire pit.

"Shut it. Look, Thalia, I'm sorry if I'm not really being a great boyfriend, talking about Reyna—"

Thalia leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. "It'll be fine once this war's over."

"Yeah, I hope," I said glumly.

Thalia patted me on the shoulder before walking back towards her tribe. I was an idiot for kissing her. You know that, I know that—it's ridiculous. I wanted to run away from all this. Instead I was plunging myself deeper into this heroic lifestyle. It's like I was asking to die. But I wanted to do the most for the world.

Ow! I wiped a cold cut off my face. "What the hell, Austin?"
"I was aiming for Connor," said Austin.
Austin was Connor's age. Son of Apollo and master archer, he was an asset to our tribe. He reminded me of Michael Yew who died in the Titan wars—another crappy reminder of what I've done.

"Just get some sleep. We've got another day of work."

I headed to my tent and stripped down before laying in bed. It was impossible to sleep with the heat and this cot. God, this sucked. I missed the hotel Drew, Connor, Coach, and I stayed at for a solid three hours. That was like two months ago. Poseidon sent me a message back there while I was swimming in the salt- water pool and recently.

The recent one was while I was in the bathroom—it was awk- ward—and he told me some cryptic message about taking refugeon the ground—whatever that meant. I was rarely in the sky any- ways because Zeus hated my guts. I'm surprised his brother Po- seidon didn't hate me since I tried to kill his favorite son.

The next morning I groped around in the dark getting dressed, and headed to the temporary meeting-place at the mess hall. Rey- na was already there. She might have been there all night because there was a candle burning with only an inch left on her desk. I slowly approached, fearing that her metallic dogs would appear and chase me away.

"Reyna," I called out.
She only nodded. I stopped ten feet away from her.
"You wanted to see me?" I said in my most mannerly voice.
She leaned against the desk. "Yes, Luke, I never gave you a chance to talk about your relationships in private."

That hurt.
"Reyna, I was thinking we should put this behind us until after the war. You even said on the back of the boat that talking about these thing—"

She shook her head. "Not this time, Luke. I just want to clear this up." She said it wistfully. God, What had I done. I gave up someone who loved me for a girl I only knew for a few years.

I said tiredly, "I'm sorry Reyna. It was a flood of emotions— and I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry."

I swallowed and moved a bit closer. "I don't even know what's going on anymore, or how I feel."

Reyna shifted away from me. There wasn't much I could say to make her stop.

"Luke, I loved you, even with your problems. I just can't get over this."

"Of course, I wasn't suggesting anything. I'm sorry though. I know how many times you've been hurt by parents, friends, boyfriends and I—"

Reyna slammed me against the pillar. "Luke, just shut up! I don't know how you can keep talking. If you had cared, you wouldn't have kissed Thalia."

I didn't move even though my instincts told me to grab her.

"Listen, the Boule are coming. You need to stop," I stammered. "This isn't even important compared to the war and you of all people should know it."

She socked me, I won't tell you where, and stalked off. I limped to the desk and sat down. There were notes and battle strategies like you'd expect, but then I found a napkin like the one at the hotel in Rome with Reyna's thoughts scrawled down. I won't say what they were for her privacy but they were pretty sad. I wished I could do something to fix it, but I didn't know how. Thalia didn't know either. It was one of those things that was difficult to solve even without a war happening at the same time.

At least this wasn't a love triangle, am I right? It's over with me and Reyna. She'll move on to another guy and I'll have Thalia, if I don't do anything to ruin that.

Well, this wasn't a very long discussion. In fact, it was only ten minutes. If I could give you advice, don't date someone while your lover is away. It only gets complicated.

Hey guys, thanks for reading. If this is your first story of mine, check out the first story Hera's Task or (The Legend of Luke Castellan). If you're reading my next story, thanks for supporting me. I hope you guys enjoy this project. Comment, subscribe, follow. Thanks for taking a peek.