Morning rose with fierce intensity; the dawn sun breaking its way in through the opening of the chamber, the light hitting their eyes and dragging them awake.
They washed up in the little bathroom that the room had and downed another packet of chips each, Rashidah vowing to be the one to pick rations the next time.
As Clarisse stood- and the health in her eyes was gaining steadily- she asked them, "So this plus all the weapons we have back at Camp, you think it's enough? Can we go back now?"
"You just want to see Chris!" Connor rolled his eyes and dodged to avoid her fist.
Katie frowned, "Gods, I think we forgot to tell you- seeing as you were taken from camp before the Golden started implementing all these rules and stuff-"
"Long story short," Travis injected, "The idiots confiscated all our weapons from the cabins and the armoury. We're left with nothing now."
"That's why we came here," Will said nudging one of Daedalus's suitcases, "This is all we have right now."
Clarisse shrugged mulled over this latest revelation angrily as she cursed. "Might as well. So let's get going?"
"Will, get the invention." Rashidah said and the rest leant forward eagerly to see the little spider that Will had found previously.
He turned on the tiny gadget again and it sped to the same wall as yesterday, tapping on it with its spindly, metal legs.
"Where do you think that goes?" Austin frowned.
"It cannot be the labyrinth." Said Rashidah, "That was destroyed… But it might be some underground passage."
"Woah, wait a second." Katie glared, "We're going to go around following this random spider-like thing just because Will found it?"
"Hey," Will countered, "It's got Hephaestus's mark on it- that's trustworthy."
"Why not?" Travis asked, "We've done lots more stupider stuff on this trip. That's a word, right? 'Stupider'?"
"Let's just figure out what's behind the wall-" Will began when a clanking sound from the room jolted them around. In the shadows of the chamber, nearest to the opening, something had begun to move.
Fear gripped them with fierce longing when the first of the shadows came into being, the rest blocking up the opening behind them; pale creatures of human-like make, with pupil-less eyes that seemed to be cut from the moon, their features twisted and marred as if they had been burned, waxy and dying but very much cold and alive.
In those mournful, dead eyes without hope they could see one thing: Death.
Limbs twisting in unholy contortions, the first one stepped forward like autumn leaves rustling on dead earth.
The creeping silence was broken by a single word.
"Run."
The band started banging on the wall and Will scooped up the spider as the creatures advanced; it was Katie who saved them, using her powers as a child of Demeter to break the earth in front of them and they hurtled forward urgently, Connor supporting her as she weakly ran forward from the exertion.
They descended through a carved tunnel with the creatures hot on their back; just behind Will, Clarisse crumpled to the ground, her face taut and wheezing. Will tossed the spider to Rashidah and turned behind to help her up, the rushing creatures in his eyes. "Austin, help me!" He yelled as he lifted the girl on one side. Austin quickly took up the other.
"Screw-this-bull!" Clarisse panted, "Let's just- stay and fight!"
"There's no war to be won here!" Connor shouted from in front of them as Will and Austin dragged her along- the beasts were getting closer and closer now.
"Connor, let me go!" Katie yelped from in front of them and she turned around.
"What the hades are you doing?"
The girl stood still just in front of the creatures as they came closer and closer, her face twisted in concentration as her hands moved in front of her.
Will passed Clarisse to Austin as he ran back to see what she was doing, Connor behind him. Finally the very earth before Katie descended in a splintering shower of soil and rock, creating a barrier between the groups; hard and quick the earth rained down, making a thick, solid wall. Katie collapsed against the ground, and Rashidah rushed towards her, hastily taking a square of ambrosia out of Will's bag.
"You saved us." Travis said in amazement.
"Yeah, yeah." She breathed as she inhaled the square.
"Will that keep them?" Will asked, clearing his mind from the shock. He could hear distant sounds of scrabbling and he could see, in his mind, the cold empty eyes of the creatures.
"It will buy us time, at the very least." Rashidah said as she helped Katie up, Travis falling next to her.
"What the hades were those?" Austin asked, wiping sweat from his face.
"Do you think they were like, guardians of the workshop or something?" Clarisse asked; her face was a mixture of humiliation and anger from her fall.
A sound oddly reminiscent of wolves began to echo mournfully from behind the barrier. Rashidah's face paled in the darkness of the tunnel. "Did you see their eyes?" She whispered. "They reminded me of the moon."
Will snapped to look at her, remembering the reason she had been able to find her way to The Hills.
"Let's just go, alright?" Travis asked as he and Connor helped Katie up; the girl was looking much better. "This place gives me the creeps."
"What does the spider thing say?" Will asked Rashidah, as they began to walk quickly down the tunnel. She set the contraption on the ground; of course, it moved only forward, that was the only way available in the straight tunnel.
"Well, unless we want to go back…" Travis began and they started to walk unwillingly down the passage.
"I'm fine!" Clarisse snapped as Will turned around to help her walk. "That was just an accident, I tripped is all!"
"You're still weak from your time at The Hills." Will said warily.
"I'm fine." She growled and walked on.
Shrugging, he eyed her uneasily before he turned to Rashidah. "So what do you think those things were?"
The girl's dark eyes were troubled and she was running her hands around what seemed to look like an ivory horn she had taken from her bag. "I do not want to speak of it; I am not sure myself… It just seemed as if… as if… nevermind."
Will's ADHD got the better of him, "What's that?" He asked, pointing at the horn.
A wistful expression settled down on Rashidah's face. "The horn of the hunters. When you are inducted to the hunt, Lady Artemis grants you with one; blow into it and your sisters will come to your aid; if they wish to, of course." She mumbled finally, jamming the horn back into her bag.
Will felt a rush of pity for this girl, she was in a lot of ways, just like him. Leaders who didn't appear to be doing a very good job even if that was all they wanted to do; to keep their friends safe. "It's going to be fine." He smiled at her and she returned the gesture.
Behind them, Travis spoke. "Hey guys, where do you think we are?" He was holding up a flashlight to the walls and they noticed carvings etched on them.
"These look like battle plans." Clarisse frowned as she looked at a piece of parchment tacked onto a board. In the new light of the torches, they saw that the walls were filled with various boards decorated with mementos of some kind.
Taking a closer look at the spider, Rashidah said, "There's something inside the carving of the Eta; numbers… 1861?"
"What's so special about 1861?" Austin asked.
"It was the year the civil war started." Clarisse replied and everyone turned to look at her in shock, "What, daughter of Ares aren't I?"
"These pictures definitely look as if they came from that era." Faded pictures tacked to the walls showed older teenagers in military uniforms at some sort of training ground.
"Hold on…" Will asked, squinting at one of them. "Isn't that the Ares cabin? You can see the boar hitched to it."
"Gods, some of these pictures were from Camp!" Austin said, pointing to a shot of soldiers seated for a photograph on a bench. "This one's got the Big House in the background!"
"What does it mean?"
"It means that probably some demigods were fighting the civil war." Clarisse said, deadpan.
"Okay, let's just continue walking." Travis said. "I don't like the feeling of the creatures behind us. Remember them?"
And so they continued on their way.
"You know how the Golden is always making their plans?" Malcolm frowned as The Last Olympians were gathered again in their usual hideout after curfew. "They're always coming up with these new rules and things, stands to reason that they'd have this log to record it, right?"
"Yeah, so what?" Drew asked.
Malcolm raised palms, "So what if new camp rules aren't the only things that the Golden discusses? What if they are more important things there?"
Chris frowned, "We'll be dancing on luck, Malcolm. What if they don't have a log?"
The boy rolled his eyes. "Please, it's like the unwritten rule of military history- or maybe it's written, who knows- they do have a log or meeting minutes or notes, any one of those things."
"Where the hades do you think they keep that?" Mitchell mused.
"The big house, probably." Malcolm replied. "I mean, logically, it is their headquarters."
"How are we supposed to find out where they keep this log book or whatever, if it exists?" snorted Drew.
Malcolm looked at all of them, "I figured that would be a job for the children of Aphrodite."
They had no idea how long they'd been walking; the fatigue, coupled with the burbling hunger, fear that any minute the beasts from the workshop would reappear and the general uneasiness because no one exactly knew where they were being led to was extremely unsettling. The group was feeling a common twinge of frustration.
Katie checked her watch, "We've been walking for two hours." She moaned. "Where are we even going?"
"There's no other option," Will said, "The trail only leads one way."
"Okay," said Travis, "We're stuck in an unending underground tunnel that looks like it was last used in the civil war, on the lead of some spider thing with Hephaestus's mark. We can't go back because they've got these demon-beast things looking for us. What the hades is going on?"
"This could be a military base." Clarisse frowned, her hand gently brushing one of the numerous battle maps that dotted the walls. "It was probably used during the civil war; a passage or trail of some sort." She glared at him, "Would you stop looking so amazed, punk? It's not that hard to figure out."
"But why did the spider thing want to lead us through here?" Austin asked. "I mean, obviously they're connected and all… But what did Hephaestus have to do with the civil war?"
Rashidah spoke, "If I recall- my memory not serve best, my section of the Hunt was not in America at the time- the gods were somehow involved in the mortal battles. I remember Artemis leading another section of the Hunt back to America to fight while mine, led by Zoe, was searching for an elusive beast across the Atlantic."
"And the pictures of Camp Half-Blood…" Connor dragged the puzzle pieces to one another, "You think demigods fought on one side?"
"It could be like World War II as well." Clarisse reasoned. "Enemy demigods pitched against one another like Hades against the other two."
"Wait, you think this passage leads to Camp Half-Blood?"
Rashidah cocked an eyebrow. "You expect this trail to lead all the way to your camp? Do you know how long it would take to walk between Colorado and Long Island? Is such a thing even possible?"
"We know that Daedalus was alive during the civil war, like Percy told us last time- dude's been alive for centuries. This could be some secret passage that they used to travel!" Connor said excitedly.
"It does make sense." Said Will, as he slammed his fist softly against the wall, "Well, at least we know where we're going."
"Well, punks," Clarisse murmured as she twisted the cap off a bottle and took a long drink, "We've got a long way to go."