Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.
Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative
Chapter Twenty-Five
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
—T. S. Eliot
People always think that the approach of death will make them scream, or cry out in rage.
It doesn't.
Death makes you quiet. Very, very quiet.
In the hours before nightfall, Camp Half-Blood was close to silent. The demigods did what they could to prepare for darkness, and they spoke only when necessary. The only sounds in camp were those of occasional shouted orders, or the noise of equipment being moved into position.
We didn't hold meetings. There wasn't any point. Chiron personally spread the news of the fall of Olympus through camp, telling individual counsellors and letting them pass the word along. I sat with Nico for a while, but we didn't say much. We were too shocked.
Well, Nico was shocked. I wasn't, not really. I'd known what my dream had meant even before Chiron came to us. I just hadn't been willing to recognise the disaster I'd witnessed through my fragmented visions. No, I wasn't surprised. I was just afraid. Everything that had happened up to this point made sense to me now. Tartarus's demand for the piece of darkness. His tactical use of his forces. His subtle manipulations. I saw that a great strategy had played out around us, and all our actions had been mere pebbles ricocheting off the shell of the shadow-lord's war machine.
Now we were at the end of that great plan, at the culminating point of Jake and Tartarus's schemes, and I was terrified because I had no idea what was going to happen to us. Were we going to be killed, slaughtered without a second thought? Or were some of us going to be imprisoned, even used against the gods as bait to draw out the escaped Olympians who were now fugitives in their own land?
The only thing I was certain of was that there was no escape, and as nightfall drew near, it was clear that the half-bloods agreed with me. You could tell by how none of them were discussing options, or plans, or even hopes.
When demigods stop trying to find ways to survive, you really are screwed.
I spent most of the afternoon with Kevin, by the lakeside, watching the meagre preparations go on about us. The son of Ares had nothing to do: the Hephaestus kids were repairing any damaged weaponry, and no-one was interested in training drills. A few hours' more practice wasn't going to make a whole lot of difference at this point. More than anything, there was a sense that every half-blood was using this time to accept their fates.
So the two of us sat there, talking about things, even about strategy. Annabeth and Chiron had formed a rough idea that not even the imaginative could call a plan.
"We're going to hang on as long as possible," Kevin told me, lying on his back, eyes closed as the sun glared into his face. "We'll go out to face them before they reach camp, and slow them down. When they push us back, we'll retreat in stages, delaying their advance as much as we can. Eventually we'll have to surrender Half-Blood Hill and fall back into camp itself, and there we'll hold our position until the end. If we fight hard enough, we might be able to repel Tartarus's forces for another day. We have the Hunters, and Chiron thinks the residual energy from the borders will interfere with the monsters' connection to Tartarus once they reach the hilltop."
"You really think that's possible?" I said, sitting with my legs crossed, looking down at him. "You think we can fight them off again?"
Kevin was silent for a long time, his expression so still that he could have dozed off in the summer warmth. Eventually, he replied, without emotion, "There's a chance. But the problem is that even if we hold off the monsters tonight, they'll be back. Tartarus has risen. He can summon fresh forces for as long as he needs. Not even Hades can stop that. He can keep this siege going forever."
"Unless we find a way to take him out," I said, staring into the lake. There was no-one on the water now, and even the nereids had disappeared. "That's the only way out of this."
"But how can we take him out if we need to be here to defend the only place we control, and hell, if we can't even get away from here?"
A thought, wild and barely-formed, passed through my mind, but I dismissed it immediately. It was implausible, and anyway Tartarus was bound to have thought of it already.
"Yeah." I heaved a sigh. "You're right."
"And another thing worries me," Kevin said, after a while.
"What's that?"
"Rhea. She and her lackeys have been lying low for months, just making guerrilla attacks here and there, but they haven't had the chance to do anything really threatening. I'm worried, now the gods are gone and we're in a weak position, Xavier will take advantage of the power vacuum. Even if there was some way out of here, what would we do if we had to face two enemies at once?"
He sighed, and straightened up, opening his eyes.
"There'll be just one good thing about tonight," he muttered, passing a hand over his face.
"What's that?"
"It'll be peaceful when it's over," Kevin replied, giving me a gallows-humour grin. "Nobody ever bothers you when you're dead."
At around four o'clock, we started moving the cabins.
Not all of them, of course, but any cabin that wasn't nailed down and that was light enough to be pushed along the ground was moved across camp. This meant most of the minor cabins, and two of the major ones. It turned out that the Hephaestus building had retractable wheels so that it could be rolled across camp.
It took two hours to move them all, two long, effortful hours, the work conducted in near-silence. In the end, we had ten cabins standing in a row at the foot of the hill. I couldn't help thinking of Hestia as we turned our former homes into our last line of defence.
After that, we had the most subdued dinner I'd ever seen anywhere. Most barely even ate, they just picked at their food, talking in murmurs. My table was one of the worst. With Anna gone, the group was broken, the centre ripped out in a moment's horror, yet no-one dared to mention it. Nathan was acting counsellor, but he sat in his usual place, not so much as glancing at Anna's empty spot at the top of the table.
But despite the sorrow and the fear, there was a sense of resolve in the air. Perhaps we were doomed, but none of us were surrendering, even to a fate that was clearly inescapable. It wasn't in the nature of half-bloods to give up. They'd lost hope, and victory was an impossibility, but so was ceasing to struggle.
At least they differed from their parents in that regard.
The only group with any enthusiasm was Artemis's. The Hunters were poised and even a little confident, not sharing the dark outlook held by those of us who'd been fighting for days already. Thalia sat among them, discussing things animatedly, and I wondered if it was really possible that she and her fellow warrior-nuns could save us.
When the meal was over, or, more accurately, when most people had stopped pretending to be hungry, Chiron got to his feet.
"Heroes," he began. The defeat I'd seen in him this morning was gone, replaced by a convincing mask of resolve. "Tonight, we confront our greatest challenge. Never before have we faced such a powerful enemy with so little support. Of all our allies, only the Hunters of Artemis are with us now."
Chiron bowed his head at their table, and Thalia inclined hers in return.
"It is, I know, an impossible task," he went on, looking around the pavilion, meeting each person's eyes. "Even if we drive Tartarus's forces away from our home tonight, it will only be the start of a much longer conflict. The gods are now scattered across the West. The son of Chaos is preparing to snuff out the light of civilisation. Should we survive tonight, it will fall to us alone to defeat Tartarus, and to restore the gods to their place."
The words of the prontos profiteia echoed in my mind: True power, the darkness will gain,/While the gods shall face eternal pain.
"But we have not been defeated until the final hero falls," Chiron went on, his voice raising, fists clenching. "Tartarus has not won until we are vanquished, until we have no possible way to strike back. We failed to stop the son of Chaos from regaining his ancient power, but perhaps things were always meant to be this way. Perhaps it is only by facing down Tartarus when he is at his strongest that we can truly defeat him."
He paused, still looking around the pavilion, daring us to agree or deny. "If we fall tonight, we will do so in the knowledge that we have done everything in our power to repel the darkness. We die only when we have done all we can to live."
A few cheers, the first enthusiastic noises since the previous night, began to sound through the pavilion.
"We will not be cowed, and we will not flinch as we stand against the tide," Chiron said, raising one fist. "We are the defenders of the west, and we will fulfil that role, despite its dangers."
The cheers were getting louder now, spreading from table to table.
"If Olympus has fallen, and we can no longer fight for it," Chiron was almost shouting now, as the noise grew, "we can fight for ourselves, our survival. We can fight for each other, for our friends, and for our families, whose lives will be destroyed should Tartarus gain a grip on this land. We can fight for civilisation, to which the son of Chaos is a sworn enemy. We can fight, beyond anything else, for humanity, and its freedom from the menace of the dark!"
The shouts reached a crescendo, and the pavilion erupted, all of us joining in, surging to our feet and shouting up, out, at the sky, shaking our fists and expressing our wordless defiance at the dark, even as the sun began its descent into obscurity and the shadows of the night started to form around us.
The ten of us stood in a loose line, staring down the road, waiting for the monsters to show themselves. About a quarter of mile behind us, another ten half-bloods were doing the same thing. Half-Blood Hill was halfway between the two groups.
It was dusk. A warm glow in a distant part of the sky was all that remained of the sun. We'd extinguished most of the torches along the road. The last two sat on either side of us, casting an eerie upward light.
"I don't hear anything," said Percy, a few steps in front of us, squinting down the road.
"I really don't like this," said Alex, next to me. The son of Hecate had been plenty exuberant when we'd left the hill, but after ten minutes' waiting, he was getting edgy. His aura flickered and flared like a candle. "What if they sneak up around us? We'll be surrounded."
I glanced at Alex, then to our left and right. We were surrounded by rough grassland, with no possible coverage for any would-be commando monsters. He didn't notice my pointed look, and kept muttering his nervous thoughts, glancing around as though Tartarus himself was about to drop out of the sky.
"Anything?" Annabeth said in our earpieces.
"Nothing," Percy replied. "How about our better half?"
"Same story," said Clarisse, over the radio. The daughter of Ares, along with some other half-bloods from the first night of fighting, had been released from the infirmary mere hours ago. They weren't in perfect condition, but at this point, we needed everyone who could walk.
Kevin stood on my other side. He was calm and ready, a contrast to Alex's nerves, his sword held in front of him in a relaxed pose. Percy, too, was totally calm, while the other demigods were at varying points on the spectrum of nervousness.
We spoke little, just waiting. I had my sight fully engaged. I was certain that Jake was going to pull some trick to get an early advantage. I wouldn't put it past him to shadow-travel the monsters past us, or even around us, which would fulfil Alex's fears. I kept my concentration, staring at the road ahead, tensed to catch the first trick.
In the end, I didn't need to.
We heard them first, their heavy breathing and footsteps rolling along in an inhuman rhythm. I exchanged glances with Percy, who nodded, and held a finger to his lips. Three bursts of static came over the radio - the signal that the other advance team had also spotted approaching monsters. The sounds of their approach were distant, but as the moments dragged by the noises grew louder until, in the still silence of the night, it felt like the monsters were already right in front of us.
Then we caught the first glimpses of movement.
"There!" Percy hissed, pointing. Though they were obscured by the darkness, I made out the leading ranks of Jake's troops, about a hundred metres down the road. Their movement was steady, neither dragging nor rushing.
The half-bloods readied their weapons. I drew my knife. This wasn't meant to be a long exchange. We were supposed to disrupt the monsters' organisation, break up their front ranks to reduce the damage they could do when they reached camp, then retreat quickly.
And as they came into the view, I realised that this had been a very good idea.
"Christ," Kevin muttered. A few other half-bloods echoed the sentiment in more vociferous terms.
As Annabeth had expected, Jake had heavily front-loaded the assault. The first two rows of monsters were all Laistrygonians, and behind them lumbered a couple of ranks of Hyperboreans. At least thirty-two heavyweight beasts, a deathly sharp tip to the spear that Jake sought to drive into camp's heart.
The gap between us and them was down to seventy metres now. Percy raised Riptide.
"Remember," he muttered, "don't get trapped in any long fights. Kill what you can in the next few minutes. Then we get back to the hill."
We made various noises of assent, though I'm sure I wasn't the only one wondering if things would be that simple. I scanned the monsters with my sight, but I found nothing, no hint of a shadow-trick, but you don't need magic to make a plan go awry.
"Don't move yet," Annabeth whispered in our ears. "Wait until they're close enough to see you. You don't want to give them the time and space to charge."
Kevin was still as a stone next to me, but I couldn't help moving my weight from foot to foot, anything to relieve the nerves. My heart thumped, and I heard the half-bloods' breathing speeding up.
The Laistrygonians were about thirty-five metres away, and they still hadn't seen us, concealed as we were by the shadow of the trees around us, but that couldn't last much longer.
Then, Alex snapped.
"They're too close, we can't—" He withdrew something from his pocket - a runestone. I grabbed his arm, hissing at him, but he jerked free, and before Percy or anyone else could react, he spoke a word of power, and an arc of green power shot from the stone. It soared through the air, painfully bright in the night, before plummeting into the front rows of monsters. There was a small explosion on impact, and a few monsters were hurled in the air, landing on the ground with painful thuds.
Those who weren't flung about like oversized rag dolls shouted in angry surprise, and came to a halt, glaring around for the source of the blast.
It took them about a half a second to spot us.
"Okay," Percy said, in a normal, very calm voice. "That was unnecessary, man."
"Sorry," Alex stammered.
He started to say something in apology, but I didn't hear him because the monsters chose that moment to run towards us, screaming and slavering in rage.
Percy cursed, and then roared, "Don't stand there! Charge!"
He rushed forward and we followed, throwing ourselves towards the monsters in the hope of neutralising their stampede with our own. We were lucky. If the creatures had started running even ten metres further back, they would have reached crushing speed, but as it was they only had fifteen metres to gather speed. When we crashed into them, our momentum was roughly equal and cancelled out theirs.
That was one problem solved. Now we just had the other little issue of getting caught in a guerrilla skirmish with a gang of furious monsters.
I found myself directly under an ten-foot-tall Laistrygonian. It didn't notice me for a second, but it swung its big wooden club around wildly once, twice, nearly hitting me the third time. I ducked under the weapon's arc and jammed my dagger into its side.
Normally monsters explode instantly after such a wound, but nothing happened. The giant just staggered, roared, and looked down. It flicked the club contemptuously, and luckily its aim was bad. It clipped my arm rather than smash me in the face, but still I was thrown back. I hit the ground, winded, but rolled to the left in time to avoid being stepped on by a Hyperborean. Around me, the demigods ducked and weaved amongst the raging monsters.
I got to my feet, still dizzy, as the Laistrygonian lumbered toward me, my knife still stuck in its side. We eyed each other, paying no attention to the combatants around us. I needed to get my blade, but the club was in the way and the damn monster knew my weapon was stuck in it. It waved its weapon at me, leering, taunting.
A mad thought occurred to me, and I ran straight at the giant. Its beady eyes widened in glee, and it raised the club high over its head to bring it down on mine, but I picked up speed. I drew within its reach, and at the last second before the club came down, I jumped. As the wooden weapon swung at me, I leapt up past it, coming down in an arc and colliding squarely with the Laistrygonian's now-confused-looking face.
I hit hard, shoulder-first, and he came off the worse. I landed at his feet, and got upright just in time to snatch my dagger back. He stumbled backwards, but I moved with him, and and stabbed him twice, three times in the legs.
Finally, the damn Canadian exploded into yellow dust. Triumphant, I turned to see how my friends were doing - and nearly got my face torn off by a dracaena.
"Why," I shouted, dodging the lunge and slashing the monster's arm, "are dracaena always trying to eat my face?" The thing screeched in pain but didn't back off, and slashed at my face again with a jagged claw. I weaved, keeping too close for the monster to have room to manoeuvre, moving too fast to be bitten. It feinted a couple times, then jerked at me with its head, but the movement was too obvious. I had time to react, and cut the monster's throat.
Through the ensuing cloud of dust I glimpsed Percy slaying the last Hyperborean with a flying leap that ended in a neat decapitation, and I saw several demigods wrestling with a cohort of telkhines, trying to keep the sea-creatures' teeth from their necks.
Then I heard Annabeth. "You've been in there too long, you need to get out," she shouted, loud enough to give me a pain in my ear, to accompany the throb in my arm where the club had hit me. An odd goblin-like monster rushed me, but I kicked it in the chest, sending it flying towards Percy, who saw it out of the corner of his eye and despatched it with a single stroke.
"You've done enough damage, withdraw now, both teams."
"Let's get out of here!" I shouted. Some of this team didn't seem to be hearing Annabeth, but the demigod closest to me, a daughter of Ares named Emily, heard me and echoed my call.
"Let's move, move, move!" she shouted, already backing away. Finally Percy heard, dispatched the telkhine menacing him, and hurried towards us, shouting at the others to follow. Within seconds, the ten of us were beating a hasty retreat.
Well, hasty retreat doesn't really do us justice. We ran as fast as we freaking could away from an army of monsters who were, as I may have already mentioned, screaming and slavering. We dashed up the road towards camp, barely ahead of Tartarus's forces, the chaos among their ranks slowing them down. Our arms pumped, the weapons in our hands waving dangerously as as we steamed up the road.
Within moments we reached the foot of the hill, and the other team was already here, hurrying up to our next strategic point. We joined them, and I found myself running next to Clarisse and Zack, but still the monsters were mere metres behind us. We laboured up the hill, forming into a solid group of twenty as we went, according to the plan.
We got halfway up the slope, and Clarisse and Percy started yelling at us to halt. We did so, stopping and turning to face the monsters as they surged up the hill.
I glanced around. I'd ended up next to Olivia and Bradley. The son of Demeter looked confident, ready for the fight, but the daughter of Hecate was more nervous, though not as bad as her brother. Tartarus's troops steamed towards us, spreading out across the hill even as we did the same. Olivia caught my eye just before we re-engaged, and gave me a nod - not quite a goodbye, but not quite a gesture of encouragement, either.
And just before the monsters could slam into us—
"Leo, release the ballistics."
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"
I heard a whump over the radio, followed by a rush of air overhead as our other payload came rushing over the hill, through the air—
"GET DOWN!"
And we threw ourselves down as the projectile hit the foot of the slope with a crash. Monster screams rang out horribly, muffled quickly by the rough sounds of quick, small explosions. But then a rallying screech came as the monsters regathered. We straightened up, as they resumed their charge.
The catapult had taken out six or seven ranks of the attackers, and slowed their momentum, but it hadn't stopped them. It had just made them a lot more angry, and so they came barreling up towards us, apparently furious that we dared defend ourselves.
And as they did so, our reinforcements came over the hill behind us.
All the rest of our ground fighters, along with any Hunters who hadn't joined the archery teams, came over the crest of the hill and surged down to strengthen our defence, just the monsters cleared the distance and ran into us. The conflict was resumed as we took our stand on the slope of Half-Blood Hill, fighting now with every drop of belief and strength we had left. In the first few seconds, another goddamn Laistrygonian nearly impaled me with a rusty spear, but Olivia, a runestone clutched in her left hand, tossed a blast of power into its face. The giant screamed and fell backwards, tumbling down the slope and crushing some smaller monsters.
"Thanks," I shouted, but she'd already disappeared into the fray, hacking through a team of what looked like miniature minotaurs.
I kept my sight running as I fought, now facing another telkhine, and I found that it helped me to predict the monsters' decisions. Just before they started to move, their dark aura, heavy with Tartarus's protection, trembled in a certain direction. It wasn't much, but enough to give me warning. I avoided a rake across the chest from the telkhine's claws, and killed it with three jabs.
I became aware of things flying overhead, and I realised that the archers in the towers had opened fire, and were pouring arrows onto the attackers as fast as they could pull them from their magic pouches. For a brief moment, I was afraid that I'd be hit, but my irrational doubt in the marksmanship of the Apollo kids was allayed when a single arrow sheared through the air and pierced the eye of a small minotaur that was diving toward me.
The fight was a whirlwind. Normally in a battle I dealt with one enemy at a time, but this was a real nightmare. Two, three monsters were always around me at once, never giving me a second to breathe. My only advantage was that they didn't know how to work as a team, but just stumbled over each other in their lust for the kill. That gave me the option of playing my attackers against each other, but it was still a struggle to stay ahead, to dance a beat ahead of evisceration.
Three dracaena ringed me, hissing and jabbing, but I dodged one, and another accidentally plunged a sword into the third, which exploded, providing me the distraction I needed to decapitate the first monster. That left only one, which lurched at me, but before I could react an arrow speared its head in a gruesome execution.
Around me, the half-bloods span and hacked, moving with grace and finesse even while performing ruthless acts of combat. We were keeping up, just barely, holding back the mighty tsunami of darkness with a few well-placed stones, but our defensive line was tenuous. I stumbled back from a Hyperborean's icy sword, and glanced down the hill for a brief moment. I caught sight of the full army, and my heart sank.
Tartarus's new power had had a lot of repercussions, and one of them was that he'd boosted his forces tenfold. The army stretched all the way down the hill, and then down the road in both directions, disappearing out of sight in the gloom of the night. The impact of our catapults was already distant history.
But I didn't have time to process that. The Hyperborean lurched at me, breathing waves of frost which mired the muddy ground, and a vicious-looking telkhine was following in the giant's wake. I slipped to the side, out of the way of the swinging sword, and skittered around the monster, forcing it to twist - and the sword swung right into the telkhine, slicing it in two. That left me with ol' Frosty, but now I was behind him. I darted in close and stabbed, not deep but a few times.
The thing roared and tried to toss me away but I anticipated the tactic, and got out of the way of its thrashing. Finally it dragged itself around to face me. I tensed, looking for an opening. But before I could dive in, an expression of dim surprise crossed the monster's face, and it exploded into yellow dust. I held my arm over my face, trying to avoid breathing the gunk in. When the air cleared, I saw Kevin standing there, his sword still raised.
"You're welcome." He had to shout over the chaos of the battle, though we were only feet apart.
I gave him a thumbs-up, turned, and plunged back into the fray.
I found myself alongside Annabeth, as she took on a trio of empousa at once. These were deadly, smart fighters, not dumb foot-soldiers like the others. Two of them were engaging Annabeth, keeping her busy defending, while the third was lurking to one side, waiting for an opportunity. The moment I turned to them, the third empousa moved, swinging its rapier at Annabeth's neck.
"No!" I shouted, and I rushed forward, throwing myself into the path of the blade.
It wasn't a terribly smart move, but it worked. The empousa jerked in surprise, and the sword's arc slipped. It sailed right into my chest, but that didn't matter much since it was made of celestial bronze. Spitting with fury, the goat-like creature turned its focus onto me.
I became aware of the net in its left hand. I tensed, and we were both still for a second, waiting for the other to commit first. I watched the monster's aura for some sign of intention. She watched my posture for some sign of movement into the range of her throwing net. Next to us, Annabeth disarmed an empousa, shouting in triumph as she drove her blade into the creature's neck.
I let my gaze flicker toward my empousa's exposed left side, and started to move. Instantly its aura twitched around its arm, and I jerked in the other direction just as she threw the net. It sailed right past me, and I closed in before she could get over her surprise. She jerked her bronze sword at me again, and it harmlessly passed through my neck. Her guard was wide open, and I stepped in, slashing my knife across her neck.
She exploded, just as Annabeth dispatched her other half-donkey, half-bronze enemy with a very Annabethly snarl. I turned to congratulate her, when a terrible screaming noise filled the air, like the screech of a dying god.
My senses flared, even as I shut my eyes and pressed one hand over an ear. I could feel the approach of a new danger, several of them. My consciousness started to ebb away, overwhelmed by the pressure, as the screaming grew louder, blotting out everything else, but I fought back, steadying my breathing and holding on. I opened my eyes.
It was just like the battle of Los Angeles. A number of dark spirits had joined the battle, hurtling through the air around us like comets, occasionally swerving into the battle, sending out blasts of power, causing chaos. The largest of them, with the most intense aura, circled above us, ripples of greyish energy spiralling down from it.
"It's Dolos!" I realised, looking at Annabeth, who was listlessly fending off a Hyperborean. I hurried over, rammed my knife as far into the thing's torso as I could. I ignored its disintegration, turning to the daughter of Athena. "Dolos is here, he's using his powers to mess with us, I can see it."
Annabeth caught my eyes for a second, her expression deadened by the spirit's influence, and nodded. I stumbled back a step as another pint-sized minotaur galloped at me. While I fought it off, she spoke on the radio, "Dolos is assaulting us with his powers, be aware of it. He's trying to make us give up fighting. Don't give in, don't let him into your minds."
A number of half-bloods shouted back in assent, even as I heard a scream of pain. Another of our number had fallen, cut down by a leathery telkhine. I dispatched the minotaur, glanced behind me, and got a shock.
The plan had been to hold our position at the middle of the hill, but that hadn't worked out so good. The sheer pressure of the monsters had pushed us back - right back, to the top of the hill. Thalia's tree was behind me.
"Chiron!" I took a step back from the battle, leaned against the tree, and shouted into my radio. "What's the situation with the borders? How far have they contracted?"
The centaur came in. "They've pulled back as far as our row of cabins." His tone was grim. "I think they've stabilised for the moment. We should move to the next stage of the plan. At least if you fall back here, the Hunters and the archers can take up their new positions and we can regroup behind Olivia's wards."
It had turned out that the camp borders hadn't just failed in one poof. They were collapsing slowly, contracting foot by foot. This wasn't really much better in the long run, but it gave us some small chance of making it through the night.
Annabeth came in, as Percy stumbled past me, grappling with yet another Hyperborean. "Are we confirmed on that, Chiron? Move to stage three?"
The centaur paused, and in that silence I wondered what kind of pain it was causing him to give the order to let the monsters pour down the wrong side of Half-Blood Hill. Even to me, it was an unthinkable, horrible idea.
"Do it. Move to stage three."
"All half-bloods, fall back to our second line," Annabeth ordered instantly. "The borders have contracted and we need to regroup. Fall back behind the second line now."
The half-bloods reacted immediately. They disentangled from the monsters, slaying those around them and gathering up their fallen friends with military efficiency. Behind me, there were creaks, and doors opened at the bottom of the towers. The children of Apollo poured out, bolting down the hill without backwards glances, but the Hunters came out and stayed on the hilltop. The monsters were confused, and seemed to think we were fleeing in fear. They tried to rush forward, but the Hunters laid down covering fire, pounding the attackers with silver arrows as everyone gathered at the top of the hill. I fell in with them, helping Kevin to carry a fallen son of Ares. Annabeth and Percy were close by, helping a tired Clarisse, who'd taken the Golden Fleece from the pine tree, according to the plan.
Then we made the dash downhill, a reverse of our upslope run earlier. Horrific, triumphant roars rang out from the army behind us, the spirits screeched overhead, and for a moment I felt like I was already dead, trapped in a terrible, circular nightmare in the Fields of Punishment. We kept moving, the Hunters still covering us as they began to edge down the hill, Kevin and I supporting the almost certainly dead demigod as we hurried for the line of safety below. I thought I saw Chiron and Rachel standing behind the cabins, waving at us frantically.
A chilling human scream cracked through the monsters' shouts, quite far behind us. This was the most dangerous moment of the night so far. We were on the run, and if somehow the monsters could close the gap—
But we were near the foot of the hill, and the foremost demigods were already there, hurrying through Olivia's wards, which I saw as a thin green glow wrapping around the wall of cabins. Closer, closer, closer, and then we were through the barrier, into some semblance of safety. The screams of the monsters were abruptly muffled, and I felt a calming power wash over me, wiping away Dolos's mucky influence and soothing my fear.
The medics had been waiting, and now swarmed around us, taking the injured from their carriers, inspecting wounds and checking vital signs. The Hunters passed through the wards and started to help with triage, but at a word from Thalia most of them surged onto the roofs of the cabins. The monsters were headed down the hill now, seconds away from crashing into the wards. The Hunters resumed firing, raining arrows onto the approaching ranks, killing their momentum just before they crashed into our barrier.
The wards flared, painfully bright for a moment, illuminating the entire camp in a glare of green light. Shrieks of alarm rang out as creatures were fried by a massive discharge of magic, and most of the demigods stopped to stare.
Eventually the light faded, and the wards held. A swathe of monsters had been vaporised. The air was weighed down with yellow dust, and more attackers kept charging, but all their energy had been killed off by that blast. The Hunters continued to pour arrows down on them, scattering any formations and taking out the largest beasts before they could put pressure on the barrier.
"We did it," I said to Annabeth, somewhat amazed that it had actually worked. She stared at the wards, as the light flickered and the half-bloods jerked back into action around us. "We've held them off."
She met my eyes. "For now. But we don't have long." She put a hand to her ear, turning the radio back on. "All counsellors or deputy counsellors, report to the Big House as soon as you can to review our situation. We have half an hour until the wards start to break down, don't waste it."