Cornelia watched tight lipped as the Fifth's turtle formation staggered underneath a shower of stones and flaming scorpion bolts from the defenders on the wall while their so-called allies stood back and laughed. A high pressure stream from the water cannon over the gate carved a deep trench in the ground in front of them. Cornelia looked up at Reyna circling overhead on Skippy but the praetor didn't seem inclined to interfere. Just about every wargame since Jason's disappearance had turned into a smack down of the Fifth and nobody but Cornelia seemed to have a problem with it. She was still looking upward and thinking about what Jason would say if he could see this when the water cannon exploded. The blast was devastating knocking some kids over the walls and others, including Cornelia, backwards into the fort. A rescue eagle caught her under the arms, talons digging into her breast and back plates, and set her gently on the ground of the inner ward next to Tib.

"Wow!" he said. "How'd they do that?"

"Kelly?" Cornelia suggested readjusting her cuirass.

He shook his head. "We'd have heard a thunder-shock and it wouldn't have just hit the cannon."

Screaming and yelling was coming from the eastern wall, spreading rapidly southward towards the gate, along with the metallic crash of falling legionaries. "Form up," Kelly ordered.

"Second to the Standard! Rally the Second!" Tib bellowed and legionaries came running from all directions, the few left on the walls swarming down ropes to join their comrades in a triple line just as the gate shattered. Hannibal burst through trumpeting joyfully followed by a rush of the Fifth.

The battle went hand to hand but it proved impossible to maintain a defensive formation thanks to the new guy who acted like a one man cohort charging the First's shield wall and summersaulting over it to smash Octavian on the helmet with the pommel of his leaf shaped Greek sword. He whirled it, slashing sideways with the long edge rather than making the short stabbing motions of gladii style fighting. Luckily for the Second they were not entirely unfamiliar with such unorthodox swordwork.

"Break!" Cornelia shouted and the Second's formation disintegrated just like the First's but unlike the First in a controlled and drilled maneuver, dividing and scattering in pairs guarding each other's backs. Cornelia tossed her imperial golden gladius upward and it transformed into a long lance. She caught it and headed for Percy Jackson. Then the Third and Fourth thundered through the broken gate scattering the pairs of the Second far and wide.

Thoroughly irate Cornelia made short work of anybody who tackled her until she face to face with Kelly. "Have you noticed the new guy?" she asked catching Gorgophone's edge on the haft of her lance.

"No, what about him?" Kelly asked trying a back-hand blow which Cornelia also blocked.

He fights Greek style, like you and Guy," She answered spinning her lance around the fulcrum of her double handed grip to punch at Kelly with the butt.

She dodged, ducking to get in under Cornelia's guard. "So he is a graecus."

"I though you didn't like that word," Cornelia answered blocking again.

"Only when it's aimed at me."

"Hypocrite!"

Abruptly the two girls realized everybody else had stopped fighting and fell apart. Hannibal paraded proudly past surrounded by files of the Fifth with Hazel, Frank and Percy Jackson on his back clutching the standards and banners of the First and Second.

Kelly's jaw dropped. "I don't believe it!"

"Believe it," said Cornelia, resigned and not at all surprised.

Reyna swooped low on Skippy. "The game is won. Assemble for honors!"

Kelly glared upward. "What's so funny?"

"The Fifth winning for a change?" Cornelia suggested with a shrug; "Serves us right for getting complacent." She thought a minute, "Serves Octavian even righter."

Kelly brightened. "Our Primus Pilus did badly?"

"Very," Cornelia assured her.

….

Cornelia made a final sweep of the fort, to make sure no wounded had been left behind trailed by Tib and Tib's younger brother Gus who'd been standard bearer for the Game and was still apologizing: "We should have been more alert -"

"Yeah, you should have," Tib agreed, "But it wouldn't have changed anything."

"Enough, Gus," Cornelia added. "Nobody expected you guys to pull a Horatius at the Bridge. It's all over once the keep's penetrated."

"Right, and it's not like you didn't try," said Tib which was very true. Gus had two sprained wrists, a black eye and maybe some cracked ribs to show for it.

The haft of a pilum sticking into the ground caught Cornelia's eye - then she saw it wasn't ground it was stuck in. "Oh my gods!"

It was Gwen of the Fifth, lying on her face with a spear in her back. "Oh, gods," Cornelia said again. "Stretcher! We need a stretcher here!"

Nobody responded it seemed they were the only ones left inside the fort. Tib and Gus ran for the keep where they found a spare stretcher and the three of them very carefully lifted Gwen onto it. She was still breathing which meant she had a chance. The medics almost never lost anybody.

Cornelia and Tib carried her out of the fort, Gus trotting behind. The legion hadn't formed up for honors yet. The Fifth was still slapping backs and celebrating – and who could blame them? Cornelia shouted for help and medics from all five cohorts ran towards them with the rest of the legion close behind.

Everybody stood back, watching anxiously as half a dozen medics worked frantically, some holding the pilum steady so it wouldn't shift and cause more damage, others supporting Gwen on her side as the Second's Tye Giancola tried to ease wadded gauze covered with unicorn horn powder under her cuirass and the Fourth's Galen Livingston dripped nectar into her open mouth. Gwen's face was gray and Cornelia couldn't see if she was still breathing.

After a long and horrible moment Tye rocked back on his haunches letting the gauze drop from his fingers, looked up at Reyna on Skippy and shook his head.

The horrified silence seemed to go on and on, broken only by the sound of water trickling down walls of the fort. Finally Reyna spoke, and there was nothing comforting or reassuring about her words.

"There will be an investigation," she said in a cold, hard voice. "Whoever did this, you cost the legion a good officer. Honorable death is one thing, but this…"

… was cold blooded murder. Gwen had been stabbed from behind, quite probably after the game had ended. The pilum had the markings of the 1st on its haft – which didn't necessarily mean anything as dozens of weapons belonging to all five cohorts had been lying around but still Cornelia found she wasn't the only one looking straight at Octavian. But why would he? Gwen was no threat to his plans to become Praetor. Kelly or Cornelia herself was a more probable rival candidate. Of course he was a famously bad loser…

Then Gwen, there on the ground at their feet, gave a long sobbing gasp. Instinctively everybody recoiled, leaving her all alone in an open circle as the color flooded back into her face and she opened her eyes to blink at them bewildered, and maybe a little embarrassed.

"Wh-what is it? What's everybody staring at?"

At a dead girl come back to life – with a seven foot spear still stuck through her nobody answered.

She tried to sit up but couldn't quite manage it. "There was a river and a man asking…. for a coin?" she continued in the same confused voice. "I turned around and the exit door was open. So I just…left. I don't understand, what's happened?" She still hadn't noticed the pilum.

Frank Zhang pushed his way past Cornelia to kneel by his centurion's side. "Gwen, don't try to get up. Just close your eyes for a second okay?"

"Why?" she wanted to know. "What –"

"Just trust me." Luckily she did.

Frank took hold of the pilum's bloody haft just below the steel point. "Percy, Hazel, help me."

The other two stepped forward – and Tye realized what Frank meant to do.

"Don't ! You might –"

"What?" Hazel Levesque asked scornfully, "Make it worse?"

The other two held Gwen steady and Frank drew the pilum out headfirst. She didn't so much as wince. Blood gushed out after it and Cornelia had to hold Tye back. His help wasn't needed as the bleeding stopped almost at once.

Hazel bent for a closer look, swallowed. "It's closing on its own. I don't know how, but –"

"I feel fine," Gwen protested as Percy and Frank helped her to her feet. "What's everybody worried about?"

"Gwen," Hazel said in a gentle voice. "There's no easy way to say this. You were dead. Somehow you came back."

"I…what?" Gwen started to protest. Then her fingers found the ragged hole in her armor. "How- how?"

"Good question." Reyna looked over heads at Nico standing behind the crowd. "Is this some power of Pluto?"

He shook his head. "Pluto never lets people return from the dead."

Then a voice of thunder rolled over the Field of Mars. "Death loses its hold. This is only the beginning."