Chapter 18 I get an inside scoop
Sarah's POV
Annie frowned and her voice lowered again. Only this time I got the feeling she was sharing a secret.
"I don't know much about Luke. The older campers refuse to talk about him, also don't ever ask Annabeth or Percy about him."
I whispered back,
"Why not?"
Annie glanced around to make sure no one was listening and said.
"Because whatever happened was a super personal matter. All I know is that Annabeth and Luke were friends that ended up on opposite sides of the Titan War. Apparently it's still a touchy subject."
Pressing my lips together, I processed the information. Mostly it was stuff I already knew or assumed.
"So what else do you know about him?"
"Only that he was the greatest sword's man of the century, and supposedly died some kind of hero."
I looked back at the area hoping to hide what I was thinking. I felt some second hand pride for Luke. Just the idea, my boyfriend was the best in the century at something was beyond cool. But it was still really weird that everyone he used to know believed he was dead. Also I wasn't sure how to feel about him 'having died a hero.' What did that mean anyway? Annie's words broke through my whirlwind of thoughts.
"Hey there done warming up, let the show begin!"
I rubbed my eyes which were dry from staring blankly at nothing. Annie noticed, and gave me an elbow nudge that almost knocked me off the bleacher. As she excitedly said,
"Hey, pay attention, you don't want to miss this!"
I blinked, looking around I saw that more people had gathered to watch. The class was tying bandanas of assorted colors around their upper arms. Then went to where Chiron was standing and selected a piece of paper from a jar. Once that was done the class began to pair off, and Chiron asked.
"Does everyone remember the rules?"
A chorus of, "yes," came back, so Chiron continued.
"Very well, stand ready! Interference, too your marks!"
To my surprise, several archers stood from many different locations and elevations. I looked at Annie hoping for an explanation.
She grinned, they do this exercise every Monday to determine what to work on. Essentially they draw numbers to determine sparring partners. The goal is to get the other person's bandana, the winner finds another partner. The loser will then pick someone to gang up on."
"What about them?"
I jabbed a thumb towards one of the archers, Annie waved dismissively.
"They're just here for some moving target practice."
"Whait, they're shooting at the sword's men?"
I couldn't believe how casually she had mentioned that. Or how matter of factly the archers were picking their targets.
"Of course they're shooting at the sword's men."
Her tone made it sound like it should have been obvious.
"It's good practice, because in a real battle the enemy isn't going to wait for you to be done with a fight to shoot you."