The Dragon's Daughter

vii. night games

That night after dinner, Quintus had them suit up in combat armor like they were getting ready for capture the flag, but the mood among the campers was a lot more serious. 

Sometime during the day the crates in the arena had disappeared, and she had a feeling whatever was in them had been emptied into the woods. 

"Right,” Quintus said, standing on the head dining table. “Gather ’round.” 

He was dressed in black leather and bronze. In the torchlight, his gray hair made him look like a ghost. Mrs. O’Leary bounded happily around him, foraging for dinner scraps. 

"You will be in teams of two,” Quintus announced. When everybody started talking and trying to grab their friends, he yelled: “Which have already been chosen!” 

 "AWWWWW!” Everybody complained. 

"Your goal is simple: collect the gold laurels without dying. The wreath is wrapped in a silk package, tied to the back of one of the monsters. There are six monsters. Each has a silk package. Only one holds the laurels. You must find the wreath before the other teams. And, of course…you will have to slay the monster to get it, and stay alive.” 

The crowd started murmuring excitedly. The task sounded pretty straightforward. 

“I will now announce your partners,” Quintus said. “There will be no trading. No switching. No complaining.” 

“Aroooof!” Mrs. O’Leary buried her face in a plate of pizza. 

Quintus produced a big scroll and started reading off names. 

Beckendorf would be with Silena Beauregard. 

The Stoll brothers, Travis and Connor, would be together. No surprise. They did everything together. Clarisse was with Lee Fletcher from the Apollo cabin — melee and ranged combat combined, they would be a tough combo to beat. Quintus kept rattling off the names.

“Percy Jackson with Annabeth Chase.” 

“Grover Underwood,” Quintus said, “with Tyson.” 

Grover just about jumped out of his goat fur. “What? B-but—” 

“No, no,” Tyson whimpered. “Must be a mistake. Goat boy—” 

“No complaining!” Quintus ordered. “Get with your partner. You have two minutes to prepare!” 

Was her name not called? Or did she miss it? 

"Quintus!" she called. "I think you haven't given me a partner."

"That's because I didn't," he answered. "Let's see how good you are."

"Alright." She walked away from the instructor.

☼︎☼︎❁☼︎☼︎

It was still light when she got into the woods, but the shadows from the trees made it feel like midnight. It was cold, too, even in summer. 

She found tracks almost immediately — scuttling marks made by something with a lot of legs. She began to follow the trail.

She heard some twigs snapping nearby. Crouching behind a boulder, she waited for the thing that caused it to come out but it was only the Stoll brothers tripping through the woods and cursing. Their dad was the god of thieves, but they were about as stealthy as buffaloes. 

Once the Stolls had passed, she forged deeper into the west woods where the monsters were wilder. She was standing on a ledge overlooking a marshy pond.

Then she heard a voice. 

“I saw him last night."

“What do you mean?”