Indigo Eyes

Chapter 95

Considering the place was underground, it was a pretty big arena.

The dirt floor was circular, just big enough that you could drive a car around the rim if you pulled it really tight. In the centre of the arena, a fight was going on between a giant and a centaur. The centaur looked panicked. He was galloping around his enemy, using sword and shield, while the giant swung a javelin the size of a telephone pole and the crowd cheered. The first tier of seats was four metres above the arena floor. Plain stone benches wrapped all the way around, and every seat was full. There were giants, dracaenae, demigods, telkhines and stranger things: bat-winged demons and creatures that seemed half human and half you name it – bird, reptile, insect, mammal.

But the creepiest things were the skulls. The arena was full of them. They ringed the edge of the railing. Metre-high piles of them decorated the steps between the benches. They grinned from pikes at the back of the stands and hung on chains from the ceiling like horrible chandeliers. Some of them looked very old – nothing but bleached-white bone. Others looked a lot fresher.

In the middle of all this, proudly displayed on the side of the spectators' wall, was something that made no sense to Percy – a green banner with the trident of Poseidon in the centre.

"Oh we are so massively screwed," Cressida muttered because above the banner, sitting in a seat of honour was an old enemy.

"Luke," Percy said but Cressida could barely hear him over the roar of the crowd. Luke's smile was cold. He was wearing camouflage combat trousers, a white T-shirt and a bronze breastplate. Next to him sat a giant that was easily five metres tall and was so wide that he took up three seats. He wore only a loincloth, like a sumo wrestler. His skin was dark red and tattooed with blue wave designs.

There was a cry from the arena floor and Cressida yanked Percy back as the centaur crashed to the ground in front of them and Percy reached for his sword that wasn't there. The centaur struggled to get up as the giant approached, his javelin ready.

The fear in the centaur's eyes as he silently cried out for help, broke Cressida's heart as her and Percy's hands stayed linked together.

A taloned hand gripped Percy's shoulder. "If you value your friendsss' livesss," the dracaena guard said, "you won't interfere. This isssn't your fight. Wait your turn."

It was horrible. The fact that they could literally do nothing but watch.

Cressida couldn't. It was too much for her to stomach when she realised that the centaur had stopped fighting because one of its legs was broken.

She had a hand on Percy's shoulder as she turned away, Percy placing a hand on her back as the giant placed a huge foot on the horseman's chest and raised the javelin. He looked up at Luke. The crowd cheered, "DEATH! DEATH!" Luke didn't do anything, but the tattooed sumo dude sitting next to him rose. He smiled down at the centaur, who was whimpering, "Please! No!" Then the sumo dude held out his hand and gave the 'thumbs down' sign.

Percy couldn't look either as he shut his eyes as the gladiator giant thrust his javelin. And when he dared to look again, the centaur was gone, disintegrated to ashes. All that was left was a single hoof, which the giant took up as a trophy and showed to the crowd. They roared their approval.

A gate opened at the opposite end of the stadium and the giant marched out in triumph. In the stands, the sumo dude raised his hands for silence.

"Good entertainment!" he bellowed. "But nothing I haven't seen before. What else do you have, Luke, son of Hermes?"

Percy let Cressida know that it was ok to turn around as Luke's jaw tightened as if he didn't like being called Hermes's son which made sense since he hated his father.