²Olden Crown, heroes of olympus

018.

OLDEN CROWN
━━ chapter eighteen

━━ PERCY WENT WEIGHTLESS. His vision blurred. Claws grabbed his arms and lifted him into the air. Below, train wheels squealed and metal crashed. Glass shattered. Passengers screamed.

               When his eyesight cleared, he saw the beast that was carrying him aloft. It had the body of a panther—sleek, black, and feline—with the wings and head of an eagle. Its eyes glowed blood-red.

               Percy squirmed. The monster's front talons were wrapped around his arms like steel bands. He couldn't free himself, and he couldn't reach for his sword. He rose higher and higher in the cold wind. He had no idea where the monster was taking him, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't like it when he got there.

               He yelled—mostly out of frustration. Then something whistled by his ear. An arrow sprouted from the monster's neck. The creature shrieked and let go. Percy fell, crashing through tree branches until he slammed into a snowbank. He groaned, looking up at a massive pine tree he'd just shredded.

               He managed to stand. Nothing seemed broken. Frank stood to his left, shooting down the creatures as fast as he could. Hazel was at his back, swinging her sword at any monster that came close, but there were too many swarming around them—a dozen, at the very least. Abilene thrust out her hand, and a small pine tree whipped around and caught a couple of the monsters.

               Percy drew Riptide. He sliced the wing off one monster and sent it spiraling into a tree, then sliced through another that burst into dust. But the defeated ones began to re-form immediately.

               "What are these things?" he yelled.

               "Gryphons!" Abilene yelled, waving Viridis over her head as a monster swopped down. "We need to get them away from the train! Away from the mortals!"

               Percy understood what Abilene was talking about. The train cars had fallen over, and their roofs had shattered. Tourists were stumbling around in shock. Percy didn't see anybody seriously injured, but the gryphons were swooping toward anything that moved. The only thing keeping them away from the mortals was a glowing grey warrior in camouflage—Frank's pet spartus.

               Percy glanced over and noticed Frank's spear was gone. "Used your last charge?" he asked.

               "Yeah." The son of Mars shot another gryphon out of the sky. "I had to help the mortals. The spear just dissolved after that."

               Percy nodded. Part of him was relieved. He didn't like the skeleton warrior. Part of him was disappointed because that was one less weapon they had at their disposal. But he didn't fault Frank. Frank had done the right thing. "Let's move the fight!" he yelled. "Away from the tracks!"

               The four stumbled through the snow, smacking and slicing gryphons that re-formed from dust every time they were killed. Percy had had no experience with gryphons. He'd always imagined them as huge noble animals, like lions with wings, but these things reminded him more of vicious pack hunters—flying hyenas.

               About fifty yards from the tracks, the trees gave way to an open marsh. The ground was so spongy and icy, that Percy felt like he was racing across Bubble Wrap. Frank was running out of arrows. Hazel was breathing hard. Abilene started to stumble over her feet more and more. Percy's own sword swings were getting slower. He realized they were alive only because the gryphons weren't trying to kill them. The gryphons wanted to pick them up and carry them off somewhere.