²Olden Crown, heroes of olympus

021.

OLDEN CROWN
━━ chapter twenty-one

━━ THE PROPHECY LINE still didn't make sense, but ... it was starting to.

               Abilene and Percy stood over Frank, swiping at any ghosts that got to close. The son of Mars unwrapped the firewood as he kneeled by Thanatos. Abilene knew what Frank was going to do, and she couldn't look. She didn't want to see the fire.

               She focused on the undead legion and the rest of the fight. Her falx sword felt heavy in her hand, like she was trying to pull it out of stone. Gaea, part of her brain thought. But she swung it through the nearest legionnaire, and didn't have time to focus on that too much. Her arms burned, along with her skin—something boiled underneath her skin and in her muscles.  Hazel took on the giant, mounting her strong sted, and she looked natural holding her spatha—it was the perfect length as she swiped and stabbed, taking on Alyconeus.

               It was no time before Abilene and Percy got separated. On opposite sides of the dead army, they were trying their best to push the army back to back. Abilene tried her best—she fought like she had never fought before. The more she fought, the more comfortable she became. Viridis became easier to control. She managed to turn them to black dust, them crumbling to the ground at her feet. The ice rumbled beneath her, and some part of her knew it was her and not the giant.

               One the other side, Percy was fighting like a whirlwind—no, he was a whirlwind. A miniature hurricane of water and ice vapor churned around him as he waded through the enemy, knocking Roman ghosts away, deflecting arrows and spears.

               Even though she and Percy seemed to be leaving Frank undefended, the enemy was completely focused on the two. She knew what Percy's goal was, as to why he was moving through the enemy's line so quickly—one of the black vapory ghosts was wearing the lion's-skin cape of a standard bearer and holding a pole with a golden eagle, icicles frozen to its wings. The legion's standard.

               Percy plowed through a line of legionnaires, scattering their shields with his personal cyclone. He knocked down the standard bearer and grabbed the eagle. "You want it back?" he shouted at the ghosts. "Come and get it!"

               He nodded to Abilene, and she started killing off any stragglers. Percy drew them away, toward the end of the Via Principalis. By now, she should've become tired and sluggish, but the chill curling off the ground seemed to energize her. The earth seemed to be energizing her. She could feel it was down at the bottom of the ocean, beating with her own racing heart. It scared her, at least a little bit. It could mean Gaea; it could also mean she was fighting against Gaea, creating her own energy.

               Percy was at the end of the Via Principalis now, holding off the army of ghosts. He had overturned the chariot and destroyed several buildings, but every time he threw off a wave of attackers in his hurricane, the ghosts simply got up and charged again. Every time Percy slashed one of them down with his sword, the ghost re-formed immediately. He had backed up almost as far as he could go. Behind him was the side gate of the camp, and about twenty feet beyond that, the edge of the glacier.

               As for Hazel, she and Alcyoneus had managed to destroy most of the barracks in their battle. Now they were fighting in the wreckage at the main gate. Arion was playing a dangerous game of tag, charging around the giant while Alyconeus swiped at them with his staff, knocking over walls and cleaving massive chasms in the ice. Only Arion's speed kept him and Hazel alive.