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I 06. I
𝑾𝒂𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑽𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔
❝ minotaur ❞
FORTUNATELY, BLACKJACK WAS ON DUTY.
Percy did his best taxicab whistle, and within a few minutes two dark shapes circles out of the sky. They looked like hawks at first, but as they descended Ariadne could make out the long galloping legs of pegasi.
Blackjack landed at a trot, his friend Porkpie right behind him.
"Thanks for coming," Percy told him. "Hey, why do pegasi gallop as they fly, anyway?"
Blackjack whinnied.
Ariadne assumed it was some sort of answer, but she didn't speak horse, and frankly, she was too paranoid to get to the Williamsburg Bridge. She wasn't itching to fight the Minotaur, but she wanted to keep her friends and the world safe from Kronos's hands.
"We need to get to the Williamsburg Bridge," Ariadne said. Blackjack huffed at her, but Percy gave him and look and he whinnied.
Blackjack lowered his neck.
Ariadne climbed into Porkpie's back as Percy climbed onto Blackjack's. She gave the pegasus a pat before they took off.
On the way to the bridge, a knot formed in the pit of his stomach. The Minotaur was one of the first monsters Ariadne had ever learned about at camp. It was the very monster she was terrified of meeting at her young age, and even then, she was a bit scared. Four years ago he'd nearly killed Sally, Percy, and Grover on Half-Blood Hill. Percy told her he still had nightmares about that.
As she thought more in it, it was insane how it was only four years ago when he turned up.
She had been hoping he would stay dead for a few centuries, but she should've known that their luck wouldn't hold. They saw the battle before they were close enough to make out individual fighters. It was well after midnight then, but the bridge blazed with light. Cars were burning. Arcs of fire streamed in both directions as flaming arrows and spears sailed through the air.
They came in for a low pass, and Ariadne saw the Apollo campers retreating. They would hide behind cars and snipe at the approaching army, setting off explosive arrows and dropping caltrops in the road, building fiery barricades wherever they could, dragging sleeping drivers out of their cars to get them out of harm's way. But the enemy kept advancing.
An entire phalanx of dracaenae marched in the lead, their shields locked together, spear tips bristling over the top. An occasional arrow would connect with their snag trunks, or a neck, of a chink in their armor, and the unlucky snake woman would disintegrate, but most of the Apollo arrows glanced harmlessly off their shield wall. About a hundred more monsters marched behind them.
