THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH Percy Jackson ... - No one's invited.

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“Sorry, cow!” he called.
Then he gave us a boost out of the tunnel.
We were on a ranch, all right. Rolling hills stretched to the horizon, dotted with oak trees and cactuses
and boulders. A barbed wire fence ran from the gate in either direction. Cherry-colored cows roamed
around, grazing on clumps of grass.
“Red cattle,” Annabeth said.“The cattle of the sun.”
“What?” I asked.
“They’re sacred to Apollo.”
“Holy cows?”
“Exactly.But what are they doing—”
“Wait,” Grover said. “Listen.”
At first everything seemed quiet…but then I heard it: the distant baying of dogs. The sound got louder.
Then the underbrush rustled, and two dogs broke through. Except itwasn’t two dogs. It wasone dog with
two heads. It looked like a greyhound, long and snaky and sleek brown, but its neckV’d into two heads,
both of them snapping and snarling and generally not very glad to see us.
“BadJanus dog!”Tyson cried.
“Arf!”Grover told it, and raised a hand in greeting.
The two-headed dog bared its teeth. I guess it wasn’t impressed that Grover could speak animal. Then
its master lumbered out of the woods, and I realized the dog was the least of our problems.
He was a huge guy with stark white hair, a straw cowboy hat, and a braided white beard— kind of like
Father Time, if Father Time went redneck and got totally jacked. He was wearing jeans, a DON’T
MESS WITH TEXAS T-shirt, and a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off so you could see his
muscles. On his right bicep was a crossed-swords tattoo. He held a wooden club about the size of a
nuclear warhead, with six-inch spikes bristling at the business end.
“Heel,Orthus ,” he told the dog.
The dog growled at us once more, just to make his feelings clear, just to make his feelings clear,then
circled back to his master’s feet. The man looked us up and down, keeping his club ready.
“What’ve we got here?” he asked.“Cattle rustlers?”
“Just travelers,” Annabeth said. “We’re on a quest.”
The man’s eye twitched. “Half-bloods, eh?”
I started to say, “How did you know—”