BLOOD OF OLYMPUS

xxxvii
Reyna
‘TURN BACK!’
Reyna wasn’t keen to give orders to Pegasus, the Lord of Flying Horses, but she was even less
keen to get shot out of the sky.
As they approached Camp Half-Blood in the predawn hours of 1 August, she spotted six Roman
onagers. Even in the dark, their Imperial gold plating glinted. Their massive throwing arms bent back
like ship masts listing in a storm. Crews of artillerists scurried around the machines, loading the
slings, checking the torsion of the ropes.
‘What are those?’ Nico called.
He flew about twenty feet to her left on the dark pegasus Blackjack.
‘Siege weapons,’ Reyna said. ‘If we get any closer, they can shoot us out of the sky.’
‘From this high up?’
On her right, Coach Hedge shouted from the back of his steed, Guido, ‘Those are onagers, kid!
Those things can kick higher than Bruce Lee!’
‘Lord Pegasus,’ Reyna said, resting her hand on the stallion’s neck, ‘we need a safe place to land.’
Pegasus seemed to understand. He wheeled to the left. The other flying horses followed –
Blackjack, Guido and six others who were towing the Athena Parthenos beneath them on cables.
As they skirted the western edge of the camp, Reyna took in the scene. The legion lined the base of
the eastern hills, ready for a dawn attack. The onagers were arrayed behind them in a loose
semicircle at three-hundred-yard intervals. Judging from the size of the weapons, Reyna calculated
that Octavian had enough firepower to destroy every living thing in the valley.
But that was only part of the threat. Encamped along the legion’s flanks were hundreds of auxilia
forces. Reyna couldn’t see well in the dark, but she spotted at least one tribe of wild centaurs and an
army of cynocephali, the dog-headed men who’d made an uneasy truce with the legion centuries ago.
The Romans were badly outnumbered, surrounded by a sea of unreliable allies.
‘There.’ Nico pointed towards Long Island Sound, where the lights of a large yacht gleamed a
quarter of a mile offshore. ‘We could land on the deck of that ship. The Greeks control the sea.’
Reyna wasn’t sure the Greeks would be any friendlier than the Romans, but Pegasus seemed to like
the idea. He banked towards the dark waters of the Sound.
The ship was a white pleasure craft a hundred feet long, with sleek lines and dark tinted portals.
Painted on the bow in red letters was the name MI AMOR. On the forward deck was a helipad big
enough for the Athena Parthenos.
Reyna saw no crew. She guessed the ship was a regular mortal vessel anchored for the night, but if