XLIII
Piper
PIPER WATCHED IN HORROR as the giant king rose to his full height – almost as tall as the temple columns. His face looked just as Piper remembered – green as bile, with a twisted sneer, his seaweed-coloured hair braided with swords and axes taken from dead demigods.
He loomed over the captives, watching them wriggle. ‘They arrived just as you foresaw, Enceladus! Well done!’
Piper’s old enemy bowed his head, braided bones clattering in his dreadlocks. ‘It was simple, my king.’
The flame designs gleamed on his armour. His spear burned with purplish fire. He only needed one hand to hold his captive. Despite all of Percy Jackson’s power, despite everything he had survived, in the end he was helpless against the sheer strength of the giant – and the inevitability of the prophecy.
‘I knew these two would lead the assault,’ Enceladus continued. ‘I understand how they think. Athena and Poseidon … they were just like these children! They both came here thinking to claim this city. Their arrogance has undone them!’
Over the roar of the crowd, Piper could barely hear herself think, but she replayed Enceladus’s words: these two would lead the assault. Her heart raced.
The giants had expected Percy and Annabeth. They didn’t expect her.
For once, being Piper McLean, the daughter of Aphrodite, the one nobody took seriously, might play to her advantage.
Annabeth tried to say something, but the giantess Periboia shook her by the neck. ‘Shut up! None of your silver-tongued trickery!’
The princess drew a hunting knife as long as Piper’s sword. ‘Let me do the honours, Father!’
‘Wait, Daughter.’ The king stepped back. ‘The sacrifice must be done properly. Thoon, destroyer of the Fates, come forward!’
The wizened grey giant shuffled into sight, holding an oversized meat cleaver. He fixed his milky eyes on Annabeth.
Percy shouted. At the other end of the Acropolis, a hundred yards away, a geyser of water shot into the sky.
King Porphyrion laughed. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, son of Poseidon. The earth is too powerful here. Even your father wouldn’t be able to summon more than a salty spring. But never fear. The only liquid we require from you is your blood!’
Piper scanned the sky desperately. Where was the Argo II?
Thoon knelt and touched the blade of his cleaver reverently against the earth.
‘Mother Gaia …’ His voice was impossibly deep, shaking the ruins, making the metal scaffold resonate under Piper’s feet. ‘In ancient times, blood mixed with your soil to create life. Now, let the blood of these demigods return the favour. We bring you to full wakefulness. We greet you as our eternal mistress!’
Without thinking, Piper leaped from the scaffolding. She sailed over the heads of the Cyclopes and ogres, landed in the centre of the courtyard and pushed her way into the circle of giants. As Thoon rose to use his cleaver, Piper slashed upward with her sword. She took off Thoon’s hand at the wrist.
The old giant wailed. The cleaver and severed hand lay in the dust at Piper’s feet. She felt her Mist disguise burn away until she was just Piper again – one girl in the midst of an army of giants, her jagged bronze blade like a toothpick compared to their massive weapons.
‘WHAT IS THIS?’ Porphyrion thundered. ‘How dare this weak, useless creature interrupt?’
Piper followed her gut. She attacked.
Piper’s advantages: she was small, she was quick, and she was absolutely insane. She drew her knife Katoptris and threw it at Enceladus, hoping she wouldn’t hit Percy by accident. She veered aside without witnessing the results, but, judging from the giant’s painful howl, she’d aimed well.
Several giants ran at her at once. Piper dodged between their legs and let them bash their heads together.
She wove through the crowd, jabbing her sword into dragon-scale feet at every opportunity and yelling, ‘RUN! RUN AWAY!’ to sow confusion.
‘NO! STOP HER!’ Porphyrion shouted. ‘KILL HER!’
A spear almost impaled her. Piper swerved and kept running. It’s just like capture the flag, she told herself. Only the enemy team is all thirty feet tall.
A huge sword sliced across her path. Compared to her sparring practice with Hazel, the strike was ridiculously slow. Piper leaped over the blade and zigzagged towards Annabeth, who was still kicking and writhing in Periboia’s grip. Piper had to free her friend.
Unfortunately, the giantess seemed to anticipate her plan.
‘I think not, demigod!’ Periboia yelled. ‘This one bleeds!’
The giantess raised her knife.
Piper screamed in charmspeak: ‘MISS!’
At the same time, Annabeth kicked up with her legs to make herself a smaller target.
Periboia’s knife passed beneath Annabeth’s legs and stabbed the giantess’s own palm.
‘OWWW!’
Periboia dropped Annabeth – alive, but not unscathed. The dagger had sliced a nasty gash across the back of her thigh. As Annabeth rolled away, her blood soaked into the earth.
The blood of Olympus, Piper thought with dread.
But she couldn’t do anything about that. She had to help Annabeth.
Piper lunged at the giantess. Her jagged blade suddenly felt ice cold in her hands. The surprised giantess glanced down as the sword of the Boread pierced her gut. Frost spread across her bronze breastplate.
Piper yanked out her sword. The giantess toppled backwards – steaming white and frozen solid. Periboia hit the ground with a thud.
‘My daughter!’ King Porphyrion levelled his spear and charged.
But Percy had other ideas.
Enceladus had dropped him … probably because the giant was busy staggering around with Piper’s knife embedded in his forehead, ichor streaming into his eyes.
Percy had no weapon – perhaps his sword had been confiscated or lost in the fighting – but he didn’t let that stop him. As the giant king ran towards Piper, Percy grabbed the tip of Porphyrion’s spear and forced it down into the ground. The giant’s own momentum lifted him off his feet in an unintentional pole-vault manoeuvre and he flipped over onto his back.
Meanwhile Annabeth dragged herself across the ground. Piper ran to her side. She stood over her friend, sweeping her blade back and forth to keep the giants at bay. Cold blue steam now wreathed her blade.
‘Who wants to be the next Popsicle?’ she yelled, channelling anger into her charmspeak. ‘Who wants to go back to Tartarus?’
That seemed to hit a nerve. The giants shuffled uneasily, glancing at the frozen body of Periboia.
And why shouldn’t Piper intimidate them? Aphrodite was the most ancient Olympian, born of the sea and the blood of Ouranos. She was older than Poseidon or Athena or even Zeus. And Piper was her daughter.
More than that, she was a McLean. Her father had come from nothing. Now he was known all over the world. The McLeans didn’t retreat. Like all Cherokee, they knew how to endure suffering, keep their pride and, when necessary, fight back. This was the time to fight back.
Forty feet away, Percy bent over the giant king, trying to yank a sword from the braids of his hair. But Porphyrion wasn’t as stunned as he let on.
‘Fools!’ Porphyrion backhanded Percy like a pesky fly. The son of Poseidon flew into a column with a sickening crunch.
Porphyrion rose. ‘These demigods cannot kill us! They do not have the help of the gods. Remember who you are!’
The giants closed in. A dozen spears were pointed at Piper’s chest.
Annabeth struggled to her feet. She retrieved Periboia’s hunting knife, but she could barely stand upright, much less fight. Each time a drop of her blood hit the ground it bubbled, turning from red to gold.
Percy tried to stand, but he was obviously dazed. He wouldn’t be able to defend himself.
Piper’s only choice was to keep the giants focused on her.
‘Come on, then!’ she yelled. ‘I’ll destroy you all myself if I have to!’
A metallic smell of storm filled the air. All the hairs on Piper’s arms stood up.
‘The thing is,’ said a voice from above, ‘you don’t have to.’
Piper’s heart could’ve floated out of her body. At the top of the nearest colonnade stood Jason, his sword gleaming gold in the sun. Frank stood at his side, his bow ready. Hazel sat astride Arion, who reared and whinnied in challenge.
With a deafening blast, a white-hot bolt arced from the sky, straight through Jason’s body as he leaped, wreathed in lightning, at the giant king.