All of this ran through Frank’s head as he walked with Hazel and Percy to the war games. He thought about the stick wrapped inside his coat pocket, and what it meant that Juno had appeared at camp. Was he about to die? He hoped not. He hadn’t brought his family any honor yet—that was for sure. Maybe Apollo would claim him today and explain his powers and gifts.
Once they got out of camp, the Fifth Cohort formed two lines behind their centurions, Dakota and Gwen. They marched north, skirting the edge of the city, and headed to the Field of Mars—the largest, flattest part of the valley. The grass was cropped short by all the unicorns, bulls, and homeless fauns that grazed here. The earth was pitted with explosion craters and scarred with trenches from past games. At the north end of the field stood their target. The engineers had built a stone fortress with an iron portcullis, guard towers, scorpion ballistae, water cannons, and no doubt many other nasty surprises for the defenders to use.
“They did a good job today,” Hazel noted. “That’s bad for us.”
“Wait,” Percy said. “You’re telling me that fortress was built today?”
Hazel grinned. “Legionnaires are trained to build. If we had to, we could break down the entire camp and rebuild it somewhere else. Take maybe three or four days, but we could do it.”
“Let’s not,” Percy said. “So you attack a different fort every night?”
“Not every night,” Frank said. “We have different training exercises. Sometimes death ball—um, which is like paint-ball, except with…you know, poison and acid and fire balls. Sometimes we do chariots and gladiator competitions, sometimes war games.”
Hazel pointed at the fort. “Somewhere inside, the First and Second Cohorts are keeping their banners. Our job is to get inside and capture them without getting slaughtered. We do that, we win.”
Percy’s eyes lit up. “Like capture-the-flag. I think I like capture-the-flag.”
Frank laughed. “Yeah, well…it’s harder than it sounds. We have to get past those scorpions and water cannons on the walls, fight through the inside of the fortress, find the banners, and defeat the guards, all while protecting our own banners and troops from capture. And our cohort is in competition with the other two attacking cohorts. We sort of work together, but not really. The cohort that captures the banners gets all the glory.”
Percy stumbled, trying to keep time with the left-right marching rhythm. Frank sympathized. He’d spent his first two weeks falling down.
“So why are we practicing this, anyway?” Percy asked. “Do you guys spend a lot of time laying siege to fortified cities?”
“Teamwork,” Hazel said. “Quick thinking. Tactics. Battle skills. You’d be surprised what you can learn in the war games.”
“Like who will stab you in the back,” Frank said.
“Especially that,” Hazel agreed.
They marched to the center of the Field of Mars and formed ranks. The Third and Fourth Cohorts assembled as far as possible from the Fifth. The centurions for the attacking side gathered for a conference. In the sky above them, Reyna circled on her pegasus, Scipio, ready to play referee.
Half a dozen giant eagles flew in formation behind her—prepared for ambulance airlift duty if necessary. The only person not participating in the game was Nico di Angelo, “Pluto’s ambassador,” who had climbed an observation tower about a hundred yards from the fort and would be watching with binoculars.
Frank propped his pilum against his shield and checked Percy’s armor. Every strap was correct. Every piece of armor was properly adjusted.
“You did it right,” he said in amazement. “Percy, you must’ve done war games before.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
The only thing that wasn’t regulation was Percy’s glowing bronze sword—not Imperial gold, and not a gladius. The blade was leaf-shaped, and the writing on the hilt was Greek.
Looking at it made Frank uneasy. Percy frowned. “We can use real weapons, right?”
“Yeah,” Frank agreed. “For sure. I’ve just never seen a sword like that.”
“What if I hurt somebody?”
“We heal them,” Frank said. “Or try to. The legion medics are pretty good with ambrosia and nectar, and unicorn draught.”
“No one dies,” Hazel said. “Well, not usually. And if they do—”
Frank imitated the voice of Vitellius: “They’re wimps! Backin my day, we died all the time, and we liked it!”
Hazel laughed. “Just stay with us, Percy. Chances are we’ll get the worst duty and get eliminated early. They’ll throw us at the walls first to soften up the defenses. Then the Third and Fourth Cohorts will march in and get the honors, if they can even breach the fort.”
Horns blew. Dakota and Gwen walked back from the officers’ conference, looking grim.
“All right, here’s the plan!” Dakota took a quick swig of Kool-Aid from his travel flask. “They’re throwing us at the walls first to soften up the defenses.”
The whole cohort groaned.