Part I: The Morning After
The sun rose over Camp Half-Blood, but it didn't look like a sun. It looked like a bruised peach behind a wall of gray clouds.
The magical weather control was failing. A cold drizzle was falling, turning the dust of the chariot track into sludge. The air smelled of ozone and wet dog.
I stood in the mess hall, scrubbing a cauldron large enough to boil a hippopotamus. My hands were raw, the soapy water stinging the cuts on my knuckles from the Chariot Race.
Tantalus was pacing the pavilion, his mood foul. He had discovered Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson missing at breakfast. Since he couldn't punish them, he had turned his full, manic attention to me.
"Scrub harder, boy!" Tantalus barked, reaching for a goblet of Diet Coke that receded from his grasp just as his fingers brushed the condensation. "I want to see my reflection in that bronze! I want it to shine like the Fleece you failed to retrieve!"
"Clarisse is getting the Fleece," I said through gritted teeth, scrubbing a patch of burnt stew. "And Percy went to help her."
"Jackson went to die," Tantalus corrected, a cruel smile stretching his face. "And you are here. To pay for his insolence."
He leaned over me. He smelled of mothballs and ancient dust.
"You think you are the protector of this camp, Valerius? You are a delinquent. A violent, arrogants spark plug. If I had my way, you'd be banished with your cousins."
I stopped scrubbing. I looked into the soapy water. I saw my reflection—tired eyes, a scar running down my chin, the black glove on my left hand.
"If you banish me," I said quietly, "who stops the monsters from eating you, Tantalus? I don't think your Spirit Shackles work on hydras."
Tantalus's eye twitched. He knew I was right. That was the only reason I wasn't on a bus to New York right now. He needed a guard dog, even if he hated the dog.
"Back to work," he snarled, turning away to chase a drifting bagel. "And stay in the kitchen. If I see you near the armory, it's another week of detention."
Part II: The Compass Spins
I worked until noon. The Harpies watched me like hawks, squawking every time I took a break.
But they didn't know about my pocket.
Every ten minutes, I checked the compass Hermes had given me. For hours, the needle had been spinning lazily, confused by the general background radiation of the camp's magic.
Then, at 12:15 PM, it snapped.
The needle locked onto a direction. South-East.
I looked out the kitchen window. South-East was the Strawberry Fields. Our cash crop. The fields that paid the bills for the camp.
The needle was glowing bright blue. That meant concentration. Not a stray monster. A group.
I looked at the cleaning harpy, a nasty bird-lady named Helga.
"I need to use the bathroom," I said.
"Quickly!" Helga squawked, snapping her beak. "Two minutes!"
I walked into the hallway. As soon as I was out of sight, I bolted.
I didn't go to the bathroom. I went out the back door, staying low behind the shrubs. I moved toward the fields. The rain picked up, masking the sound of my boots.
Part III: The Snake in the Grass
The Strawberry Fields were usually bright and happy. Today, they looked like a graveyard.
The vines were brown and withered. The massive strawberries were rotting on the ground, oozing a sickly sweet red juice that looked disturbingly like blood. The fog hung low here, obscuring the rows.
I crept forward, Thunderclap unslung and gripped in my right hand. I kept the piston disengaged to stay silent.
I smelled them before I saw them.
Musk. Reptilian scales. And something acrid, like burning acid.
I crouched behind a crate of fertilizers. Through the mist, I saw movement.
Three figures were slithering between the rows.
Scythian Dracaenae.
They were seven feet tall, with the torsos of women and the twin serpent tails instead of legs. They wore mismatched armor—Greek breastplates, Roman greaves—and carried spears and heavy bronze shields.
They weren't attacking. They were working.
One of them was kneeling by the irrigation pipe that fed the entire western sector of the fields. She was pouring a green, viscous liquid from a ceramic jar into the water supply.
"Pour it all, ssssister," one hissed. "The poison musst reach the rootsss."
"The tree isss dying," the second one laughed, a sound like dry leaves skittering. "Soon the barrier will fall completely. The Army waitsss."
My blood ran cold.
They weren't just scouts. They were saboteurs. They were accelerating the decay of the barrier by poisoning the land itself.
I checked the compass. The needle was vibrating. Three enemies.
I could call for help. I could yell for the Apollo cabin.
But if I yelled, Tantalus would hear. He'd come blustering in, probably accuse me of pranking, and the snakes would escape. Or worse, the panic would cause a stampede.
Solo mission, I decided.
Part IV: The Silent Hunt
I moved.
I didn't charge. Charging is for open fields. This was an assassination.
I circled around the row, using the fog. I came up behind the rearguard snake—the one holding a spear and watching the perimeter.
I holstered my hammer. Too loud.
I raised my left hand. The black leather glove creaked softly.
I lunged.
I wrapped my left arm around the Dracaena's neck in a chokehold. My gloved hand clamped over her mouth to stifle the scream.
Contact.
The reaction was instantaneous. The Dracaena thrashed, her serpent tails whipping the mud. But the moment the Styx magic engaged, her strength evaporated.
I felt the cold rush up my arm—a intoxicating, freezing slide of energy. It felt like drinking ice water on a hot day. The black veins on my forearm pulsed, sucking the life force out of her.
Her scales turned gray. Her struggles weakened. In three seconds, she was limp. She dissolved into yellow dust in my arms, leaving only her armor to clatter softly into the mud.
I caught the breastplate before it hit the ground. Silence maintained.
But the dust... the smell of sulfur alerted the others.
"Sssister?" the poison-pourer hissed, turning around.
She saw me standing in the mist, yellow dust coating my shirt, my left hand smoking with cold energy.
"Intruder!" she shrieked.
Stealth over.
"Hey, ladies," I said, drawing Thunderclap. "You're trespassing."
The two remaining Dracaenae hissed and charged. They moved fast, slithering over the vines.
The first one thrust her spear.
I sidestepped, the bronze tip slicing my shirt. I swung the hammer low, sweeping her serpent tails out from under her. She crashed into the mud.
I didn't wait for her to get up. I spun and brought the hammer down on her shield.
CRUNCH.
No piston needed. My strength, amplified by the Styx energy I had just absorbed, was enough to cave the shield in. The impact crushed her chest. She burst into dust.
The last one—the poisoner—dropped her jar. The green sludge spilled onto the earth, sizzling.
She didn't fight. She turned and fled, slithering toward the woods.
"Oh no you don't," I growled. "You're not reporting back."
I pointed my left hand at her retreating back.
I had been practicing this. Not a touch, but a projection.
"Bolt," I whispered.
I didn't summon a massive lightning strike from the sky. That would alert the camp.
Instead, I channeled my internal static through the Styx arm. The electricity mixed with the necrotic energy.
A bolt of black lightning shot from my fingertips.
It was silent. It didn't crackle like thunder. It hissed like a vacuum.
It hit the Dracaena in the back.
She didn't explode. She just... stopped. She stiffened, turned completely gray, and crumbled into a pile of ash.
I stood there, breathing hard. My left arm was throbbing, the veins pulsing violently. The black lightning felt wrong. It felt dirty. But it was effective.
Part V: The Shadow Council
I cleaned up the mess. I buried the armor in the mud. I stopped the irrigation pipe and dug up the poisoned earth with my bare hands, throwing it into a hazardous waste bin.
When I got back to the kitchen, Helga the Harpy was tapping her foot.
"Five minutes!" she squawked. "You said two!"
"Bad taco," I lied, clutching my stomach. "Back to work."
That night, I didn't go to the campfire. I went to the forge.
I had called a meeting. Not an official one. A secret one.
Charles Beckendorf (Hephaestus) was there. Silena Beauregard (Aphrodite) was there. Lee Fletcher (Apollo) was there. Travis and Connor Stoll (Hermes) were there.
They looked at me as I entered. I was still covered in mud and monster dust.
"What happened?" Beckendorf asked, crossing his massive arms.
"Saboteurs," I said, slamming the empty poison jar onto the workbench. "Dracaenae in the strawberry fields. They were poisoning the water."
Silena gasped. "The crop? That's our only income."
"They aren't just trying to kill us," I said grimly. "They're trying to starve us out. And break the barrier faster."
"Did you tell Tantalus?" Lee asked.
"Tantalus is an idiot," I snapped. "If I told him, he'd blame me for being in the fields. Or he'd deny it."
I looked around the circle of counselors. These were the leaders left behind.
"We're on our own," I told them. "Percy is gone. Clarisse is gone. Chiron is gone. We are the last line of defense."
"What do we do?" Connor Stoll asked, looking unusually serious.
"We form a Shadow Council," I said. "We run the camp under Tantalus's nose."
I started issuing orders.
"Lee, I need the Apollo cabin to run silent patrols at night. No singing. Thermal vision only. If you see something, you don't engage. You signal me."
Lee nodded. "Done."
"Beckendorf, I need traps. The barrier is weak in the West Woods. Build landmines. Nets. Anything that slows them down."
"I can do that," Beckendorf grunted.
"Travis, Connor. I need you to steal supplies. Food, medicine, batteries. Hoard it. If the siege gets worse, we might get cut off from the mainland."
The Stoll brothers grinned. "Stealing is what we do best."
"Silena," I said, turning to the daughter of Aphrodite.
She looked nervous. "I... I don't fight, Val."
"I don't need you to fight," I said gently. "I need you to keep morale up. Tantalus is depressing everyone. Organize games. secret parties. Keep the younger kids from being terrified. If we lose hope, we lose the camp."
Silena straightened up. "I can do that."
I looked at them. They were scared, but they were ready.
"This stays between us," I warned. "To everyone else, it's business as usual. But from now on, we are at war."
Part VI: The Watchman
The meeting broke up. They filtered out into the night.
I stayed in the forge door, watching the dying embers of the fire.
My left hand was twitching. The energy from the Dracaena was fading, leaving me feeling hollow and cold. It was an addiction, I realized. The Styx arm wanted to feed.
I looked at the jar of poison.
The Army waits, the snake had said.
I stepped out into the cool night air. I looked toward the woods.
I could feel them out there. Hundreds of eyes. Waiting for the tree to die. Waiting for the glass to crack.
I gripped the handle of Thunderclap.
"Wait all you want," I whispered to the dark. "I'm not going anywhere."
I walked toward the border, beginning my lonely, sleepless patrol.