The Veiled Legacy | PJO - Book Two

fourteen

PERCY?

Ariana and Percy went weightless, thought they held onto each other tightly.

Her vision blurred. Claws grabbed her arms and lifted Ariana and Percy into the air. Below, train wheels squealed and metal crashed. Glass shattered. Passengers screamed.

When her eyesight cleared, she saw the beast that was carrying her aloft. It had the body of a panther - sleek, black and feline - with the wings and head of an eagle.

Its eyes glowed blood-red. Percy squirmed. The monster's front talons were wrapped round his arms like steel bands. Neither of them could free themselves or reach their weapons. They rose higher and higher in the cold wind.

Ariana had no idea where the monster was taking them, but she was pretty sure she wouldn't like it when they both got there.

Percy yelled - mostly out of frustration. Then something whistled by her ear. An arrow sprouted from the monster's neck. The creature shrieked and let go.

Ariana and Percy fell, crashing through tree branches until they slammed into a snowbank. Ariana groaned, looking up at a massive pine tree she'd just shredded.

Ariana managed to stand. Nothing seemed broken. Frank stood to her left, shooting down the creatures as fast as he could. Hazel was at her back, swinging her sword at any monster that came close, but there were too many swarming around them - at least a dozen.

Percy drew Riptide. He sliced the wing off one monster and sent it spiralling into a tree, then sliced through another that burst into dust.
But the defeated ones began to reform immediately.

"What are these things?" Ariana yelled, both her swords were drawn.

"Gryphons!" Hazel said. "We have to get them away from the train!"

Ariana saw what she meant. The train cars had fallen over, and their roofs had shattered.

Tourists were stumbling around in shock. Ariana didn't see anybody seriously injured, but the gryphons were swooping towards anything that moved.

The only thing keeping them away from the mortals was a glowing grey warrior in camouflage - Frank's pet spartus.

Ariana glanced over and noticed Frank's spear was gone. "Used your last charge?"

"Yeah." Frank shot another gryphon out of the sky. "I had to help the mortals. The spear just dissolved."

Ariana nodded. Part of her was relieved. She didn't like the skeleton warrior. Part of her was disappointed, because that was one less weapon they had at their disposal. But she didn't fault Frank.

Frank had done the right thing.

"Let's move the fight!" Percy said. "Away from the tracks!"

They stumbled through the snow, smacking and slicing gryphons that re-formed from dust every time they were killed.

Ariana had had no experience with gryphons. She'd always imagined them as huge noble animals, like lions with wings, but these things reminded him more of vicious pack hunters - flying hyenas.

About fifty yards from the tracks, the trees gave way to an open marsh. The ground was so spongy and icy Ariana felt like she was racing across Bubble Wrap.

Frank was running out of arrows. Hazel was breathing hard. Percy's and Ariana's own sword swings were getting slower.

She realized they were alive only because the gryphons werent trying to kill them. The gryphons wanted to pick them up and carry them off somewhere.