Indigo Eyes

Chapter 129

Like a miracle, a conch horn sounded from the smoky picture. The call of the ocean. The call of Poseidon.

"On your father's name, Jackson," Cressida said as her heart swelled with hope. "If he pulls through and we win, you're going to get so much more than just a victory kiss."

"Should I be nervous?" he asked as Cressida tried reaching for her spear that was knocked from her hand and that would still take a long time to appear back on her bracelet.

"Depends on how you look at it," she strained before they looked back at the image.

All around Typhon, the Hudson River erupted, churning with twenty-metre waves. Out of the water burst a new chariot – this one pulled by massive hippocampi who swam in air as easily as in water.

Poseidon glowed with a blue aura of power as he rode in a defiant circle around the giant's legs. As he swung his trident, the river responded, making a funnel cloud around the monster. 

"No!" Kronos bellowed, after a moment of stunned silence. "NO!"

"NOW, MY BRETHREN!" And the sea god's voice was so loud that they were convinced that they could hear it across town. "STRIKE FOR OLYMPUS!" 

Warriors burst out of the river, riding the waves on huge sharks and dragons and seahorses. It was a legion of Cyclopes, and leading them into battle was ...

"Tyson!" Percy and Cressida called as they saw him.

He'd magically grown in size. He had to be ten metres tall, as big as any of his older cousins, and for the first time, he was wearing full battle armour. Riding behind him was Briares, the Hundred-handed One. All the Cyclopes held huge lengths of black iron chains – big enough to anchor a battleship – with grappling hooks at the ends. They swung them like lassos and began to ensnare Typhon, throwing lines around the creature's legs and arms, using the tide to keep circling, slowly tangling him. Typhon shook and roared and yanked at the chains, pulling some of the Cyclopes off their mounts, but there were too many chains. The sheer weight of the Cyclops battalion began to weigh Typhon down. Poseidon threw his trident and impaled the monster in the throat. Golden blood, immortal ichor, spewed from the wound, making a waterfall taller than a skyscraper. The trident flew back to Poseidon's hand.

Typhon tried to make it back to the shore, managing to get a single foot up before another horn sounded, this one like the roar of a lion, and another chariot came thundering down the street.

You would think it would be Hades, but he was still under siege downstairs as he guarded the doors.

This chariot was covered in grapevines, depictions of madness and insanity engraved on it. And its rider looked mad but a different kind as a herd of leopards followed after him. 

Dionysus let out a war cry as he charged and he raised his thyrsus into the air as his leopards pounced, and they knocked Typhon back into the water. 

"Papa!" Cressida cried with relief as her father's chariot rose into the air, pulled by two bulls this time as they charged, horns first into the giant. And her words only seemed to make Kronos angrier.

The other gods struck with renewed force. Ares rode in and stabbed Typhon in the nose. Artemis shot the monster in the eye with a dozen silver arrows. Apollo shot a blazing volley of arrows and set the monster's loincloth on fire. And Zeus kept pounding the giant with lightning, until finally, slowly, the water rose, wrapping Typhon like a cocoon, and he began to sink under the weight of the chains. Typhon bellowed in agony, thrashing with such force that waves sloshed the Jersey shore, soaking five-storey buildings and splashing over the George Washington Bridge – but down he went as Poseidon opened a special tunnel - an endless water slide that would take him straight to Tartarus. The giant's head went under in a seething whirlpool, and he was gone.