Page 157 of Blood of Olympus

“Wounded and down for the count,” Athena called from behind.

I jerked round, my gaze snagging on the onyx-drenched goddess, covered head to toe in the blood of her Tartarian foes. Her eyes shone brightly through the darkness, an even more disconcerting blue than usual. I nodded at her, jerking my head to indicate she should join us.

“Aros, Evie, and Athena, you’re with me on the ground. We move with stealth and cut down everything in our path — because judging by what I just felt, Nyssa doesn’t have long.”

Nike shot into the air like a ray of white light, leaving a handful of stray ivory feathers in her wake. She swooped past, giving the all clear to move out. Weapons were wiped clean on hems of tunics, then together, we sprinted.

Before it was too late.

Furies, I hope it’s not too late.

Nike made the calls from above, and we followed her every instruction. Aros and Athena took on the bulk of our enemies — everything from nightmarish creatures to mortal men and women thirsting for our blood — leaving Evie and I mostly free to move quicker.

Until a hideous sight blocked our path — and no, it wasn’t Poseidon’s wriggling inch-worm again.

Somehow, Kronos had managed to coax a nightmare to life. Tartarus was infamous for its progeny of terrifying creatures, and the duo before us was no exception.

Thank the Furies, Nyssa wasn’t here to witness this.

Dragging its many scaled legs over the stones, clacking and clawing at a leisurely pace, was some hideous malformation of a spider — or a lizard — some nauseating combination of both.

With blistering black scales covering every inch of its body, interspersed with the hairy hide of an arachnid, its enormous reptilian head lunged at us.

I dropped into a roll, growing increasingly agitated with every second of delay, while Evie swung her nameless sword at the creature’s gaping maw.

Its many legs skittered backwards when she struck true, reeling and screeching in raucous cacophony. When it roared again, it did so with venom. The creature’s hiss was accompanied by the sharp snapping outburst of a leathery fan around its face — a hairy, frilled neck covered in streaks of blood red.

“What in Tartarus is that?!” Aros exclaimed as he and Athena rejoined us.

“Something Tartarus chewed and spat right back out,” Evie grumbled, taking another swipe at it. She successfully cleaved leg from abdomen twice, and delved beneath its rearing body while the second beast was finally spurred into action.

If I’d thought the spider-lizard was horrific, then this one was even worse. A gigantic cockroach the size of a horse hissed at us, flaring its transparent wings in preparation to join Nike in the sky.

“Mine!” Athena called, twirling her golden spear with something like excitement scrawled across her features. “Come on, Blade, let’s see what else you’ve got.”

Aros groaned, shooting me a wink as he tossed and caught Flameless one-handed. “Oh, Ath, I thought you’d never ask to see what my blade can do.”

Evie gagged as Nike swooped past giggling.

“Sorry buddy — she’s spoken for,” she said, before blowing Athena a kiss and slashing through one of the beast’s fluttering wings, halting its upward path.

Meanwhile, impatience clenched my teeth so hard they could crack — the wall between my bonded and I weighed far too heavily upon my shoulders.

What was being done to her while I remained blissfully, obtusely unaware?

I needed to get to her now.

Thankfully, Evie seemed to be similarly minded and used the opportunity to drive her sword up through the arachnid’s gut. Gore rained down upon her as she pulled it back out, and for a moment, my mind flicked back to a similarly drenched goddess of death after a duel with a hydra.

“Go!” Aros called. “We’re right behind you!”

I did not hesitate.

Time seemed to pass agonisingly slowly as we forged our way across the battlefield. Corpses were strewn about — the majority being innocent bystanders of Hellespont simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the warriors of Athenos who fought and died to save them. My heart ached, but I could not give them more than a second of thought because I had one goal, and one goal only: save her.

And that was the mantra that played through my mind, over and over again as I ran, ducked, rolled, dove, leaped, and slashed my way through the rest of the burning city.

With every footstep — right, left, right left — ‘save her’ became the beat of my war drum. The rhythm of my march.