RIDING ARION, HAZEL FELT POWERFUL, unstoppable,
absolutely in control – a perfect combination of horse and
human. She wondered if this was what it was like to be a
centaur.
The boat captains in Seward had warned her it was
three hundred nautical miles to the Hubbard Glacier, a
hard, dangerous journey, but Arion had no trouble. He
raced over the water at the speed of sound, heating the air
around them so that Hazel didn’t even feel the cold. On
foot, she never would have felt so brave. On horseback,
she couldn’t wait to charge into battle.
Frank and Percy didn’t look so happy. When Hazel
glanced back, their teeth were clenched and their eyeballs
were bouncing around in their heads. Frank’s cheeks
jiggled from the g-force. Percy sat at the back, hanging on
tight, desperately trying not to slip off the horse’s rear.
Hazel hoped that didn’t happen. The way Arion was
moving, she might not notice he was gone for fifty or sixty
miles.
They raced through icy straits, past blue fjords and cliffs
with waterfalls spilling into the sea. Arion jumped over a
breaching humpback whale and kept galloping, startling a
pack of seals off an iceberg.
It seemed like only minutes before they zipped into a
narrow bay. The water turned the consistency of shaved
ice in blue sticky syrup. Arion came to a halt on a frozen
turquoise slab.
A half a mile away stood Hubbard Glacier. Even Hazel,
who’d seen glaciers before, couldn’t quite process what
she was looking at. Purple snowcapped mountains
marched off in either direction, with clouds floating around
their middles like fluffy belts. In a massive valley between
two of the largest peaks, a ragged wall of ice rose out of
the sea, filling the entire gorge. The glacier was blue and
white with streaks of black, so that it looked like a hedge of
dirty snow left behind on a sidewalk after a snowplough
had gone by, only four million times as large.
As soon as Arion stopped, Hazel felt the temperature
drop. All that ice was sending off waves of cold, turning the
bay into the world’s largest refrigerator. The eeriest thing
was a sound like thunder that rolled across the water.
‘What is that?’ Frank gazed at the clouds above the
glacier. ‘A storm?’
‘No,’ Hazel said. ‘Ice cracking and shifting. Millions of
tons of ice.’
‘You mean that thing is breaking up?’ Frank asked.
As if on cue, a sheet of ice silently calved off the side of
the glacier and crashed into the sea, spraying water and
frozen shrapnel several storeys high. A millisecond later
the sound hit them – a BOOM almost as jarring as Arion
hitting the sound barrier.
‘We can’t get close to that thing!’ Frank said.
‘We have to,’ Percy said. ‘The giant is at the top.’
Arion nickered.
‘Jeez, Hazel,’ Percy said, ‘tell your horse to watch his
language.’
Hazel tried not to laugh. ‘What did he say?’
‘With the cussing removed? He said he can get us to
the top.’
Frank looked incredulous. ‘I thought the horse couldn’t
fly!’ This time Arion whinnied so angrily, even Hazel could
guess he was cursing.
‘Dude,’ Percy told the horse, ‘I’ve been suspended for
saying less than that. Hazel, he promises you’ll see what
he can do as soon as you give the word.’
‘Um, hold on, then, you guys,’ Hazel said nervously.
‘Arion, giddyup!’
Arion shot towards the glacier like a runaway rocket,
barrelling straight across the slush like he wanted to play
chicken with the mountain of ice.
The air grew colder. The crackling of the ice grew
louder. As Arion closed the distance, the glacier loomed
so large that Hazel got vertigo just trying to take it all in.
The side was riddled with crevices and caves, spiked with
jagged ridges like axe blades. Pieces were constantly
crumbling off – some no larger than snowballs, some the
size of houses.
When they were about fifty yards from the base, a
thunderclap rattled Hazel’s bones, and a curtain of ice that
would have covered Camp Jupiter calved away and fell
towards them.
‘Look out!’ Frank shouted, which seemed a little
unnecessary to Hazel.
Arion was way ahead of him. In a burst of speed, he
zigzagged through the debris, leaping over chunks of ice
and clambering up the face of the glacier.
Percy and Frank both cussed like horses and held on
desperately while Hazel wrapped her arms round Arion’s
neck. Somehow, they managed not to fall off as Arion
scaled the cliffs, jumping from foothold to foothold with
impossible speed and agility. It was like falling down a
mountain in reverse.
Then it was over. Arion stood proudly at the top of a
ridge of ice that loomed over the void. The sea was now
three hundred feet below them.
Arion whinnied a challenge that echoed off the
mountains. Percy didn’t translate, but Hazel was pretty
sure Arion was calling out to any other horses that might
be in the bay: Beat that, ya punks!
Then he turned and ran inland across the top of the
glacier, leaping a chasm fifty feet across.
‘There!’ Percy pointed.
The horse stopped. Ahead of them stood a frozen
Roman camp like a giant-sized ghastly replica of Camp
Jupiter. The trenches bristled with ice spikes. The snowbrick
ramparts glared blinding white. Hanging from the
guard towers, banners of frozen blue cloth shimmered in
the Arctic sun.
There was no sign of life. The gates stood wide open.
No sentries walked the walls. Still, Hazel had an uneasy
feeling in her gut. She remembered the cave in
Resurrection Bay where she’d worked to raise Alcyoneus
– the oppressive sense of malice and the constant boom,
boom, boom, like Gaia’s heartbeat. This place felt similar,
as if the earth were trying to wake up and consume
everything – as if the mountains on either side wanted to
crush them and the entire glacier to pieces.
Arion trotted skittishly.
‘Frank,’ Percy said, ‘how about we go on foot from here?’
Frank sighed with relief. ‘Thought you’d never ask.’
They dismounted and took some tentative steps. The
ice seemed stable, covered with a fine carpet of snow so
that it wasn’t too slippery.
Hazel urged Arion forward. Percy and Frank walked on
either side, sword and bow ready. They approached the
gates without being challenged. Hazel was trained to spot
pits, snares, trip lines and all sorts of other traps Roman
legions had faced for aeons in enemy territory, but she
saw nothing – just the yawning icy gates and the frozen
banners crackling in the wind.
She could see straight down the Via Praetoria. At the
crossroads, in front of the snow-brick principia, a tall, darkrobed
figure stood, bound in icy chains.
‘Thanatos,’ Hazel murmured.
She felt as if her soul were being pulled forward, drawn
towards Death like dust towards a vacuum. Her vision
went dark. She almost fell off Arion, but Frank caught her
and propped her up.
‘We’ve got you,’ he promised. ‘Nobody’s taking you
away.’
Hazel gripped his hand. She didn’t want to let go. He
was so solid, so reassuring, but Frank couldn’t protect her
from Death. His own life was as fragile as a half-burnt
piece of wood.
‘I’m all right,’ she lied.
Percy looked around uneasily. ‘No defenders? No
giant? This has to be a trap.’
‘Obviously,’ Frank said. ‘But I don’t think we have a
choice.’
Before Hazel could change her mind, she urged Arion
through the gates. The layout was so familiar – cohort
barracks, baths, armoury. It was an exact replica of Camp
Jupiter, except three times as big. Even on horseback,
Hazel felt tiny and insignificant, as if they were moving
through a model city constructed by the gods.
They stopped ten feet from the robed figure.
Now that she was here, Hazel felt a reckless urge to
finish the quest. She knew she was in more danger than
when she’d been fighting the Amazons, or fending off the
gryphons, or climbing the glacier on Arion’s back.
Instinctively she knew that Thanatos could simply touch
her, and she would die.
But she also had a feeling that if she didn’t see the
quest through, if she didn’t face her fate bravely, she
would still die – in cowardice and failure. The judges of the
dead wouldn’t be lenient to her a second time.
Arion cantered back and forth, sensing her disquiet.
‘Hello?’ Hazel forced out the word. ‘Mr Death?’
The hooded figure raised his head.
Instantly, the whole camp stirred to life. Figures in
Roman armour emerged from the barracks, the principia,
the armoury and the canteen, but they weren’t human.
They were shades – the chattering ghosts Hazel had lived
with for decades in the Fields of Asphodel. Their bodies
weren’t much more than wisps of black vapour, but they
managed to hold together sets of scale armour, greaves
and helmets. Frost-covered swords were strapped to their
waists. Pila and dented shields floated in their smoky
hands. The plumes on the centurions’ helmets were
frozen and ragged. Most of the shades were on foot, but
two soldiers burst out of the stables in a golden chariot
pulled by ghostly black steeds.
When Arion saw the horses, he stamped the ground in
outrage.
Frank gripped his bow. ‘Yep, here’s the trap.’
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