Clarisse’s Spear

Clarisse had been running for four hours now, and still, that stupid snake thing was tailing them. Her legs were burning with the effort, bouncing and weaving through the dense tree line of—

“Half-Blood Hill!”

—faster than made sense.

“Almost there!” Coach shouted back to her through the thick woods, keeping pace somewhere through the wall of lumber. “Just a little further!”

Her legs were threatening to melt into sludge if she went another ten yards, and she could tell the boundary was a lot further than that.

“You’re getting too old for this, goat!” The snake-on-legs taunted.

She could hear it through the trees, still going after Hedge after they’d used the treeline to force it to pick one by splitting up.

Her on the left, him on the right.

Just like in Austin.

“I’m not dead yet!” Her satyr insisted, bobbing and weaving through the trees just like her, back-and-forth, back-and-forth.

The burning had started over an hour ago. Long enough to stop feeling like a dislocated shoulder—

He and I remember Charleston very differently...

—and more like a bad roommate.

She felt after the fourth time they’d been forced into a dead sprint…this month…she had the right to complain about these demigod reflexes. Saving her life, and making her feel like she was dying.

Then she saw it.

1-7-5 yards down range. Armored. Eight combatants. Friendly.

It’s about darned time!

She slowed down, pacing herself, trading speed for endurance. The dirt and broken sticks in her hair stung her eyes but she kept going. She’d been through worse. She could take it.

She wouldn’t call out for help. Not yet. 175 yards of distance was a lot, and this thing didn’t know their destination yet. If it didn’t know where they were headed, it couldn’t ambush them.

One of the first lessons Arizona had taught her. The hard way.

“Your legs have been burning for hours, little hero. Elysium has to feel better than this, doesn’t it?” It offered, and those two words—little hero—dug into her neck and left icy scratches as they rode down her spine.

Little hero. That’s what that serpent thing called me when I was little.

Left-right her eyes flicked automatically, the memory alone nearly freezing her solid.

Something slammed into her back and grabbed her—

It was everything she could do not to scream.

—as Coach hauled her behind him swearing under his breath.

“You have to keep moving, La Rue!”

If he hadn’t been saving her life, she probably would have killed him for that.

Kill them first, and if it turns out they were good guys, we’ll apologize.

175 became 150 became 125.

“C’mon! You can make it!” Eight people shouted at once and…

…told this thing exactly where she was headed. It cut down a tree and made a shortcut for itself.

100…75…

“The bear. You remember the bear, right?” Hedge growled, gaining on her and inching closer to the snake monster on the war path.

“Yes I—why?” She asked immediately suspicious.

I don’t have to be faster than the bear. I just have to be faster than you.

50…40…30…

Don’t you f**king dare.

The tree cover was making progression difficult.

The creature stared at her like she was a very angry Chicago-style hotdog as it cut through the clearing.

The barrier was close enough to throw a rock at. The problem was, the snake had been smart. Running parallel to lock down a file of the board. The tree cover here was so thick that she’d have to go around, and the monster had the shorter path around.

Her body had slowed down enough that she could start talking tactics instead of fleeing imminent dismemberment.

“Why…why do you want to hurt Hedge? What did he do?”

She was stalling as her mind ran a mile a minute to figure out a route for her legs.

It was close. Too close. She could smell its breath. She heard a camper knock an arrow, heard it leave the bow, heard it bury itself in the tree.

“Thanks,” it said, teeth glistening in the moonlight as it picked the arrow out of the tree, “standard hack-and-slash gets so boring after a while.”

YOU HANDED IT A WEAPON?

“Nice aim, Solace.” A camper noted sarcastically.

“I told you I’m learning!”

“With aim like that…I feel…safer…already.” She fought for the quip.

The break-neck had her panting like a dog. The legs that had saved her life so many times before were demanding their weight in air and then some.

It stepped forward.

“That’s what you don’t understand, little girl. I don’t want to kill your little satyr friend. I want to kill you.”

She tried to pull her knife to have something, but…her hands were shaking too badly to use it.

The boundary line is right there. Safety is right there. All you have to do is get inside.

It lunged for her. Straight for the kill. She tried to roll out of the way, tried to do what her instincts told her to do, but she wasn’t fast enough. It almost got her.

Then her stupid, reckless, tragically altruistic satyr saved her life.

He dove in front of it, took the full brunt of the attack. The fangs found their mark and dug in deep. He tumbled backward, she backstepped to avoid him landing on her and immediately wished she hadn’t. She couldn’t read his injuries, but she knew that much red coming out of a neck had to be fatal or too close to it for comfort.

“How unfortunate.” The monster remarked, like he’d scored second place while aiming for first.

Hedge met her eyes. Minutes. She had minutes. She looked at camp, then back at him.

“I won’t leave you behind.” She growled, but knew it was a show. She was scared. Terrified.

“Get to camp. Getting you to camp is my job. I’m a Protector. I knew the risks. I took ‘em. Now, you’re going to have to take one of your own. Go.”

“I can’t.”

“You’re going to have to.”

“I’ll figure something out! There has to be something! There are gods, and monsters, and titans, and ambrosia and satyrs! Surely there’s something! I’ll find it!”

“What you need is time, La Rue, and that’s the one thing you don’t have. I’ve got plenty of decades in me, La Rue. You don’t. You get into camp, you train hard, you make dad proud, you make me proud.”

“You knew it was going to go for me. You knew jumping in front of me would kill you.”

“I had a hunch. Turned out to be right. Now I’m going to say something you are really not going to like.” He said.

She was crying. Really, truly crying, soaking her t-shirt through.

“Don’t you dare.” She growled through choked sobs.

“Get to Camp Half-Blood. Cross the border. Get to safety. Leave me behind.” He said.

“Don’t. Don’t say it.” She begged.

“That’s an order, La Rue.”

“I hate you.” She whispered, not knowing for sure whether or not she meant it.

He smiled at her kindly.

“If it means keeping you alive, Cupcake…” he said, voice growing fainter still, “…I’m willing to live with that.”

She ran so fast that the entire forest blurred into a sea of greens and blues. Trees and branches dissolved into brown static. Her leg snagged on a log and she kicked straight through it without stopping. The wind pushed against her face in waves, sending her hair into a wild frenzy behind her.

She didn’t dare look back.

She knew that if she did, she’d never be able to stop.

She broke through the line of shields and spears as the patrol gave her clearance. Javelins and arrows rained down on the creature, surrounding Hedge like a shield but not managing to hit its skin.

She couldn’t see anything through the endless haze of red. No, she went by feeling, by instinct, turning towards the mound of weapons she could sense in her gut and running full tilt forward. Each time her boots touched the dirt, a tiny starburst of brown caught the wind at point of contact.

The door to Ares Cabin was locked. She did a manual override on the door. The turret at the back of the central hallway fired. She ran full-tilt straight towards it anyway, feeling celestial bronze ammo…bounce harmlessly off of her skin.

She found a spear in the armory. Grabbed it. Turned on her heels and raced back. Past other campers, past the shield wall, back out there. Nothing could stop her.

Literally.

She ran head-first into the oak to avoid losing the momentum of her sprint, slashed the handle of the spear hard and fast, and cut the tree down as she used the tip to push it upward. Out of the way. Two and a half tonnes of solid oak was a distraction and she could not afford to be distracted.

Her burning red vision narrowed and focused—not on Hedge, on the Dracaena. She held the spear out in front of her in a way that felt right, and kept running towards it.

“This should be interesting to watch.” It smirked, but she wasn’t listening. She didn’t care. This it had tried to take Hedge away from her.

It is a cancer. Now I’m going to cut it out.

She didn’t stop. Kept running. Kept sprinting. The wind in her hair, the anger in her gut, the red in her vision. None of it mattered.

The possibility that she might die trying didn’t cross her mind. All that mattered was one thing. One thought boring into the eyes of that monster.

You are going to die.

She felt the metal point make contact. Felt the golden metal spark—huh?—under her fingertips. Heard a sound like roaring thunder as a point of light blinded her.

She kept pushing until the point stopped facing resistance. Kept pushing until the spear had gone in the front and gone out the back. It dissolved into golden ash, but that didn’t matter.

Coach Hedge stared at her as the tip buried itself in the dirt. She didn’t even glance at it. Relief fluttered through her to replace the raging fire of energy she’d just burned through.

“Got to camp. Crossed the border. Got to safety. Left you behind. Came back. If it means keeping you alive, Cupcake…” she said, smirking right back at him, “…I’m willing to live with that.”

Three javelins blocked Coach Hedge from leaving his protective circle. The daughter of—she didn’t even know, nor did she care—Mrs. Jennifer Francesca La Rue just ripped them straight out of the ground and tossed them to the side. She picked up that darned satyr before he could protest, slung him over her shoulder, and carried him back to the shield wall where children of Apollo waited to intercept. Medics took him from her and loaded him onto a stretcher.

“Will he be okay?” She asked quietly.

“I’ll do everything I can, but his injuries are…severe. I can’t make any guarantees.”

She nodded weakly, following them inside.

A group of Ares kids stepped in, looking at her.

“Nice work. That was a mighty fine kill.”

She looked at them like they were a bit crazy, and shrugged.

“Thanks. I think.”

One of them muttered something about never seeing 'Dad's Blessing' before.

Maybe this was...that

“Do you have the spear?”

She palmed her face.

“It’s…still sitting in the ground. Do you want me to go and get it?”

“You look like you could use a distraction. Sure.”

“I’ll go get your fancy magic spear then.”

“Magic? We don’t have those. At least, not in the cabin.”

She remembered the electric boom that had shuddered from the spear when she’d driven it into the dracaenae. Yet another time her mind had imagined something that hadn’t really happened.

“Cool. Another thing I’ve seen that wasn’t really there. Somebody should keep a list.”

She trudged off and grabbed the spear.

Two Ares kids looked at her, then at the spear, which was still sparking.

“Have I finally lost it, or is that thing sparking?”

“It’s sparking, alright.”

She picked it up, straightened herself, tried to hand it back, but both of them seemed transfixed on something above her head. A prickle of ice ran down her spine.

Tell me I didn’t just summon something way worse than a dracaena…

She looked above her.

A giant, burning red boar’s head glowed above her. She didn’t understand what it meant. Just that, generally, when giant glowing symbols appear above your head, you have either done something really, really right or something really, really wrong. Knowing her luck, it was probably the latter.

A ‘centaur’ like Coach Hedge had mentioned before appeared before them. Her experiences with the ‘party ponies’ had not been pleasant ones. She prepared herself for a brawl.

He looked at her curiously.

“Calm yourself, little one. I am not here to cause you trouble. That is the symbol of your father, and he has claimed you. What is your name, child?”

“Clarisse La Rue.” She muttered, not really excited about any of this.

If this was what had made this father of hers pay attention to her, then she didn’t get the impression he was okay with mediocrity.

“Ares. Man-slayer, Oath-keeper, Lord of War. Hail, Clarisse La Rue, daughter of the War God!”

She eyed the spear in her hands.

He’s going to expect me to do more of that.

She staked the electric spear in the ground next to her, attempting to lean on it. To the outside, it probably looked like her posing with it. She hoped.

On the inside…

She closed her eyes, appearing to drink in the attention.

Boston, you have my eternal gratitude.

And taking the lesson Boston had once given her…

…fell asleep standing up.