Chapter 18 I Bond with Clarisse by Trying to Kill Her
I Bond with Clarisse by Trying to Kill Her
My last lesson of the day was polearms with the rest of the Ares cabin.
I wasn’t anxious to hang out with my cabinmates, but since I’d been bouncing around on my own all day, I figured I should at least make an effort.
Campers weren’t required to do all activities with their cabins.
Still, the more I did my own thing, the more dirty looks I got from the other Ares kids.
Unfortunately, they’d all known one another for a while. They were quick to pair off for sparring practice, which left me with Clarisse as my partner. I just hoped my scythe lessons with Nyssa would give me a chance.
I smiled politely at Clarisse as we assumed our starting positions. She regarded me with indifference.
I saluted her by resting the base of the scythe on the ground in front of me. She curled her lip and dragged the butt of her spear across the dirt.
“What’s your problem?” I asked.
“You.” She whirled her spear around and charged. I sidestepped, caught her strike with the crook of my scythe, then pushed the tip of her spear into the dirt. She twisted her hips, arms straight, and swept my scythe aside. Then she came at me with a push kick.
I retreated, almost losing my balance before thrusting the pole of my scythe backward and planting it behind me like a third leg. I pushed off and lunged forward with it, jabbing at Clarisse’s face, but she raised her spear and locked our weapons together.
“I’m sorry I’m in your cabin,” I said while we struggled for control, “but I can’t help who my father is. Honestly, I don’t even want to be here.”
“I don’t care that you’re here,” Clarisse said through gritted teeth. “I care that you cost us the baton race and made us look like fools. You’re going to pay for that!”
She disengaged, causing me to stumble forward. Instinctively, I somersaulted across the dirt as she stabbed the air where I’d just been.
I got to my feet, positioning myself for another attack. “You all looked like fools way before I got here. And finding Grant was more important than your stupid…race!”
On the last word, I swung my scythe at perfect head-severing height and speed, but Clarisse made no move to stop me.
I balked, not wanting to decapitate my counselor.
The moment I faltered, Clarisse seized the opportunity.
She lunged forward, stepping inside my guard, and shoved me backward onto my rear.
“You’re holding back, Katie,” she said. “That’ll get you killed.”
I blinked the red spots out of my eyes. For a moment, I was back in my own yard, splayed out on the ground while Olivia stood over me with her foil. Then I was back in the forest, the hooded man lashing at me with his chain as he said the same thing: You’re holding back.
I growled and clambered to my feet. I charged at Olivia—er, Clarisse, swinging the scythe in an upward motion to hook it around the shaft of her spear. When Clarisse retreated, I swept her legs out from under her, knocking her on her backside.
She grinned wolfishly, wiping the dust off her chin. I was vaguely aware of the other Ares kids fanning out around us to watch, their own duels forgotten.
“Not bad,” Clarisse admitted. “You aren’t using that weapon the right way for combat, though.”
I flicked the scythe blade forward, locking it parallel to the shaft, the way Nyssa had showed me. For half a second, a look of surprise flashed across Clarisse’s face.
“Get up,” I growled. “I’ll show you what I can do.”
The corner of Clarisse’s mouth curved upward. “Let’s do this.”
In one fluid motion, she rolled to her knees and swept her spear sideways, trying to catch my legs. I leaped over her weapon, spun, and brought my scythe down, the tip of the blade at her neck. If she hadn’t rolled out of the way, I would’ve sliced right across her throat.
She laughed with delight. “Now we’re talking!”
She stabbed upward with her spear.
I sucked in my stomach and leaped back. Then I swung my scythe again. She somersaulted backward and righted herself, but it was clear that I had the advantage. Fully extended, the combat scythe had a longer reach. I was actually winning.
She hurled her spear at my midsection—a desperate move that left her empty-handed.
I knocked the spear out of the air and advanced, my scythe leveled at Clarisse’s chest. In a low voice I said, “I’m going back to you-know-where tonight. With friends. We’re going to figure out what happened to you-know-who.”
I jabbed at her sternum, no holding back this time, but Clarisse managed to twist to one side, grabbing the shaft of my scythe and grappling with me for control.
“Why…tell…me?” she asked between grunts.
Then, instead of wresting the scythe out of my grasp, she elbowed me in the face—just the kind of dirty move I should have expected.
I tottered around, trying to regain my balance, while Clarisse sprinted away and grabbed her spear.
The other campers cheered, but she silenced them with a wave of her hand.
We repositioned ourselves, shifting our weight from foot to foot, each looking for an advantage.
“I’m telling you,” I said between gritted teeth, tasting blood in my mouth, “so you don’t raise an alarm that we’ve gone missing.” I arced my scythe to one side, but she blocked it. “Unless we don’t come back by morning. Then maybe an alarm would be good.”
I swung my scythe overhead, but in the middle of my upswing, Clarisse jabbed her spear into the ground and used it the way a pole-vaulter would—except instead of flying over a crossbar, she kicked me hard in the stomach. I flailed backward, losing my balance and my scythe. My head hit the ground.
When my vision cleared, I saw Clarisse standing over me, the point of her spear pressed against my throat. Our match was over.
I blinked up at her. “Congratulations. You going to kill me now?”
She snorted. “Tempting.”
She held out her hand. I stared at it for a moment but then took it and let her help me to my feet. Some of our cabinmates booed.
Clarisse frowned at them. “You losers could learn a few things from Kim. Did you see that killer instinct? That’s what I’m talking about. Now get back to sparring!”
As the Ares kids grumbled and paired off again, Clarisse faced me and chin-pointed toward the armory. She led me just out of earshot.
“You can try your plan,” she said, “but if you’re taking your newbie friends with you, that’s not going to be enough. You’ll need backup.”
I smiled tightly. “You and your goons want to come along and shoot arrows at us again?”
“Funny,” she grumbled. “I’m not offering out of kindness. There’s something weird going on in the Wild Zone—I mean, even weirder than I realized. After you told me about that little invisibility ring of yours, I did some digging.”
She glanced in the direction of the Big House. “There’s an old register of magic items in the attic. All the stuff that’s been brought back to camp from quests, going back, like, a hundred years. It hasn’t been kept up the past few decades. I don’t even know if Chiron remembers it exists….”
“And?” I prompted.
“And I skimmed through it for anything about your ring.”
I’m not sure what surprised me more—that Clarisse had done something to help me, or that she had looked through an old book for information. She didn’t strike me as much of a researcher.
“About fifty years ago,” she continued, “a kid named Ian Fairbanks brought back a ring from a gorgon’s lair in the White Mountains. Supposedly, the ring could turn you invisible, but it had…side effects.”
“Side effects,” I echoed.
Clarisse shrugged. “The entry didn’t elaborate. Here’s the thing, though. Usually, a demigod either gets to keep a magic item from a quest, or it goes into the attic for safekeeping. This ring was marked as too dangerous for use. But it didn’t wind up in the attic.”
“So where did it go?”
“The entry just said Chiron.”
My gut felt queasy, and I didn’t think it was just from Clarisse’s kick. I remembered what Argus had said. Only Chiron entered the Wild Zone, and only a couple of times a century. This kid Ian had found his cursed item about fifty years ago….
I pulled the ring from my pocket. It glinted in the sunlight as if to say Everything is fine! Just a beautiful piece of jewelry! Try me!
“Could it be a different ring?” I asked without much conviction.
“ ‘Description: Silver with sapphires,’ ” Clarisse quoted.
“Shoot,” I said. “But if this thing was too dangerous to store in the attic, why would Chiron just toss it into the Wild Zone? Anybody could stumble over it there.”
Clarisse pursed her lips. “I don’t know. Unless he was very sure it would never be retrieved. For instance, if it was being guarded…”
I swallowed back the taste of blood. “By what?”
“That’s the million-drachma question,” Clarisse agreed.
“And, Katie? Once I knew what to look for, I saw quite a few magic items marked the same way in the register: Too dangerous—Chiron. I think there’s more out there in the woods.
I don’t know why. I don’t know what Chiron was thinking.
But are you sure you don’t want backup?”
I won’t lie. I was tempted to say Yes, please, and bring your largest siege weapons.
But I couldn’t imagine the entire Ares cabin trying to sneak into the Wild Zone.
And if they did, I couldn’t imagine they’d be able to help.
Sending a dozen trigger-happy warriors into a monster-infested forest was more likely to get all of us killed, probably by one another.
And if we found anything that needed to be kept secret, there was no chance of that with so many people involved.
I squared my shoulders. “We’ll be okay. But thanks for the information.”
Clarisse nodded. “Okay, then. Be careful.”
I stared at her. “That’s it? You’ll let us go?”
“This is the Ares cabin, kid. We don’t coddle. We don’t use guardrails. You want to risk your life? Good for you. Just be warned—if you die, I’ll have to kill you.” One corner of her mouth lifted in a smile.
It wasn’t unkind.
I gave her a half smile back. “Understood.”