After All This Time...

Chapter 4

Annabeth stood over Frank as he knelt at the feet of Thanatos, the firewood that represented his life force in his shaking hands. She couldn't blame him.

It was all she could do to keep the ghosts at bay, swinging her dagger back and forth and cursing at the ghosts in Ancient Greek. Every time her blade passed through one of the spirts, it momentarily dissolved only to suddenly reappear and charge at her again. Out of the corner of her eye, Annabeth could see Frank pressing the stump of firewood—his life force—against the icy chains holding Death's leg. She could hear the giant, Alcyoneus, bellow and Arion whinny in the distance, but she kept her eyes trained on the fight in front of her.

Frank and Hazel were doing the hard part. Freeing Death. Fighting off a giant created to destroy the gods. All Annabeth had to do was buy them time by keeping the undead Roman legionaries off their back. She gritted her teeth and pushed forward into the throng of ghosts.

The cold air was making it hard to breathe. Annabeth could vaguely remember training in the snow at camp during the winter, but it had never been like this. Never this cold. Never this many enemies.

Not for the first time, Annabeth wished she had powers like Frank or like Percy. She dodged spears and knocked arrows aside with the flat of her blade, only to almost be stabbed by an undead legionnaire. She managed to steal a shield from one of the ghosts while he was reforming, and that helped. Her left side was covered at least.

Thank the gods she had so many years of training under her belt. She made a mental note to thank Chiron for all the times his training had pushed her past her limits and to the brink of tears. Lupa too. The fact that she was alive still was a testament to their teaching.

With a start, Annabeth realized that she had moved away from Frank. Panicked, she darted a glance back at him—expected to see him overcome with ghosts—only to find that the soldiers were completely focused on her. She briefly wondered if her fighting skills were that threatening, but as she slashed through another ghost only to watch it reform, she realized it must be something else.

That's when she spotted it. A black vapory ghost wearing a lion-skin cape and holding a pole with a golden eagle—the legion's standard. It suddenly dawned on Annabeth that these ghosts were the lost members of the Fifth cohort, and as invested as they were in keeping Thanatos chained, it seemed that the standard was more important to them.

Strategy in mid, Annabeth plowed through the ghosts with renewed energy. She slashed and stabbed, even used her shield as a battering ram to knock them over, but never stopped moving forward. Finally, she came face to face with the standard bearer. He stared at Annabeth with empty sockets and raised his sword, but she never gave him the chance to use it. Annabeth threw her shield in his face, in surprise the legionnaire dropped his sword and stumbled back. She stabbed him quickly and grabbed the standard before his ghostly hand even fully disintegrate.

A look told her that Frank was still working on the god in chains, so she waved the heavy gold standard in the air.

"You want it back?" she shouted at the ghosts. "Come and

get it!"

The ghosts took her words at face value and they rushed forward, ready to reclaim their standard. At the sight of the undead horde, Annabeth realized that she had made a grave miscalculation. There was no way she could fight off that many enemies single handedly.

So the daughter of Athena quickly came up with a strategy that would keep her alive. She turned and ran.

She ran through the Via Principalis, trying to overturn chariots and knock down buildings as she went to hold back the angry ghosts that were hot on her tail. But every ghost that she buried under a collapsed wall or slashed through with her dagger, re-formed immediately and charged again. Annabeth suddenly found herself just twenty feet from the edge of the glacier, and too late she realized that she had backed herself into a corner.