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THIRTY FOUR, ponies crash the party
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"ONE ON ONE," Percy challenged Luke. "What are you afraid of?"
Aster's heart beat so fast in her chest that it nearly drowned out the noises of the monsters surrounding them. She struggled against the grip of Oreius, but she couldn't move an inch.
Luke curled his lip. The soldiers who were about to kill them hesitated, waiting for his order.
Before he could say anything, Agrius, the bear-man, burst onto the deck leading a flying horse. The coat of it was so black it seemed to absorb sunlight, with wings like a giant raven. The pegasus mare bucked and whinnied. It looked to Aster that the horse seriously did not want to be anywhere near Luke.
"Sir!" Agrius called, dodging a pegasus hoof. "Your steed is ready!"
Luke kept his eyes on Percy, ignoring the monster henchman.
"I told you last summer, Percy," he simply said. "You can't bait me into a fight."
"And you keep avoiding one." Percy raised an eyebrow.
"What is it, Luke?" Aster called out. "Scared your warriors will see you get whipped?"
Percy was really playing the part well, Aster had to admit, even though their lives were on the line—or whatever Luke had planned for her, as he had mentioned the first time they boarded the Princess Andromeda. The memory sent a shiver down her spine; Aster had enough to deal with this new power that had emerged, and she didn't need Luke on top of it.
Luke glanced at his men, and he saw that Percy had trapped him. If he backed down now, he would look weak. If he fought Percy, he'd lose valuable time chasing after Clarisse. Aster could only hope that Percy could distract him long enough for one of them to come up with a plan for escape. But Luke was a master at sword fighting; he was better than Percy last summer, and Aster doubted that he'd stopped training.
"I'll kill you quickly," he decided, and raised his weapon. Backbiter was a foot longer than Percy's sword, Riptide. Its blade glinted with an evil gray-and-gold light where the human steel had been melded with celestial bronze. Aster could almost feel the blade fighting against itself, like two opposing magnets bound together. Being in the blade's company made her skin crawl, and somehow she knew someone had died in the process of forging it. Luke whistled to one of his men, who threw him a round leather-and-bronze shield.
He grinned at Percy wickedly.
Aster swallowed hard.
"Luke," Annabeth said, "at least give him a shield."
"Sorry, Annabeth," he said, a deathly edge to his voice. "You bring your own equipment to this party."
The shield would be a problem for Percy. Even though Aster didn't prefer a sword herself, she knew from what Luke taught her years ago that fighting two-handed with just a sword gave you more power, but fighting one-handed with a shield gave you better defense and versatility. There were more moves, more options, more ways to kill.
