You'll Learn to Love Me

Chapter 52: The Crossroads

Days passed by, and surprisingly until now, there had only been three major attacks. Tonight, Laylana stood on deck with Hazel, her Underworld sister, the two of them starting into the fog. She had her hair tied back into a ponytail, wearing one of Leo's sweaters against the cold night. Laylana and Nico were calling out directions to Leo, the boy having been up on the foremast of the ship to keep a lookout. It wasn't until the alarm bells rang that Laylana perked up. 

"Hard to port!" Nico yelled from the foremast.

Back at the helm, Leo yanked the wheel. The Argo II veered left, its aerial oars slashing through the clouds like rows of knives. Hazel made the mistake of looking over the rail. A dark spherical shape hurtled towards her and Laylana. Laylana quickly dove out of the way, dragging Hazel with her. The girl yelped as a huge rock passed by them, crashing into the foremast overhead.The sail, spars and Nico all came crashing to the deck. The boulder, roughly the size of a pickup truck, tumbled off into the fog like it had important business elsewhere.

"What the fuck?" Laylana shouted as she and Hazel ran to Nico.

"Nico!" Hazel cried as Leo brought the ship level.

"I'm fine," Nico muttered, kicking folds of canvas off his legs.

"Are you sure?" Laylana asked as Hazel pulled him up. She began checking all over him for any sign of injury, him swatting at her hands

"I'm fine! I swear to Gods, Layla." Nico groaned as she kept trying to see if he had any wounds or breaks or sprains.

The "siblings" stumbled to the bow. Hazel peeked over more carefully this time. The clouds parted just long enough to reveal the top of the mountain below them: a spearhead of blackrock jutting from mossy green slopes. Standing at the summit was a mountain god – one of the numina montanum, Jason had called them. Or ourae, in Greek. 

Like the others they had faced, this one wore a simple white tunic over skin as rough and dark asbasalt. He was about twenty feet tall and extremely muscular, with a flowing white beard, scraggly hair and a wild look in his eyes, like a crazy hermit. He bellowed something Laylana didn't understand, then grabbed another chunk of rock from his mountain and began shaping it into a ball. 

"Shit." Laylana mumbled. "Leo! Heads up!" 

The scene disappeared in the fog as Laylana heard a rock whiz by, but not nearly close enough to the ship. The mountain god bellowed again, other numina answered in the distance, their voices echoing through the valleys.

"Stupid rock gods!" Leo yelled from the helm. "That's the third time I've had to replace that mast! You think they grow on trees?"

Nico frowned. "Masts are from trees."

Laylana snorted, proud of his comment. "Good one." 

"That's not the point!" Leo snatched up one of his controls, rigged from a Nintendo Wii stick, and spun it in a circle. A few feet away, a trapdoor opened in the deck. A Celestial bronze cannon rose. Laylana ducked, looking away and covered her ears just in time as the cannon discharged into the sky,  spraying a dozen metal spheres that trailed green fire. The spheres grew spikes in midair, like helicopter blades, and hurtled away into the fog. A moment later, a series of explosions crackled across the mountains, followed by the outraged roars of mountain gods.

"Ha!" Leo yelled.

"Good one, babe!" Laylana called out, before feeling her stomach drop as she heard another boulder whistling through the air off to another side of the ship. "Shit, nevermind!" 

Nico yelled, "Get us out of here!"

Leo muttered some unflattering comments about numina, Laylana throwing in a few choice words herself as she ran up to join him at the control panel as he turned the wheel. The engines hummed. Magical rigging lashed itself tight, and the ship tacked to port. The Argo II picked up speed, retreating north-west, as they'd been doing for the past two days.