The Strategy
She still drove her knee into Chris's stomach. The sword slid out of her abdomen at the same moment, tearing another burst of pain from her body.
Clarisse spun her spear in a sharp motion and struck him across the face, knocking him to the ground.
The attackers, clearly part of Chris's group, immediately turned toward her and rushed forward, surrounding her in seconds.
Chris used the brief distance Clarisse had created and slashed toward her leg, making her lose her balance for a moment.
Clarisse looked at him with a truly tragic expression, filled with betrayal.
"I thought you had died on that island, like Luke said. But it seems you got pretty lucky," Chris said with a confident smile as he looked at Clarisse's bleeding leg. "I didn't expect you to be the one arriving with the Fleece. We actually brought our best because we were waiting for Jackson. But… this will be easier."
He struck with his shield, but Clarisse stepped aside and tripped him at the same time. Chris hit the ground.
Another camper immediately lunged at her with his sword.
Clarisse smashed the shaft of her spear straight into his nose, driving him backward.
An arrow shot toward her and she had to duck to avoid it while twisting away from another blade. Then she kicked the attacker square in the chest.
Suddenly a demigoddess jumped at her with her whole body, trying to stab her with a dagger.
Clarisse's eyes widened for a brief moment before she answered with a headbutt straight to the face.
Every movement she made was filled with pain. The wound in her abdomen prevented her from moving freely. Just for trusting Chris for a single moment she was now in real danger.
Chris suddenly appeared behind her and slashed across her back.
Clarisse expelled all the air from her lungs as a wave of pain rushed through her body.
Even so she turned and drove her elbow straight into Chris's face, enough to throw him off balance for a moment.
Clarisse used that moment to try to escape.
But an arrow flew into her back and buried itself in her shoulder.
Other campers moved quickly and blocked her path, surrounding her again with cruel smiles.
Chris walked closer, smiling as he watched Clarisse's wounds slowly begin to close thanks to the jacket she was wearing.
"Take her down and remove the Fleece," Chris said coldly, fully aware that without it Clarisse's wounds would kill her almost immediately.
Then he looked at her again with a mocking expression.
"Aren't you afraid Jackson's master might discover you?" Clarisse suddenly asked.
Everyone stopped for a moment.
Then several amused smiles appeared among them.
"Didn't you hear earlier?" Chris replied. "That guy doesn't interfere in anything that isn't about monsters. Even when there are traitors he just watches calmly. He wouldn't even care if the entire camp ended up slaughtered."
"But this is different," Clarisse said quickly. "With the Fleece your mission should end, right? Because the barrier would rise again."
Chris laughed.
"You really are pathetic," he said with contempt. "You don't understand the mentality of those so-called gods. They see us as trash. Even if we ripped out the heart of his own student he wouldn't care. He's just like our parents."
"So you're saying our parents wouldn't do any better than him right now," Clarisse said slowly.
Chris raised an eyebrow at those strange words coming from a girl who was about to die.
"That's right. He's no better than our parents," Chris answered indifferently.
Then he saw something that gave him a strange feeling.
A faint smile appeared on Clarisse's face.
A bad premonition ran through his body.
And it became real when he felt a presence directly behind him.
The other campers froze instantly when they saw what stood behind him.
Chris slowly began to turn around, panic growing in his chest.
And when he turned around completely… there he was.
The man who had arrived at the camp.
The same one who had trained them all with a permanently irritated expression. The same one who seemed dangerously silent even when he was breathing.
The man every instinct told them they should never stand against.
Even worse than running into Mr. D.
In fact, Mr. D had not even appeared since that man arrived at the camp, for some strange reason.
At first Luke's followers had feared him. But when they saw that he did nothing even when campers were attacked in secret, they had slowly begun to relax.
But now…
The suffocating aura surrounding him made every fiber of Chris's body scream that he should run.
Miraak looked at the brats standing in front of him for a moment with an expression of annoyance.
Then his gaze settled on Clarisse.
She was trembling slightly as well, while her body slowly regenerated thanks to the Fleece.
For a second the object caught a bit of his attention.
But then he looked back at the girl.
The tone she had used sounded exactly like when his stupid disciple tried to manipulate him clumsily, like the idiot he was.
Something that, by the way, never worked.
Miraak always saw through that nonsense.
He did not even know where Percy got the nerve to keep trying.
Still, he could not help feeling a faint irritation when he heard himself compared to those Greek gods.
That was why he had appeared in front of these insolent brats.
"S-sir… what brings you here?" Chris said quickly, fear and nervousness mixing in his voice.
The other campers began trembling as well.
Miraak did not even answer. He only gave him a brief glance with his blue eyes, which for a moment darkened deeper than the abyss itself while taking on an unsettling shape, almost reptilian.
That gaze only increased the pressure crushing down on them, as if they were being watched by a massive dragon capable of devouring them in a single bite.
Clarisse could not help looking at Miraak's eyes for a moment. They reminded her slightly of Annabeth's.
But unlike Annabeth's, Miraak's eyes looked as though they could see through everything, as if nothing could possibly hide from his gaze.
The eyes of a dragon.
For a moment, silence took over the place.
Until Miraak seemed to lose interest. He calmly turned toward the road leading to the camp.
"It seems the idiot brat has returned," he said with a faint smile, barely visible.
Then he looked back at Clarisse.
"You'd better not learn stupid things from him," he added.
His eyes briefly rested on Clarisse's spear, recognizing the work of his other disciple, while at the same time noticing that every wound on the girl's body had already closed thanks to the Fleece.
After that he simply turned around and walked away with complete calm.
Everyone let out a breath almost at the same time.
Especially Clarisse.
She had truly taken a risk using Percy's ridiculous strategy.
But in the end it had worked well enough.
At least enough to draw Miraak there.
Chris, completely drenched in sweat, let out the longest breath of all before turning back around to quickly finish his mission; recover the Fleece, kill Clarisse, and leave.
But when he turned, he saw something that made him stop.
Clarisse was completely recovered.
Standing.
With her spear firmly held in her hands.
Now she was truly ready to fight, without a treacherous wound holding her back.
"Now… excuse me," she said calmly, looking straight at Chris. "What were you saying?"