Ares and the Spear of Fear Read online

  Contents

  1. On the Run

  2. Old Enemies Return

  3. Snakes Alive!

  4. A Fierce Foe

  5. The Amazons

  6. Scaredy-Spear

  7. Ssssneak Attack!

  8. Trapped!

  9. Lost and Found

  10. Sticky Spidernets!

  About Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams

  For readers of Heroes in Training, Goddess Girls, and

  Grimmtastic Girls

  —J. H. and S. W.

  Greetings, Mortal Readers,

  I am Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi, in Greece. I have the power to see the future. Hear my prophecy:

  Ahead I see donkeys lurking. Wait—make that danger lurking. (The future can be blurry, especially when my eyeglasses are foggy.)

  Anyhoo, beware! Titan giants seek to rule all of Earth’s domains—oceans, mountains, forests, and the depths of the Underwear. Oops—make that Underworld. Led by King Cronus, they are out to destroy us all!

  Yet I foresee hope. A band of rightful rulers called Olympians will arise. Though their size and youth are no match for the Titans, they will be giant in heart, mind, and spirit. They await their leader—a very special boy. One who is destined to become king of the gods and ruler of the heavens.

  If he is brave enough.

  And if he and his friends work together as one. And if they can learn to use their new amazing flowers—um, amazing powers—in time to save the world!

  CHAPTER ONE

  On the Run

  Scrubby plants brushed against Zeus’s legs as he raced across the top of the mountain. Behind him, he could hear the grunts of the half-giant Cronies as they chased him and the other Olympians across the sandy ground.

  Zeus risked a quick look behind him. The size and bulk of the Cronies, plus the armored chest plates they wore, were slowing the half-giants down. Hera and Poseidon were right behind Zeus, with Apollo behind them and Ares bringing up the rear.

  There should have been three more Olympians with them, but the Crony army had captured Hestia, Demeter, and Hades. Zeus tried not to think about that now. He couldn’t save anybody if the Cronies captured him, too.

  “We should stand and fight!” Ares yelled.

  “You’ve never fought Cronies before!” Zeus replied, looking back at Ares. He was the newest member of the Olympians. Ares had lived with a family of giant Titans his whole life up till now. “We may not be stronger than they are, but we’re always faster. We just— Oof!”

  Zeus tripped over a rock and fell facedown onto the ground. Before he could get back to his feet, he felt a hand grip each of his arms.

  Hera and Poseidon had grabbed him. They pulled him up. These two Olympians—along with Hades, Hestia, and Demeter—were Zeus’s brothers and sisters. (Although, they had only just found this out.) Even though Apollo wasn’t their brother, he had joined the group like he was one of them too. His singing rhymes were both funny and kind of annoying!

  “Nice move, Bolt Breath!” Hera teased.

  “I didn’t see it!” Zeus protested.

  “Um, guys—still running!” Poseidon called back, jogging ahead of them.

  Apollo caught up to them. “I see some trees up on the right. If we hide there we’ll be out of sight,” sang the blond-haired boy.

  “How can you rhyme at a time like this?” Hera asked, rolling her blue eyes.

  “Hiding in the trees is a good idea. Let’s go!” Zeus cried.

  They veered toward the right and headed into the stand of trees. Zeus came to a stop, panting.

  “We need a plan,” he said. “There are four half-giant Cronies chasing us, but there’s a whole army of them in the canyon below. They won’t stop until they find us.”

  “We need Pythia,” Poseidon said, frowning. The Oracle of Delphi always showed up to tell them what to do next. But after they’d found Ares, she hadn’t appeared.

  “That’s why we’ve got to lose these half-giants and get to Delphi,” Zeus told him.

  Ares’s red eyes flashed. “Forget losing them. Let’s attack them!”

  “These guys don’t go down easily,” Zeus said. “And even if we defeat the first four, there’s a whole army behind them.”

  “Shhh!” Hera warned, quickly darting behind a tree. “I think they’re close-by.”

  Apollo, Poseidon, and Zeus all scrambled to hide behind trees too. But not Ares. He raised his spear and charged through the trees, screaming so loudly that the sound echoed through the hills.

  “I am Ares the Olympian! Feel my anger!” he yelled. “We shall not be defeated!”

  “Oh no,” Hera whispered. “Is he serious?”

  He was. Zeus thought Ares looked pretty ferocious as he sped through the trees with his sharp spear, spiky brown hair, and weird, fiery eyes. But Zeus knew that Ares didn’t stand a chance against the Cronies on his own. He darted out from behind the tree.

  “Zeus, don’t!” Hera hissed.

  “He’s one of us,” Zeus reminded her. “We’ve got to help him.”

  Hera sighed. “Fine.”

  Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and Apollo raced after Ares. They found him standing just outside the trees, frozen in fear as he stared at the approaching Cronies. Zeus couldn’t blame him. Each Crony was about eight feet tall and massively muscled. They brandished clubs, spears, and sharp arrows.

  Zeus grabbed him. “Come on, Ares. Let’s stick to the plan.”

  “Wh-what plan?” Ares asked, his bottom lip trembling.

  “Run!” Zeus yelled.

  The chase began again. The Olympians raced off along the edge of the mountain ridge. Somewhere down below, Zeus knew, was the rest of King Cronus’s army.

  “You can’t escape us, Olympians!” one of the Cronies bellowed. Zeus saw Ares turn pale as he ran by his side.

  Ares can talk a good talk, Zeus thought. But can he back it up?

  The Olympians quickly gained another lead on the Cronies. But then Poseidon came to a quick halt up ahead of Zeus.

  “Hold on, guys!” Poseidon yelled.

  Zeus suddenly realized why Poseidon had stopped. The Cronies had chased them to a dead end—a narrow ledge overlooking the canyon. Zeus ran to the edge and looked over. The canyon wall was too steep to climb down, and too high to jump from. Deep, rocky craters and sharp boulders dotted the landscape below.

  Hera, Apollo, and Ares arrived next, panting.

  “We’re done for!” Ares wailed, looking down.

  “Yup, sure seems that way,” Hera agreed.

  The five of them turned to face the Cronies. One of them had a big scar across his face.

  “We’ve got you now!” he growled.

  Poseidon leaned toward his friends. “Trust me, guys,” he whispered. He held up his trident, the magical object that belonged to him as the god of the sea.

  “Poseidon, what are you doing?” Zeus asked.

  “Jumping,” Poseidon replied.

  With that, he launched himself over the edge of the cliff.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Old Enemies Return

  Zeus watched in horror as Poseidon disappeared over the edge.

  “What a scaredy-cat!” one of the Cronies sneered as those half-giants pushed toward the Olympians.

  Hera grabbed Zeus’s hand. “He said to trust him.”

  Zeus nodded. “Right.”

  “No way!” Ares cried, but Hera grabbed his hand too.

  “Too bad,” she said. “You’re coming with us!”

  Apollo began to sing. “If we’re going to jump, let’s do it now, before those Cronies start to— Whoaaaaaa!”

  Hera and Zeus jumped off the top of the cliff, taking Ares and Apollo with them. Everything hap
pened in a matter of seconds, but to the Olympians it felt like slow motion.

  As they were falling, Zeus knew he shouldn’t do it, but he looked down—and saw Poseidon splashing into a deep pool of water.

  He must have made it with his trident! Zeus realized.

  Then Zeus felt Hera yank on his belt. He looked down to see her pulling out Bolt, his magical lightning bolt.

  “No!” Zeus yelled, watching as Hera tossed Bolt away.

  Splash! Splash! Splash! Splash! Zeus, Hera, Apollo, and Ares landed safely in the deep pool of water.

  “Play dead!” Poseidon urged the others. He floated on his stomach with his face in the water.

  Zeus took a deep breath and did the same. He held his breath until he felt like he would burst. Then he lifted his head, gasping for air.

  “It’s okay,” he heard Hera say. “They’re gone.”

  Ares was already climbing out of the pool. “Are you crazy?” he yelled, pointing his spear at Poseidon.

  “Would you rather have been captured by the Cronies?” Poseidon shot back.

  At the same time, Zeus was yelling at Hera.

  “What did you do with Bolt?” he asked.

  “Bolt is electric. And this is water,” Hera pointed out. “Do I have to spell it out for you? We would have been fried.”

  “Oh,” Zeus said a little sheepishly.

  “Besides, you can call it back to you whenever you want,” she reminded him.

  Zeus nodded and held out his hand. “Bolt! Return!”

  The small lightning bolt zipped through the air and then settled right into Zeus’s hand. He slipped it back into his belt.

  “That army is not far away. We should escape without delay,” Apollo rhyme-reminded them.

  Zeus knew Apollo was right. He scanned the horizon.

  “I think there might be some caves over there,” he said, pointing to a rocky cliff side in the distance. “Let’s head that way.”

  Wet and exhausted, they headed down the canyon. A few minutes later Zeus spotted a cave halfway up the side of the cliff, and they scrambled up to it.

  “We should be safe here for a little while,” he said.

  “Can you use that lightning thing of yours to make a fire?” Ares asked with a shiver. “I wouldn’t mind drying off.”

  “Too dangerous,” Hera replied. “The Cronies could spot it.”

  Ares sighed and folded his arms across his chest. “So, what do we do now?”

  “We figure out the best way to lose the Cronies, and then we get to Delphi and find Pythia,” Zeus told him.

  Hera held up a piece of oval stone she wore around her neck on a cord. “Chip will get us there,” she said confidently.

  “So, what does that thing do?” Ares asked.

  “Chip always know which way we’re supposed to go,” she answered. “And it can talk when it wants to, in its own language.”

  Ares nodded. “So how did you find it?”

  Hera’s face colored, and Zeus answered for her.

  “I found it, actually, at the temple of Delphi,” he said. “Where I found Bolt. Hera’s been taking care of it for me, along with Hades’s helm.”

  “Hera and I don’t have our own magical objects yet,” Apollo informed Ares. He motioned to the stringed instrument that he carried over his shoulder. “My lyre makes beautiful music, but it’s not magical.”

  “Well, I don’t need any magic,” Ares said, holding up his metal-tipped wood spear. “I’ll use this to fight off any Crony that comes close!”

  “Yeah, as long as you’re not frozen in place,” Poseidon muttered.

  Ares spun around, his red eyes flashing. “What did you say?”

  “Shhhh!” Hera warned suddenly. “Do you hear that?”

  A rumbling sound was rising from the canyon below. The Olympians peeked out of the cave and saw that the whole Crony army had gathered there. Two of the Cronies were chasing a giant urn, which was rolling away.

  “Nice job dropping it, Ephialtes!” said one of the Cronies, a huge, oafish-looking half-giant with a bald head.

  “You’re the one who dropped it, Otus!” shot back Ephialtes, a Crony with a big belly.

  “What’s so important about that urn?” Poseidon wondered out loud.

  “That urn is big enough to hide—three lost Olympian friends inside,” sang Apollo.

  Hera’s eyes got wide. “They just might be in there!” she cried. “We have to rescue them!”

  “But we don’t know for sure,” Zeus pointed out. “And besides, the whole army is guarding that urn. We can’t fight them. That’s why we’ve got to find Pythia. She’ll tell us what to do.”

  The Olympians heard loud voices drift up to the cave, and Zeus saw three Cronies down below. He’d know them anywhere; they were the ones who had captured him right before he found Bolt and discovered the other Olympians. He’d nicknamed the three Cronies: Double Chin (for his double chin), Blackbeard (for his black beard), and Lion Tattoo (for the tattoo of a lion on his shoulder).

  “Those two bumbling blockheads need to take better care of that urn,” growled Lion Tattoo, the leader. “King Cronus’s belly is empty, and a dozen Olympians would fill it up good.”

  “A dozen!” Zeus exclaimed in a whisper. He looked at Hera. “Could there really be that many of us?”

  Hera shrugged. “I guess. Pythia never told us.”

  Ares was pale. “What did he mean, ‘King Cronus’s belly is empty’?” Does the king actually eat Olympians?”

  “He swallowed me, Hera, and Hades when we were little,” Poseidon explained. “Zeus made him barf us up.”

  Hera shuddered. “It was like a dark, smelly cave in his belly. Perfect for Hades, but I really don’t want to go back there.”

  “No kidding,” said Ares. “That’s why we’ve got to battle these guys and defeat this army!”

  “Yeah, you suggested that before,” Poseidon reminded him. “Didn’t work out so well, did it?”

  Ares’s eyes flashed again. “Those are fighting words!” he yelled.

  “Ares, sshh!” Hera hissed, but it was too late.

  Lion Tattoo’s head snapped around. He grinned, pointing up to their cave.

  “Olympians!” he yelled.

  “They’ve spotted us!” Zeus cried. “Run!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Snakes Alive!

  Zeus knew they had one advantage: they had already scaled up the side of the cliff to get to the cave. The slow-moving Cronies would have a hard time catching up to them.

  “To the top of the cliff!” Zeus yelled, and the others followed him, scrambling the rest of the way up the cliff side. Zeus could see a forest of pine trees ahead, and he led the group toward the canopy—and protection—of the trees. The angry cries of the Cronies rose up behind them as those half-giants struggled to scale the cliff.

  Other travelers had already worn a path through the forest, and the Olympians raced down it, not daring to look behind them. After what seemed like forever, they came to a fork in the path and stopped, all trying to catch their breath.

  “Which way?” Zeus wondered out loud.

  Poseidon sniffed the air. “I smell salt water. If we go right, we should reach the channel. Crossing the channel is the fastest way to Delphi.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll go,” Zeus said.

  “It seems to me there is a way. To lead the Crony army astray,” rhymed Apollo.

  Poseidon sighed. “Can you just please say what you mean?”

  “I mean, we could leave some sort of object by the left path, to trick the Cronies into thinking we went down it so they will follow the wrong path,” Apollo said cheerfully.

  Hera nodded. “Good idea. Maybe a scrap of tunic? Or some breadcrumbs? Or— HEY!”

  Hera turned to see Zeus holding a lock of her long, golden hair. He had cut a piece off with Bolt!

  “Perfect!” Zeus said, grinning. He placed the lock of hair on a tree branch by the entrance to the left-hand path.
<
br />   Hera glared at him. “Do that again, and I’ll shave you bald, Thunderboy!”

  Suddenly they heard the sound of the Cronies charging down the path behind them.

  “Let’s go!” Zeus yelled.

  The Olympians headed down the right path and didn’t stop until they emerged from the forest. A sloping hill in front of them led down to a sandy seashore. Sun glittered on the surface of the water.

  “Hear that?” Hera asked. Aside from the breathing of the Olympians, the lapping of the waves against the shore, and the hoot of an owl in the distance, the sloping hill was quiet.

  “We lost them!” Poseidon cheered. He gave Zeus a high five. “Nice work, Bro!”

  “Hey, it was my hair,” Hera reminded him.

  Poseidon high-fived her, too. “I’m just glad to be away from those Cronies.”

  “They’ll figure it out soon enough,” Zeus said. “Anyway, how are we supposed to cross this sea channel? Swim?”

  “Fishermen usually leave their boats on the shore,” Ares said, heading down the hill. “Come on! We can borrow one.”

  “Stealing isn’t nice, you know. Is there another way to go?” sang Apollo.

  “Apollo, it’s a matter of life and death!” Hera insisted. “I’m sure the fisherman would understand if he knew.”

  Apollo frowned. “I suppose,” he said reluctantly.

  They followed Ares down to the moonlit shore.

  “Yes! Just like I thought!” Ares exclaimed. A row of rickety boats were neatly lined up on the beach. Ares ran over to one and started pushing it into the water.

  “Climb in!” he urged.

  They climbed in, and Poseidon took the oars first, smiling.

  “Water, at last,” he said. “You guys should get some sleep. I’ll wake you when I get tired.”

  “Do we have anything to eat?” Ares asked. “I’m so hungry, I could eat a Crony’s smelly sandal.”

  “We still have some of the food those grateful farmers gave us a few days ago after we helped them regrow their crops, but we should probably save it for the morning,” Hera said.

  Poseidon grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure there’s a great breakfast waiting for us when we wake up. Trust me.”