Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians companion #5.5) - Rick Riordan Page 0,115

Alodai attacked Olympus, stacking up mountains to make a siege tower? It was Artemis who took them down.

It happened like this. After Ares the war god got sprung from that bronze jar, the twin giants started bragging about how they were going to take over Olympus and make the gods their slaves. Ephialtes wanted Hera for his wife. Otis wanted to force Artemis to marry him.

When word of that got back to Artemis, she said, “Okay. Those two need to die now.”

Maybe she could have taken them down from a distance with her bow, but she wanted to get up-close and personal so that she could see the pain on their faces.

She charged down the mountain and harassed them with arrows, shooting them in the legs, the hands, and some very sensitive places. The twin giants tried to impale her with their massive spears, but she was too fast.

Finally she ran between the giants. They both stabbed at her, but she dodged at the last second, and the giants skewered each other. Giants killed. Problem solved. It also made for a great blooper reel on Olympus’s Funniest Battles.

Most of the time, though, Artemis let wild animals do the killing for her.

One time in the Greek city of Kalydon, this dude King Oineus forgot to make proper offerings to Artemis. It was harvest time. The Kalydonians were supposed to offer the first fruits of their labors to the gods. They poured out olive oil for Athena. They burned some grain for Demeter. They sacrificed fish sticks with tartar sauce for Poseidon.

But they forgot Artemis. All she wanted was a few apples from the orchards. She would’ve even settled for lemons. But her altar remained empty.

“Okay,” she grumbled to herself. “I might be dishonored, but I won’t be unavenged!”

She summoned the most ferocious pig in the history of pigs.

This wild boar was the size of a rhinoceros. His eyes were bloodred and blazed with fire. His steel-thick hide was covered with bristles as rigid as spear shafts, so even if he just brushed up against you he would shred you like brisket. His mouth shot lightning and sour clouds of acid, withering and burning anything in his path, and his massive razor-sharp tusks…well, if you got close enough to see the tusks, you were pretty much already toast.

He was, in short, the Death Pig.

Artemis unleashed him on the fields of Kalydonia, where he uprooted all the orchards, trampled the fields, and killed all the animals, farmers, and any soldiers stupid enough to try fighting him.

At this point, King Oineus was really wishing he’d given Artemis some apples. He turned to his son Meleager and said, “You’re the best hunter in the kingdom, my son! What should we do?”

“Hunt the boar!” said Meleager. “Artemis is the goddess of hunting, right? The only way she’ll forgive us is if we launch the biggest and most dangerous hunt in history. If we bring down the boar with bravery and skill, surely she will forgive us.”

King Oineus frowned. “Or she might get even angrier. Besides, you can’t possibly kill that monster yourself!”

“Not by myself,” Meleager agreed. “I’ll summon all the best hunters in Greece!”

The king spread the word and offered rewards. Pretty soon hunters from all over the world flocked to Kalydon. They put on the First Annual and Hopefully Last Annual Kalydonian Boar Hunt.

Artemis didn’t make it easy on them. One guy named Mopsos, who was the strongest spear-thrower in Greece, launched his spear at the boar with enough force to crack a bronze shield. Artemis caused the point of the spear to fall off in midflight. The spear shaft just bounced harmlessly off the monster.

Another hunter named Ankaios laughed at him. “That’s no way to fight the Death Pig! Watch and learn!” He hefted his double-bladed ax. “I’ll show you how a real man fights! This girlie goddess’s boar is no match for me.”

He charged in, raising his ax above his head, and the boar rammed his tusk straight into Ankaios’s crotch. Ankaios died, and he was remembered forever after as the Crotchless Wonder.

Finally Prince Meleager himself slew the boar with a lot of help from his friends. That was brave and all, but Artemis still wasn’t satisfied. She filled the other hunters with envy. Meleager skinned the boar and hung its hide in the palace as the grand prize of the hunt, but fighting broke out over who really deserved credit for the kill.

The argument turned into a full-scale civil war. Hundreds of