Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians companion #5.5) - Rick Riordan Page 0,95

he was already on Ares’s naughty list, but he did as Athena commanded. When he was done with his tooth farming, a bunch of super-elite skeleton warriors sprang from the ground, and these became the first soldiers in the new Theban army.

Cadmus built his city. For a while, everything was copacetic. The gods even granted him a minor goddess for his wife—Harmonia, who was a daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. Harmonia became mortal to share her life with Cadmus, which was a pretty big honor.

Ares was not pleased. First, this guy Cadmus kills his dragon. Then, the other gods are like, Oh, no, you can’t kill him! Cadmus is destined to found an important city!

Like Thebes was important. Please! What kind of name is Thebes? It’s not as cool as Sparta. Besides, there was already a city called Thebes in Egypt, so having one in Greece too was going to confuse people!

Then, on top of everything else, the other gods decreed that the dragon-killing jerk got to marry Ares’s daughter. Not funny.

For his daughter’s sake, Ares tried to keep his cool; but he hated his son-in-law. Finally one day he saw Cadmus out by the sacred grove, gazing at the spot where he’d killed the dragon years before.

For some reason, this completely torqued off Ares.

The war god appeared in front of him. “What are you looking at, punk? The place where you killed my dragon? You hate reptiles, huh? Well, guess what? You are one!”

WHAM! Ares turned Cadmus into a snake.

Unfortunately, Queen Harmonia had just been walking up to check on her husband. She saw what happened and shrieked, “Dad! What did you do?”

“He deserved it!” Ares snarled.

“I love him! Change him back!”

“Oh, you choose him over me? Is that how it is? Maybe you’d like to join him!” BLAM! He turned his own daughter into a snake, and the king and queen of Thebes slithered away.

That’s how Ares got his revenge. But when the snakes Cadmus and Harmonia died, Zeus sent their souls to Elysium so they could live together in peace and happiness forever. (Just don’t tell Ares. He’d probably go down there and whammy them all over again.)

As for Ares’s other sacred grove, the one in Colchis, things were run a little differently over there. The king was a guy named Aeetes. (As near as I can figure, that’s pronounced “I Eat Tees.”) His big claim to fame was that the Golden Fleece—that magical sheepskin rug I’m related to—ended up in his kingdom, which made the place immune to disease, invasion, stock market crashes, visits from Justin Bieber, and pretty much any other natural disaster.

Aeetes wasn’t a son of Ares, but he was a big-time worshipper. He would go out of his way to start wars and kill as many people as possible, just so he could get extra points in the Ares Reward Program. Pretty soon King Aeetes had scored all kinds of swag.

Ares sent his second dragon son to guard the Golden Fleece, which hung in an oak tree in Aeetes’s sacred grove. The dragon was only friendly to Aeetes, so it would let the king gather its teeth. Then Aeetes would go to the special Field of Ares and plant the teeth to get himself a fresh crop of skeletal soldiers whenever he needed some. But he didn’t have just any old John Deere tractor. Ares gave the king a special plow pulled by metal fire-breathing oxen. And to keep the king safe from the fire, Ares gave him a set of fireproof, bulletproof, everything-proof armor that Ares had won during the war with the giants. (Which is a whole other story.)

As if the metal oxen, the skeleton warriors, and the dragon weren’t enough security, Aeetes also built a wall around the entire area so nobody could get close to the field or the grove. Considering that his kingdom of Colchis was pretty much at the end of the known world, the chances of anybody coming to steal his Golden Fleece were pretty slim.

Of course, somebody came to steal his Golden Fleece. The dude’s name was Jason. But that’s also a big long story for some other time. For now, we’ll leave Aeetes in Colchis, all smug and confident and worshipping Ares and thinking, Yeah, I’m cool.

But even the god of war couldn’t get away with killing people all the time. Sometimes Ares had to explain himself to the other gods. In fact, he was the defendant in the first and only godly murder