Sylvester Falcone and the Titan's Revenge

Sylvester Falcone and the Olympians: the Titan's Revenge is the first book in the Sylvester Falcone and the Olympians series.

Prologue
Sylvester Falcone's back felt like it was on fire. It was burning him from the inside, and blood was streaking down his sides from underneath his jacket. He could barely see, he was so dazed. His mind felt like it was being sawn in half very, very slowly. His hands were numbing and his feet were failing. It was fortunate that he was not alone in the journey: another, far larger person was supporting him by taking Sylvester's left arm over his broad shoulders. He couldn't see the person's face very clearly, but could certainly make out that the person was bald and had huge muscles.

The pain took him by surprise again and he cried out. Right on cue, he heard a dreadful, earth-shaking roar echo behind him. The person supporting him, whoever he was, quickened his pace. A subconscious part of Sylvester noted how they had increased speed by half a mile per hour, and that the clothes he was wearing were unnaturally tough for their material. Despite the wound, he felt strangely calm. He felt at peace, as if being sliced along his body had brought him unachievable peace.

"Just a little bit further mate! Away from the mountain. Come on..." the person carrying him assured him, breathlessly. Behind them, the screaming had intensified to incredible heights and he was sure that people several cities away could hear him. He turned his attention to the woods they were now rushing through, and could distinctly see creatures fleeing. He couldn't see their shapes, but some of them were very unusual. Some of them had twin snake tails instead of legs, some of them looked like human-seal hybrids, one of them, he noticed, was very large and sprouted curved horns. They were all fleeing from the mountain, no...they were fleeing from them.

He looked down at his hand and noticed that he was carrying a sword. The sword was the length of his arm, and made of some strange bronze metal. It was extremely well-made and finely kept, completely faultless as far as appearances went. this was a very large sword, well over three metres, and made of a strange silvery metal. It was very well made also, he could tell, but it was chipped repeatedly from a number of battles. The sword was bejewelled by a red gem in its hilt.

"Keep going..." he whimpered, softly. They were carried a little longer, when at last, as the sun set over their heads, Sylvester was laid against a tree and the person who had carried him sat down in front of him, panting, "Where are we?"

"Hoover Dam," rasped the figure in front of him, "we should be safe here, it's far from that mountain." Then Sylvester's senses returned to him and he gasped. The person in front of him was indeed very big and looked extremely strong. He was dressed in a tattered pair of brown shorts and a short-sleeved blue shirt that stretched over him for dear life. His head was almost egg-shaped, and he was practically neckless under that great jaw. But then he saw that the person had one strange quality: he only had one eye, one eye socket in the very centre of his forehead, above the nose, where an eye the size of a tennis ball revolved desperately.

"Are you alright?" the one-eyed man, the...Cyclopse! that was it!, asked him.

"I'm fine." Sylvester lied. "My back is killing me....killing me!" He turned around and showed the injury that he had sustained only minutes ago. There was a huge scar on his back, running from his right shoulder to his left hip, split by the stretching of his skin and bleeding dangerously.

"By the beard of Zeus!" exclaimed the Cyclopse, "I knew he cut deep, but by all the Gods, that's brutal. Take off your jacket, we need to bandage that thing."

"I'll survive...."

"No you won't!" insisted the Cyclopse. "There should be some nectar in here somewhere." He slid off a ledger and fished inside, pulling out a small phialof something he couldn't see. The Cyclopse slid over and forced the stuff down his throat - the stuff tasted fantastic! And, immediately, he felt stronger. The blood stopped flowing, but the liquid ran out before it could mend completely. He unconsciously knew that there was a great, ugly line cutting him diagonally in half.

"There. Better." the Cyclopse said, leaning back, "So...what do I call you?"

"Falcone," panted Sylvester, "Sylvester Falcone. You?

"Batista. Just Batista." returned the Cyclopse. Sylvester turned and looked at himself in a puddle by his feet. The boy who looked back at him looked like he'd been through Hell and back: his face was red with sweat, and his chest inflated massively with every desperate breath. He had hair the colour of liquorice, close-cropped, and his eyes were a deep lime-green. His skin was very tanned, and he admitted to himself, dispassionately, that he looked quite handsome. However, he saw that as irrelevant. Good looks wouldn't save him here.

"So, what now?" asked Sylvester, "What do we do?"

"We wait." muttered Batista, "We can't move at night cos there'll be monsters out, returning to the mountain...we have to hide out here until daylight."

"Can't we just call someone?"

"Not without drawing unwanted attention, and I mean unwanted attention." Batista shook his head, "Go on, sleep. I'll stand guard for tonight."

Sylvester rested his head back, and sleep came incredibly easy. The last thing he remembered was dropping the sword in front of him, watching it clatter at his feet.

Scenes flashed before his eyes as he dreamt: he dreamt of his father - he remembered his father in his police uniform, with a gun strapped to his belt. His father smiling at him over breakfast, before leaving early for work. The dream changed, and suddenly he was at the front door, and there was a tall, hooded woman towering over him, pressing a large slender package into his hand. Then, suddenly, he was running. Running from strange creatures. He remembered using that sword that had dropped at his feet, using it to defend himself against one of the biggest dogs he had ever seen.

And then the dream changed completely: he was standing at the top of a mountain, on a summit where the wind battered at him from all sides and thunder boomed. He turned around and saw the Cyclopse, Batista, buckling under something. He was buckling under a large pillar, as if trying to use his massive strength to keep it from squashing him into a grease spot. But, it was obvious, his strength wasn't enough. He then heard laughter - loud, booming laughter that made the earth shake. He then turned around and a gigantic silhouette darkened the ground around him: a gigantic man, taller than any man he had ever seen, with muscles that put Batista to shame. The tall man approached, balling his fists....

...and Sylvester was shaken awake by some powerful hands, and Batista's great blue eye peered down on him. He blinked back the dream and sat up.

"What is it, Batista?"

"Someone's turned up." explained Batista. He turned to see a thin, crouched creature standing against a tree above them.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Grover Underwood," explained the creature, stepping into the light, "I'm here to get you guys someplace safe."