Trying War Read online

  It seemed the entire village would retrieve Pentheselia, but for a small party of warriors under white-maned Molpadia, who would remain to recapture Hero.

  When the singers stopped their song to ride away with their sisters, the dracon jolted out of its trance and turned on the cage. Hissing and screaming, it tried to bite through the iron. So great was its vigour that Machaon and Cadmus were peppered with the jagged teeth that broke on impact.

  “Hades!” Machaon cursed, shouldering his brother into the very centre of the cage.

  For a while they stood blanching as the massive jaws assailed the bars again and again. They heard the fading pound of hooves and the laughter of the few Amazons who remained to search for Hero.

  “Tell me, Mac, why is this a good bargain?” Cadmus asked tersely.

  “They do not know that Ly is with Hero,” Machaon replied. “He knows how to hide—he’ll get her safely to Aea. By the time the Amazons realise, they’ll be too far ahead.”

  “And us?”

  “If we’re lucky, they’ll kill us.”

  “Over there!” Molpadia screamed suddenly, pointing to the trees in the distance. “I saw her ride into the trees! She wears the golden aegis of Otrera.”

  The remaining Amazons roared indignantly and charged their horses into the forest following Molpadia’s lead.

  The sons of Agelaus did not dismay. Hero had not been wearing an aegis of any sort—Molpadia was seeing things in her desperation to find the girl. Cadmus looked quickly around them… the village was quiet if one discounted the frenzied roar of the dracon. “Mac,” he said urgently, “there’s a dagger at the back of my belt, I can’t reach it…”

  Machaon felt along Cadmus’ back with bound hands until he found the blade. He cut his brother’s bonds and then Cadmus released him too.

  Machaon shook his head in disbelief at their good fortune. “We’re lucky they missed your dagger when they disarmed us.”

  “They didn’t,” Cadmus replied. “That big woman, the one called Clyemne, she slipped it into my belt.” He moved his hands to his back again. “And this.” He held up a key.

  Machaon was perplexed. “Why would she want to help us?”

  Cadmus shrugged. “It didn’t seem the right time to ask. To be honest, I was just relieved that’s what she was doing… I was beginning to think she had other things in mind, if you know what I mean.”

  Machaon smiled. He looked down at the dagger in his hand just as the cage was jarred by the creature’s jaws again. “I don’t think this will be much use against the dracon.”

  Cadmus put his finger to his lips. “Can you hear that?”

  Machaon listened. Faintly, beside the hissing roar of the serpent, came the howl of a wolf. “Lupa,” Machaon breathed. “That’s Lupa.”

  Cadmus raised his head and howled in reply.

  Suddenly, the dracon reared back and screamed. Lupa tore into the village snarling, hackles raised.

  “It will kill her!” Machaon started in panic as the dracon lunged at the she-wolf. Lupa wove and the creature missed. “Lupa, no!” Machaon shouted as Cadmus reached through the bars, fumbling to reach the lock with Clyemne’s key.

  Lupa growled and the dracon lunged and missed once more—but it was closer this time.

  And then the song started again, but it was single voice and familiar.

  “Gods, that’s Hero,” Cadmus gasped.

  The dracon turned towards the tremulous voice, curious. Then it calmed, though it did not still. Hero stood not far from the cage now, pale and small in the moonlight. She hesitated. The dracon flared and for a moment her brothers thought her lost, but then her voice raised more strongly than before and the creature calmed again, its horned, scaled head hovering just before her.

  Lycon emerged from the night and reached in through the bars to take the key from Cadmus and open the cage from without. The creature glanced at them, torn between its prey and the hypnotic song. But Hero was just one uncertain voice—the spell would be broken too soon.

  Machaon remembered the flask which was still tucked into his own belt. The Amazons had not thought it a weapon. He removed the stopper and moved slowly towards the dracon’s frothing jaws, flinching at the rank, foetid stench of its breath. Hero’s voice was strained; it broke… just for a moment but the dracon reared. Machaon reacted impulsively, throwing the contents of the flask into the creature’s eyes. At first the dracon rose to strike, and then in the following breath it slumped and fell to the ground, still and unmoving.

  Machaon did not wait. He seized Hero’s hand and they ran.

  From the beginning Amazons have revelled in ruthless battle and charging steeds, toiling like men in both peace and war. They are possessed with the spirit of the war-god. They are equal to men in all things and their hearts never quail. It is whispered that their queen is a daughter of the mighty Lord of War.

  Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica, Book 1

  BOOK X

  “THERE YOU ARE! WHERE IN Hades did you go?” Machaon demanded as Cadmus joined them on the slopes which skirted the plateau. “I was about to go back for you.”

  Cadmus put his hands on his knees as he tried to pace his breath. “I released the stallion for what it’s worth. The poor beast has gone mad… just gallops in circles.”

  Reunited, they ran down the steep ground, keeping Hero between them. She could see almost nothing in the darkness but she had been born swift and agile and they did not slow for her. They stopped only when they found the horses they had left tethered earlier that day.

  They walked their steeds to a pool to allow them to drink before they began the flight back to Aea.

  “You should have been long gone, Ly,” Cadmus rebuked his brother. “The point was to give you and Hero a head start, a chance to escape.”

  Lycon shrugged. “Good thing we stayed… you and Mac can’t hold a tune.”

  Cadmus poked him. “This determination of yours to think for yourself is a little inconvenient.”

  “I’ll try not to make a habit of it,” Lycon replied, grinning. In truth it had been Hero who’d refused to go, though admittedly, he had not been hard to convince.

  Machaon wrapped his cloak around their sister, whose royal finery gave her scant protection against the numbing cold of the Pontian mountains. “Well, Hero, you saved us again,” he said, placing his strong arm around her thin shoulders. “How did you know how to calm the dracon?”

  “Our mother taught me the song when I was very small—sometimes she would sing me to sleep… I had all but forgotten until I heard the Amazons use it to still the serpent.”

  “A disturbing choice of lullaby, but the Amazons are a little strange.” Lycon rubbed down his horse with a wad of grass.

  “Strange?” Cadmus retorted. “They’re completely mad—those that aren’t plain evil.”

  Hero stepped towards him. She was hesitant. “Not all of them,” she said softly. “Two were kind… and sane. They tried to help me.”

  Alert to her tone, the Herdsmen stopped their preparations to hear their sister.

  “One tried to help us too,” Cadmus said carefully. “The really big one.”

  “Clyemne.”

  “Yes.” Cadmus looked hard at Hero. “She gave me a blade and a key to the cage… I have no idea why.”

  “Oh, Cad.” Hero touched his arm. “Do you not realise? Clyemne is your mother, as Molpadia is Lycon’s.”

  The sons of Agelaus stopped, startled. They gazed wordlessly at her.

  “How do you know?” Cadmus asked finally.

  “They tried to protect me… when Derinoe was at her worst,” Hero replied. “And when I wept for you, they did not sneer that you were just men. Soon I guessed that there was a reason they were so curious about my brothers, and so, when the others could not hear, I asked.”

  “What exactly did they tell you, Hero?” Lycon’s voice was tight. He had watched as the white-haired woman they called Molpadia had thrown his brothers into a cage.
r />   “Clyemne and Molpadia were my mother’s closest friends. They fought by her side. Each of them gave Pentheselia a boy-child because they could not bear to murder their sons… Clyemne first and Molpadia a couple of years later.”

  For a while there was only the breathing of the horses and the shrill blast of the wind.

  Machaon put his hand on Lycon’s shoulder, aware that the boy had seen his mother only from a distance, and that she might never have seen him. “Clyemne and Molpadia persuaded their sisters to find Pentheselia first… and Molpadia led the remaining Amazons away, chasing some shadow with a golden aegis. They gave us the chance we have.”

  Hero nodded emphatically. “Of course—they did whatever they could to protect you. They were terrified when they realised you might come for me… but they were proud too. They had not forgotten you.”

  “It seems all of our mothers have contributed to our escape,” Cadmus said quietly.

  Lycon swallowed. “Well, let us not waste the chance they have given us,” he said, mounting. “Let’s get out of here.”

  THEY DID NOT TAKE the same way back to Aea. That route would have seen them cross paths with the funerary procession of Amazons. Instead they followed Lupa, trusting that she would lead them back to the crossroads. The journey was a quiet one, as the sons of Agelaus each fought with their own thoughts. Hero was overjoyed to be with her brothers once again, but it was too soon to be relieved, to feel safe. The nightmare of the village haunted her as did Derinoe’s promise that she would not escape her destiny.

  Hero remembered the monster, Scylla, who guarded the straits beyond the island of Circe. Scylla, whose hideous body descended into the depth of Hades, whose very existence was one of horror, was so only because she had lain with a god. With all her piety, her honest and earnest devotion to the Pantheon, Hero could not give herself willingly to Ares. She knew about the love of gods. In the most secret place of her heart, Hero dreamt instead of mortal love.

  They stopped only to rest their good steeds and not themselves. On these brief respites, the Sons of Agelaus told their sister of how they had come to the Kingdom of Aietes, with the healer who had been the first wife of Paris. In return Hero told them of the village, and of the desperation of the Amazons to save their race, of their fanatical adherence to their own gender and their contempt of men. In the end she wept.

  “It is not over… they won’t let me go. I have defied the will of the gods. Surely they will kill us all for my insolence.”

  Machaon tried to comfort her, for he knew her fear was genuine and born of years of pious terror. “We do not know the will of the gods, Hero, only that of the Amazons. After all, Ares did not come for you.”

  “Perhaps he’s not stupid,” Cadmus murmured, smiling.

  Hero snarled at him and he called her an Amazon.

  “Why did they beat you, Hero?” Machaon asked thoughtfully. Cadmus’ face lost its teasing merriment.

  “Derinoe thought Ares was offended by my reluctance. I had been in the living hall for many days and still he had not come.”

  “When did he last provide them with this service?”

  “Ares is a god. He does not serve anyone.”

  “All right,” Machaon said patiently, “when did he last visit an Amazonian queen in this way?”

  “Not since the very beginnings of their people—many generations ago.”

  “Then why are they sure that Ares must father their next great queen?”

  “A prophecy… that the combined blood of the Amazons and the god of war would seed the world’s greatest empire.”

  Cadmus laughed. “Is that all?” He shook his head. “The Amazons are mad enough without listening to the ramblings of some wine-addled seer.”

  Lycon nodded. “Pay it no heed, Hero. There is nothing these prophets won’t say for a skin of wine.”

  “In any case,” Machaon said firmly, “you are not an Amazon. You belong to the Herdsmen.”

  LUPA LED THEM THROUGH the forest over the course of that night and the next day. Eos had just reached into the purple clouds for the second time since they had escaped the Amazonian village, when they approached the open land that led to the crossroads and the kingdom of Aietes. They slowed their horses, aware that in the open country they would be visible and that the Amazons were by now in pursuit.

  “Did you see it?” Cadmus asked Machaon quietly.

  Machaon nodded—a rise of dust, a movement on the trail further up the mountain. The Amazons were riding for the crossroads. “We shall have to bolt for the gates of Aea.” He signalled Lycon and Hero forward. “When we ride out of the trees, gallop for the gates—do not spare the horses—Cad and I will be right behind you.”

  “The Amazons are archers…” Lycon said. “They will not need to catch us.”

  “I know.” Machaon frowned. “Just don’t stop.”

  They did not stand long at the edge of the trees. Hero and Lycon set off first with their elder brothers close behind. The first arrows landed in front of them, and Hero’s horse shied and baulked and refused to go on. Machaon reached across and pulled her onto his own steed. He forced his reluctant mount forward, weaving through the rain of deadly shafts that fell around them.

  Lycon ducked as an arrow whistled past his head. He and Cadmus had fallen back behind the horse which carried Machaon and Hero. The Amazons were skilled and accurate archers—even on horseback and from a distance, they could aim true enough to pick off their fleeing quarry.

  Desperately, the Herdsmen pounded through the crossroads. For a moment Hero felt Machaon’s grip around her waist weaken. “Mac!” she screamed, afraid that one of the archers had found her mark. Then his arm was strong again.

  “It’s all right, Hero, I’ve got you.”

  Lycon and Cadmus thundered up beside them and they rode abreast towards the open gates of Aea. The keepers of the gates began to close them even as they entered. And so the city was sealed with the Amazons without.

  As the Herdsmen allowed their exhausted mounts to stop, Lycon reached across and grabbed Machaon’s shoulder to steady him. “Gods, Mac, you’re bleeding.”

  Weave our ghastly dance, for it is time to tell

  And in gruesome detail state,

  Our power over man,

  And how we decide his fate.

  We shall dole out justice… If, as yonder man, he hath

  Hands which bear blood’s stain

  At his side, we avengers remain.

  In judgment of he who has wronged the dead: His doom is ours to see. Payment for the blood, his hands have shed,

  We will wring from him in both life and death,

  Hard at his side are we!

  Aeschylus, Eumenides

  BOOK XI

  MACHAON SAID NOTHING. HE DISMOUNTED slowly, gingerly. Hero gasped as he leant against the horse, struggling to gather himself, increasingly aware of the pain.

  “Easy, Mac.” Cadmus had him now.

  “I must have been grazed…” Machaon murmured.

  “How the…?” Lycon stared. Machaon wore no cloak for he had given it to Hero. The back of his tunic, from shoulder to hip, was crimson with blood, and yet the fabric had not been torn and there was no arrow embedded.

  “Come on, Mac,” Cadmus said calmly. “We’d better get you to Oenone.”

  The cold, unspeaking subjects of Aietes received them silently and took the steeds. Medea had sent her own chariots of ebony and gold, each drawn by four jet black stallions, to convey them back to the palace. Machaon was fading now, pale, confused.

  Oenone came to them as soon as they had returned to the palace.

  “What happened to him?” she asked as she cut away Machaon’s tunic to inspect the wound.

  “An arrow—” Cadmus stopped mid sentence as he looked at his brother’s back in bewilderment.

  Hero’s scream was short, a cry of shock.

  Machaon’s back had for the past year been marked with the scars of Troy’s anger, a network of silvery
stripes, the healed wounds of the brutal flogging he had taken when the Herdsmen were accused of betrayal. Now, it was as if he had been flogged anew. The old scars were still there but new wounds had been inflicted over them.

  “That wasn’t done by an arrow,” Oenone snapped as she called for basins and wine. “Did the Amazons do this?”

  “No… I don’t think so.” Cadmus was mystified, beginning to doubt his own mind. “They might have if they’d had the chance, but there was none.”

  “Perhaps he was injured by overhanging branches…” Lycon said doubtfully.

  “When exactly?” Cadmus challenged. “How could he have been injured like this without giving any sign of it till now?”

  Hero knelt by the bed on which Machaon lay as Oenone tried to treat the perplexing wounds. She stroked his hair gently. “Mac, do you remember what happened to you?”

  For a moment it seemed Machaon would reply, and then he flinched, gripping Hero’s hand as his body tensed.

  “What in Hades…?” Lycon and Cadmus had been watching as Oenone applied her herbs to Machaon’s injuries. A new welt, bloody and vicious, appeared across his shoulders.

  “What was that?” Cadmus demanded of Oenone. “What’s happening to him?”

  Machaon clenched again as another stripe crossed the first. And then suddenly it stopped and his body relaxed.

  “Mac,” Hero said urgently, terrified.

  Machaon dragged himself up. He rubbed his face, biting his lip as Oenone poured salted wine over his back. “Gods,” he murmured through gritted teeth.

  “This is a curse,” Oenone announced.

  “No, it cannot be…” Hero had been warning her brothers about this most of her life, and yet now she could not believe that it was Machaon who would be so punished by the gods. Cadmus maybe… but not Machaon. “He has done nothing…” she said desperately though she knew that was not true. Her brothers had snatched her from the arms of Ares. Surely his wrath would be insatiable. Hot angry tears stung Hero’s cheeks. This was her fault. Her brothers had always protected her from all things—she had just to shield them from the gods.