Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE CHALLENGE

THE SPEAKER STRODE PAST Atalanta and Evenor, tossing a pair of lances and a heavy pack to the ground. He was the biggest man Atalanta had ever seen, a full head and shoulders taller than Evenor. His long black hair was tied back in a knot and his black beard was cropped short. He wore a deerskin tunic that must have taken the hides of three stags, and a lion skin cloak draped over his shoulders. His muscles bunched alarmingly.

The bull sighted this new threat, bellowed again, and charged.

The newcomer stood his ground. Weaponless, he fell into a fighting crouch, arms outstretched. “Come, bull,” he said, pounding his right fist to his chest, “I dedicate your death to the people of this village.”

Atalanta gasped in horror. Surely the fool will be trampled to death, she thought. He may be big, but the bull is bigger.

The sound of the bull’s hooves thudding on the ground was louder than thunder, but the man did not flinch. At the last instant he seized the bull by its horns and twisted its neck violently to one side. The beast’s hooves kicked at him, but he forced the animal back, driving his hip into its flank and toppling it to the ground. Falling on top of the bull, the man flexed his bulging muscles and gave the horns a mighty wrench. The bull’s neck broke with an awful crack.

For a moment everything was silent. Then the villagers burst from hiding, waving their arms and cheering.

“Who is that?” Atalanta asked as people rushed by her to surround the giant and shake his hand.

“By the gods, girl,” Labrius said, grinning, “there is only one man it could be. The height, the fearlessness, the lion skin.” He pushed aside the villagers to welcome the giant to Mylonas.

“It’s Orion,” Evenor said.

“I thought he was just a story,” Atalanta said.

Phreneus rubbed a finger along the side of his nose. “What a story then. An epic!” He laughed out loud.

Evenor laughed with him. “Epic he may be. But he’s our salvation for sure.” He signaled Atalanta and Phreneus to join the villagers, and they pushed their way into the crowd.

“See here,” Orion was saying, lifting up the dead bull’s flank. “It’s been stung. Scorpion’s my guess. The pain of that sting would drive any creature wild before the poison kills it.”

The crowd gazed down at the mark on the bull’s flank, but Atalanta gaped at the man. He looks like a god, she thought. Then remembering Pan, added, Or how a god should look.

“Whatever it was that drove it to destruction makes no difference now,” Labrius said in a voice pitched so that everyone could hear. “We will feast well tonight, my friends.” He turned to the crowd and spread his arms wide. “A feast to celebrate the strength and courage of our guest, Orion—the greatest hunter in all the world!”

A huge cheer went up, and Atalanta found herself cheering as well.

The feast was held that night in the village square, on the very spot where the bull had been stopped. Kraters of wine and platters of roast meat were passed around. The women of Mylonas had baked fresh bread and there were pots of boiled onions and beans. Little honey cakes were served at the meal’s end, when the storytellers—dark-haired twins from Salonika—told the tale of Orion and the Maddened Bull, a story which only grew in its telling.

“I said it would be an epic.” Phreneus’ nose was bright red with all the drinking, and he laughed too loudly, snorting as he did so.

Atalanta cringed at the sound. She was seated between Evenor and Phreneus. Along with Labrius and the other village leaders, they shared a table with Orion. Atalanta had been included because Evenor had insisted. Otherwise she would have been relegated to serving the food and wine, with the other young women.

Behind them, all around the table, stood the rest of the villagers, lips smeared with greasy meat. They all seemed drunk, not so much on wine as on Orion’s presence.

The hero’s two great hunting spears lay on the ground at his side. Each of them was longer than he was tall, and capped with a gleaming bronze point.

Orion’s voice boomed out over the crowd, yet he didn’t seem to be straining to be heard. “A messenger from your king Iasus reached me in Elis, to the north,” he explained between draughts of wine. “A savage beast, ’twas said, is ravaging your fair land. The king offered me any reward I asked for if I would come to Arcadia and kill it.”

This news traveled a second time through the crowd, as if repeating it made it even more true.

Labrius beamed and lifted his cup. “May the gods praise Iasus for bringing you here.”

All through the crowd cups were lifted.

Labrius added, “We are mostly farmers here, Orion. We haven’t the skill to hunt down this monstrous creature on our own.”

Grinning, Orion put down his cup and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “So what is this creature? Bear? Rabid wolf? An old lion taking placid cows and toddlers who have wandered off down the path?”

Labrius put his cup down as well and spread his hands helplessly. “We don’t know. All we know is that it kills without mercy.”

Orion laughed, throwing his head back. Then he looked at Labrius. “All beasts kill without mercy,” he said. “Mercy is a human failing. Never think of an animal as you would a person, otherwise you’ll misjudge it and make an error that could cost you your life.” He picked up a steak bone and began gnawing on it.

The others nodded as if this were the greatest wisdom. But Atalanta had heard something like it before, from her father.

“Atalanta has seen it,” piped up Phreneus, putting his hand on her head, as if by touching her he shared in her feat. “The girl,” he added unnecessarily.

Orion set down the bone and stared at her.

“She says—” Phreneus continued before Orion silenced him with a raised hand.

“Unless she’s lost her tongue to this beast, she can speak her own words better than you can,” he said. He kept his eyes fixed on her, his gaze mesmerizing.

Atalanta took a moment before saying anything. She wanted it clear that she was speaking hunter to hunter, not as a bidden child. At last she said, “It was very quick. I saw only a mane, claws, fangs hanging down thus”—she made her fingers into teeth—“serpent’s tail.” She took a big breath. “And a pair of wings.”

“Were the wings feathered?”

She stared blankly at him.

“Were they the wings of a bird,” Orion prompted her, “or those of a bat or an insect?”

Atalanta nodded. No one had thought to ask such a thing before. She closed her eyes for a moment and saw the beast again. Opening her eyes she said, “Bird wings. Feathered. Set high on the shoulders.”

There was silence in the inner circle and—except for a child crying beyond the nimbus of the central fire—the crowd was silent, too.

Orion continued to stare at Atalanta for a moment more, stroking his chin as if in thought. Then he picked up the steak bone again. “She sees true,” he said, gesturing with the bone. “Like the hawk and the wolf. I like that.”

Atalanta blushed under his praise.

“Then what manner of creature is it?” Labrius asked, almost in a whisper.

Atalanta and the others leaned forward to hear Orion’s answer.

“What manner of creature?” He leaned back casually. “It wasn’t spawned in Arcadia, though you have your share of strange animals here. If you know where to look for them.” He grinned, as if to say he alone knew such things.

“Then where…” Atalanta asked, trying to hurry him along.

But he would not be hurried. Storytelling, it seemed, was part of his greatness and the folk of Mylonas drank it in.

“From Sparta?” called out someone from the crowd.

“The Long Island?” cried another.

“The land of the Keshites?” asked a third.

It had become a guessing game and Orion let it go on for some time. Then, suddenly bored, he waved his hand to cut them off.

“No,” he said, “from the girl’s description, I’d say this creature is kin to the sphinx, the chimera, and the manticore. If it’s what I think it is, it dwells in the scorching deserts of the East where it’s called a layish, or in our tongue, a mantiger.” He pronounced it with a drawl: man’-ta-jur.

Evenor leaned forward over the table as if to challenge Orion. “If it lives so far away, what is it doing here?”

Orion narrowed his eyes but didn’t otherwise show he felt challenged at all. “Perhaps drought has driven it out, or it’s a young male without its own territory. Or…” He looked carefully around the table, including those who stood as well as those who sat, then said in a hushed voice, “Perhaps it has been lured here.”

“Lured?” Labrius asked. “By whom?”

But Atlanta had already guessed. “By the gods,” she whispered.

Orion heard her. “Always a possibility,” he said. “But whatever has brought the mantiger to Arcadia, it will soon be sorry it has crossed paths with Orion.” He slapped himself on the chest, a blow that would have broken the bones of any other man.

The crowd laughed and roared its approval.

Atalanta stirred uneasily in her chair. She was not certain what to make of Orion. He was big, yes, and certainly brave. Everyone said what a fine hunter he was. But she was uncomfortable when he began to boast. Her father had always said, “Do not praise yourself while there are others around who can sing your praises for you.” She bit her lip, then asked, “Are you going to hunt by yourself, then?”

He smiled at her condescendingly. “A beast that roams this far and wide and seems to have no fixed lair? I may be a hero, but I’m no fool, girl. It will take a hunting party to encircle it, to pen it in.”

Encircle a flying beast? she thought, but didn’t say it aloud.

“Of course,” Orion continued, “I’ll want the best hunters I can find to accompany me.”

“I’ll come,” Evenor volunteered.

Orion eyed Evenor shrewdly, taking in his lean frame, his sharp, intelligent face, and the scar that ran the length of his arm. “A boar,” he said, recognizing at once the nature of the wound. “Took it for dead, did you?

Evenor nodded.

“How many boar have you killed since?”

“Seven,” Evenor replied.

Orion looked away from him and spoke to the crowd. “A man who’s never taken a wound is too cautious to be of any use to me. A man who fears to close for the kill because of his wound is likewise of no use.” He turned back to Evenor and nodded approvingly. “You’ll do.”

“What about Herma and the children?” Phreneus objected.

“You tell them, my friend. They’ll understand,” said Evenor. “Until this beast is killed, none of us will be safe. I must do my part, for everyone’s sake.”

“I’m coming, too,” said Atalanta flatly.

Orion raised an amused eyebrow. “This is man’s work.”

Atalanta stood. “What does being a man have to do with finding and killing the beast? I’m the only one who’s seen it and lived to tell the tale.”

“So you are,” Orion agreed. “Therefore you shouldn’t tempt the Fates a second time.”

“I thought you said a hunter made cautious by his wound was of no use to you. I haven’t been made cautious,” she said quickly.

“You weren’t wounded,” he pointed out, then smiled. A titter ran around the crowd.

“That beast killed my father,” Atalanta replied hotly. “And that’s a wound deeper than one to my own flesh. Besides, there’s no better tracker in these woods than me.” She thought briefly: Now I’m boasting as much as Orion.

“She’s right,” Evenor conceded. “She’s the best I’ve ever known.” Turning to Atalanta, he asked urgently, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“It doesn’t matter what she wants,” Orion cut him off curtly. “This hunt is mine.”

“I thought it was the king’s hunt,” Atalanta said.

“Mind your tongue, girl,” Labrius warned her.

Atalanta was about to snap back at him, but Evenor shook his head, effectively silencing her. He turned to address Orion. “No one knows the forest or the ways of the local animals like Atalanta. She would be a great help to the hunt.”

“I can see there’s something of the wild about her,” said Orion, smiling again to take the sting from his words. “But she’ll simply slow us down. In this hunt, speed is of the essence.”

“Give me a chance and I’ll win a place in your hunt,” said Atalanta.

“Win it? How?” He seemed amused.

Without thinking, she blurted out, “By…by defeating you in a footrace.”

Orion let out a huge laugh that was: soon taken up by the others, all except Evenor.

Atalanta waited for the noise to subside. “I hear you’re so fast you can run over the surface of the sea,” she said. “So if I beat you, will you let me join your hunt?”

“Girl, you could no more beat me than you could outrun the wind,” Orion said mockingly.

“I can run as fast as a bear,” Atalanta answered him. It was no boast, but the simple truth.

Orion took a thoughtful sip from his wine cup. All eyes were on him now. Would he accept the challenge or dismiss it? Atalanta was gambling that he couldn’t afford to lose face in front of all these men.

“Very well,” Orion agreed at last. “We’ll race in the morning.”

Atlanta grinned and raised her own wine cup, but she didn’t drink further. She would need a clear head as well as strong legs to win that race.