Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE TRAP

ATALANTA ALREADY HAD A spot in mind. It was on an animal trail leading to the pool that she and Urso had just left. There was enough dense greenery for the hunters to hide in and enough open ground for them to set their trap.

“Can you walk, Uncle?” Melanion asked.

“With your help,” Ancaeus replied.

They all left the shelter of the little den, going carefully down the scree and then quickly along the path. Atalanta took the lead with an arrow in her bow. By her side ambled the bear. Next came Melanion, holding up his uncle with one hand, a spear in the other. Evenor was in the rear, and he had both spear and knife at the ready.

When they got to the track, Atalanta signaled them to stop.

“First we need to dig a trap,” she said.

She and Evenor and Melanion took turns breaking up the ground with their spears, one always on guard.

As soon as he understood what they were doing, Urso pushed into their midst and began ripping up clods of earth with his long, sharp claws. He worked with furious determination, flinging piles of earth in all directions. The others helped to widen the hole until it was just large enough to hold their prey—but just.

Then Evenor and Melanion set about plaiting together branches and leaves to make a covering for the pit.

Meanwhile Atalanta took Urso with her and walked up the trail to where she planned to set her snares.

Urso was limping badly now. She ran a hand over his torn and matted fur, careful not to touch any of the wounds directly.

“I don’t know what we would have done without you,” she said.

He turned and gave her face a long, lingering wet lick, almost blinding her.

Suddenly a wild figure leaped out in front of them and Atalanta reeled back, stifling a scream.

“Pan!” Atalanta said. “You…startled me.”

Stamping his goat feet, the figure grinned. “That’s why they call it panic,” he chortled. “I do so love to see mortals jumping out of their skins.”

“Every time I see you, I think it’s a dream. But I am wide awake this time.”

He laughed. “Do I look like a dream?”

“Actually more like a nightmare.”

He laughed again.

“Are you here to help us kill the mantiger?”

Pan stopped dancing and put on an exaggeratedly sad face. “Oh no, little huntress, I can’t take a direct hand in any killing. Not I.”

“Well, look what the mantiger did to my Urso.”

“That’s the point,” said Pan, spinning about and then leaping to where Atalanta was and pushing his face right into hers. His musky smell at such close quarters was overwhelming. “Urso is the very reason why I’ve come.”

Suddenly terrified, Atalanta moved away from Pan and threw an arm around Urso’s neck. “Now?” she asked weakly.

“I told you before, the time would come for him to follow his own path,” said Pan. “He’s followed yours long enough, denying the impulses of his own nature to do so. But this is no longer his fight. It shames you to make him part of it.”

Atalanta looked at the open wounds and listened to Urso’s weary panting. Truly, she feared for his life.

She nodded reluctantly at Pan and turned to the bear. “You’ve done enough, dear friend,” she whispered into his ear. “You’ve done a dozen times more than enough.”

Urso nuzzled her and growled.

“No, I mean it. Truly I do.” She pushed him away. “You have to go now. It’s my destiny to be here, not yours.”

He growled again.

She pulled him back and kissed him on the brow.

He whuffled.

Turning away so the bear couldn’t see her tears, she told Pan sternly, “You take good care of him and guide him safely home.”

Pan gave her a mock bow. “My word is my bond,” he said, “which is more than some gods can say.” He stretched out a hand toward Urso, and the bear padded slowly to his side. Then he touched Urso on the head and a great glowing, buzzing mist seemed to reach out and surround them.

As Atalanta watched, they turned and walked off through an arch of birches and out of sight.

Atalanta choked back the tears that were threatening to overwhelm her.

“Why now?” she cried, but could think of no answer.

When she returned to the others, the cover of intertwined branches had been finished and laid over the pit. Melanion and Evenor were even now spreading loose earth over it to further disguise the trap.

Ancaeus was sitting on the ground, holding one of the spears as if guarding the other men. “Where’s the bear?” he asked.

“He’s done his part,” Atalanta answered. “He’s on his way home.”

“So it’s just us now.” Melanion squared his shoulders, but his voice was unsteady. “Funny, I was counting on that bear!” He smiled, a shadow of his usual broad grin.

She nodded. “Have you heard anything?” She looked at Evenor carefully.

“Not a sound,” he said. “You?”

“Nothing.” She turned to Ancaeus. “Are you ready, my prince?” She held her fist to her breast to show him honor.

If he noticed, he didn’t say, but he struggled to his feet, tottering a few steps toward her. He handed her the spear.

They took him by the arms then, helping him around to the far side of the pit. Here the trees grew too close and thick for the mantiger to attack from any direction other than directly across the trap.

As he settled his back against a tree trunk Ancaeus drew his long hunting knife. “I wish I had my axe,” he said. “Then I might yet strike a blow that would do for that monster.”

“No single blow will stop him,” Atalanta told him. “It will take all of us working together.” She didn’t say that she doubted the prince had the strength to wield his axe, even if he’d had it. How hard it must be for him to have to rely on us to keep him from harm, she thought, adding aloud, “Though I, too, wish you had your axe. It had a fine sharp edge.”

They walked away from Ancaeus carefully, skirting around the very edge of the pit.

“What do we do now?” Melanion asked, pushing his hair back from his sweaty brow.

“Conceal ourselves as best we can,” Atalanta replied. “And wait.”

She found a large acacia bush and hunched down behind it with a bag in front of her containing one of the beehives. The buzzing was more subdued now, as if the bees had resigned themselves to their prison.

Off to her left was Melanion with another of the bags, hunkered down behind some berry bushes. To her right, barely visible among the foliage, Evenor knelt and waited.

Only Ancaeus was in plain view, their human bait.

Atalanta checked her bowstring to make sure it was taut, then slid her knife out of its sheath and into her waistband. As she was without the spear she’d lost in the mantiger’s first attack, these weapons would have to serve. She was too small to handle Orion’s spears. It was best the men have them.

Time dragged on, limping toward sunset. The blue of the sky began to redden, like the skin of a ripening fruit.

Atalanta took a small drink of water from her wineskin and chewed on some berries she’d picked up along the way. They were early berries, tart and tasty, and seemed to explode in her mouth. All the while she never took her eyes off of the prince.

Ancaeus’ chin was resting on his chest and his eyelids had begun to droop. It might go easier for him if he falls asleep, Atalanta thought. The waiting was bad enough for all of them, but it must be even worse for him, in the open, exposed on purpose to danger.

She heard a rustling to her left and immediately set an arrow to the bowstring.

It was only Melanion crawling toward her, looking as if he wanted to talk. She hissed angrily at him and waved him away.

Reluctantly he crawled back.

Atalanta shook her head. Melanion seemed to be finding it harder to sit still than any of them. He’ll never make a hunter, she thought, then laughed at herself. As if that were his one desire!

Just then she heard another sound, a slight crackling, like a paw on leaf mold. She stared around but could see nothing. Yet somewhere in the forest—she was sure—a large animal was stalking them, waiting for dark. She knew it by the way everything went suddenly quiet—insects, small birds, even the trees seemed to be holding their collective green breaths.

Head snapping up, Ancaeus, too, was suddenly alert. He reached for the knife in his lap and the blade glinted dully in the last bits of sunlight slanting through the trees.

Suddenly, the greenery between Atalanta and Evenor burst apart. The mantiger—its wings tucked close to its body—was racing straight at Ancaeus.

The prince tried to brace himself, but the beast was almost on him. All he managed was a weak cry. “For Arcadia!” And raised his knife.

The mantiger snarled and leaped, landing at the far edge of the lattice of branches. For a moment nothing happened. The mantiger prepared to leap again, but—with a sharp snapping sound—the latticework gave way beneath its paws and it tumbled backward into the pit with a roar of outrage.

Atalanta, Evenor, and Melanion jumped out of hiding and ran over to the pit. Down below, the mantiger had righted itself, but as Orion had known all along, it couldn’t unfurl its wings in the small space. Frustrated, furious, the beast was roaring and trying to leap up, but its great wings kept catching on the sides of the pit and knocking it down again.

Holding the bags by the bottoms, Atalanta, Evenor, and Melanion shook out the hives into the pit. The hives struck the beast’s back and broke apart like ripe fruit, releasing the buzzing swarms.

Like a miniature army, the bees struck at the first enemy they could find. Pouring angrily over the mantiger, filling the air with a deafening hum as they attacked, they stung it again and again. The mantiger clawed futilely at them, tossed its massive orange head to get them out of its ears, its mouth, its eyes, the soft, vulnerable spots, which they seemed to find with unerring accuracy.

Maddened beyond endurance, the mantiger roared in pain and frustration, but the more it roared, the more the bees found their way into its open mouth. Clawing its way up the side of the pit through the cloud of insects, the mantiger finally got to the top. Its wings opened with a loud snapping sound and it tried to take to the air, still screaming its fury. The bees followed it out of the pit and continued their assault with renewed frenzy.

Atalanta fitted an arrow to her bow and fired. It struck the beast in the haunch but didn’t penetrate far. The mantiger’s skin was thick, but still she could see a bit of blood seeping from the wound. The scent of it made the bees even more frantic.

Ancaeus was on his feet now, eyes blazing feverishly. Fear and anger drove him, lending him strength. His right arm went back and he threw his knife directly at the creature. It bounced off a flailing claw and fell into the pit. Slumping back against the tree, Ancaeus wept.

Meanwhile, Evenor and Melanion had both raised their spears, ready to fling them at the crippled beast. However, the mantiger was spinning about and moving too erratically for them get an accurate shot, and they were desperate not to lose their only weapons in a futile attempt.

The swarming bees made it impossible for the mantiger to fly. Instead it dropped to the ground and bounded up the path away from the hunters, to some place of refuge.

“After it!” Atalanta cried. She’d already guessed where it would go.