Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

THE CAVE

THE MANTIGER LEFT CLEAR tracks dotted with blood. It was moving toward the mountains and, Atalanta guessed, heading back to its lair.

The worst kind of confrontation, she thought to herself. She would rather meet the beast—any beast—in the open. Once she and her father had cornered a mountain cat in its den. She’d been ready to charge right in, but her father had cautioned, “Leave it. We’ve time on our side. The beast will need water eventually. Nothing worse than your back to the wall in a beast’s own lair.”

Nothing worse than your back to the wall in a beast’s own lair.

She could feel sweat breaking out on the nape of her neck. No, she didn’t want to get into a cave with the creature. But if the mantiger denned, she’d have to go in after it. There was little time left. If she missed it in the dark, it would be after the others, her one chance gone.

The trail took a deep bend out of the forest and in the soft evening light, she saw she’d come to the foot of a mountain. About forty feet up was the black yawning gap of a cave.

She hesitated for a moment, thinking. It was the perfect cave for a flying creature, but the mantiger was on foot now. And hurt. Would it have struggled up? She checked the rugged slope for clues, but the stone held no prints.

If I go up and the mantiger isn’t there, she thought, I’ll have wasted time. But if I don’t go…While she was thinking, she was also casting around for tracks at the mountain’s foot.

You’re afraid, she told herself, adding, it’s all right to he afraid. It’s just not all right to he paralyzed by fear.

She knew she wasn’t a hero, but she had to do a hero’s job. So she pushed the butt of the spear down through the back of her belt and began clambering up the rugged slope.

Finally, about ten feet up, she saw a streak of blood.

“Got you!” she whispered. It gave her added energy, and she almost ran the rest of the way up.

Soon she was hauling herself onto a narrow ledge that jutted out below the cave entrance, like the lower lip of a gigantic mouth. Scrambling to her feet as fast as possible, she pulled out the spear and stood ready to meet the mantiger’s attack, knowing that if it leaped on her now, she could very well be flung into the void. If she fell forty feet—well, it might not kill her outright. There’d be just enough left alive to scream when the mantiger took out her throat.

When no attack came, she worked her way around so that her back was now to the rock face. If the beast went for her, at least she’d have one side covered.

Still the mantiger didn’t appear.

Listening intently, she finally heard—over the sound of her own ragged breathing—an uneven, weak, labored rasp coming from the cave. Pushing the spear sideways, she edged around to the cave opening. Then she spun quickly to face the entrance and walked into the cave.

She could feel every muscle in her body. They ached with tension. She could scarcely breathe.

“This is for you, Father,” she whispered. “And for Urso. And Orion. And Hierax. And…”

The mantiger was lying on its side near the entrance, its damaged wing uppermost, its wounded eye turned away. The other eye blinked weakly at Atalanta, but it had lost so much blood, it hadn’t even the strength to growl.

As she looked at the dying creature, she felt both hot and cold. Something that tasted of iron and bile rose into her mouth. She swallowed it down.

“You’ve done enough harm for one lifetime,” she muttered. “Now it’s your turn to die.”

Atalanta could see exactly where she needed to strike to pierce the mantiger’s heart. Raising the long spear, she poised it over the creature’s golden-orange chest.

The mantiger simply lay there, its ragged breath rattling in its throat.

Atalanta froze in midstrike. Through all her hurt and anger, she felt a sudden pity for it, this creature brought from its homeland, an unwitting instrument of the gods. She lowered the spear. Her father had taught her that a hunter hunted for food, respected the prey, didn’t kill out of hatred, anger, or fear.

She took a deep, careful breath.

“Go in peace,” she whispered to the winged beast.

As she watched, the mantiger’s good eye closed and the tired heaving of its breast slowed to a stop.

How long she stood there, watching the creature draw its last breath, she didn’t know, but the sudden scraping sound of claws on stone broke the spell.

She looked up and—a few feet farther into the cave—saw another limp form. It was a female mantiger, smaller than the male and without the majestic orange mane. It, too, was dead.

Even more amazing was the little animal cowering close by its side. The noise she’d heard had come from its clumsy attempts to nurse. It was a cub, its fur no more than a light covering of yellow fuzz, its wings small and immature. It looked weak and undernourished, and it shrank fearfully away from Atalanta.

“His mother died three days ago,” said a woman’s voice from the back of the cave. “She’d been weak ever since the birth.” The speaker came into the fast-fading light. Tall and yellow haired, she was dressed in hunter’s garb with a bow slung over her back. There was a golden nimbus about her, as if she walked in sunlight while all the rest of the world was dark.

The cub ran over to her, and she scooped him up in her arms. Stroking his fur absently, the huntress raised an amused eyebrow. “You know who I am?” she asked.

“Artemis of the hunt,” Atalanta said, surprised and yet not surprised at all. “I recognize your voice.”

The goddess nodded. “You’ve served me well, Atalanta,” she said. “You hunted the beast as was your destiny and didn’t shrink from the task. So I’ll give you another chance to take your revenge. Kill this little one. I’ll not stop you.”

“I don’t need revenge,” said Atalanta, shaking her head. “Send the cub back to Egypt or Libya or wherever he comes from. He needs to be among his own kind.”

“I’m not a Charon meant to ferry animals back and forth across the sea,” the goddess said petulantly. “And it will be many long months before this little one’s wings grow large enough for the task.” She set the cub back down on the cave floor. “I doubt he’ll survive that long.”

Atalanta gazed at the mantiger cub and was suddenly reminded of herself as an infant. Abandoned, she’d survived only thanks to the kindness of strangers, both animal and human. Setting the spear aside, she crouched down and held out her hands.

The little creature blinked curiously at her, then padded forward. She took him gently in her arms and lifted him up.

Stroking his downy fur, she said, “I’ll see he gets milk and anything else he needs until he’s strong enough to find his way home.”

“Then if you don’t want revenge, what reward can I grant you for your courage?” asked Artemis.

“Reward? I don’t want any reward from you,” said Atalanta.

“I always grant a gift to those who have served my cause well,” Artemis said stiffly.

“As you did with Orion?”

The goddess looked away. “His pride was his own undoing.”

“Yes, he was proud,” Atalanta agreed, “and boastful, but he was also a great and brave hunter. You of all people should see he’s remembered for that.”

“Are you telling me what I should do?” the goddess asked. Her perfect upper lip curled in scorn. “One petitions a god, one doesn’t make demands.”

“Is one act of kindness beyond your power?” Atalanta asked.

“You’ve a sharp tongue, Atalanta. One day it will get you into trouble,” the goddess warned. “But I’ll do as you ask this time, since I promised a reward. I’ll set Orion among the stars so that his name will never be forgotten.”

She raised a hand toward the heavens and as she did so, a dazzling light, like the first flush of dawn, consumed her. Then the light faded, and where the goddess had stood, there were now only shadows.

When Atalanta stepped outside the cave, the cub in her arms, she looked up into the night sky. There, where no stars had been before, were a group of twinkling lights. For a moment she could see him, the great warrior, with the lion skin on his shoulders, a spear and club in his hands, and around his waist a belt of three shining stars.