Hero for Hire (10 page)

Then she dropped the snake's head, right amongst them all. It only seemed a pity that it had stopped dribbling an hour or so earlier.

From the increasing horror of their shouts, it was obvious that they recognized their fallen comrade, even in this guise. It was only then that Eurytos himself hurried to grab up a bow and a quiver of arrows. His claw didn’t seem to impede him much.

It was time for my entrance. He’d no sooner fitted a notch to the string when I jumped over the cliff and landed, one knee down, in the sand. The harpy gave one last cry and flew away.

I stood up and greeted him, quite civilly under the circumstances.

He couldn’t decide for a moment where to point the bow, at me or at the fast-flying harpy. I ignored his indecision and bowed.

“I felt sure that after such an introduction,” I said, pointing after the harpy, “I would meet with a warm reception.”

For a moment, the arrow point stayed focused on my eye. “Are you Eno the Thracian?”

“Are you Eurytos the...Renowned?”

“I am.” He lowered his weapon. “It is good to see you again, my friend.”

Despite his warm greeting, I didn’t recognize him and said so.
“I know you largely by reputation,” he admitted, tucking the bow under his arm. “But we have met before. It was on the docks at Kalithanos."

“I don’t recall it,” I said.

“I’d just been hired on as a first mate aboard our mutual friend’s ship. How is Jori? Still up to his old tricks?”
       Kalithanos is one of my favorite ports, nicely central to some of the mountainous city-states owned by the Hittites. The wine is good, the women clean, and there is always someone ripe for gambling even if you arrive in the middle of the night in nothing but your tunic. It must have been three years since I was there for I’d been keeping busy closer to Athens.
The last time I’d taken passage there aboard the
Chelidion
, I’d been heading up to handle some bandits haunting the trade route between Themiscyra and Troy. It was a tricky job. I vaguely remembered Jori chattering away about some new mate he’d picked up who had plenty of experience with sailing into danger. Maybe I’d met him. I meet a lot of people.

It had been shortly after leaving Kalithanos that Jori had dealt with mutiny for the first time. Some members of the crew, deceived by Jori’s apparent youth, had tried to take over ship and crew. It had ended badly for the mutineers. Jori had killed the ringleader...or had he?
The man who’d told me the story had mentioned a name. I was certain it had not been Eurytos but where an honest man’s name is an asset, it is nothing but a liability to a criminal.

“Maybe I have heard of you.”

“Ah,” he said, “so nice to be remembered. I certainly remember him clearly...very clearly.” He raised his claw and rubbed it as though it pained him.

I saw that the pincers were hard as rock with a sharp inner edge. He saw my glance and raised the thing up. “I owe this and so much more to Jori. Tell him I haven’t forgotten the next time you see him.”

Didn’t he know that the
Chelidion
was loitering not a half-mile off shore? Maybe not. If he’d questioned people at all, it would have been about me and my appearance here, not about the ship I rode in on.

The claw was odd and drew my attention, but it was by no means the only noticeable thing about Eurytos. Despite his attempt at regal bearing, the sad truth was that the man had no neck. Usually when people describe someone this way they mean that he is unusually muscular around the shoulders, giving the perception of a shorter neck. Or sometimes they mean that a man’s jaw is heavy, again giving a false impression. People have even said that I have no neck but it isn’t true. If it were, I would not have come so close to having my throat cut so often.

What I mean is that Eurytos had quite truthfully no neck. His earlobes rested on his shoulders. His chin would have hit his collarbone if he yawned. He looked as though he’d been hit on the head until his upper spine collapsed.

“You are fortunate to have so many friends,” he said. “The harpy, it seems, for one.”

“You have a few odd friends, yourself, if it comes to that.” I pointed at the snake’s head lying a few feet away.

“Poor old snake. Well, he had a good few runs around the stadium. And he was getting fearfully hungry cooped up in here while we waited for you. Fish and bread weren’t what he liked best to eat.”

“Will it relieve your grief if I mention he had a good meal just before the end?”

One of his eyes swiveled toward me while the other stayed fixed on the snake’s head. “Which boy did he eat? The whiny one or the pretty one?”

His fleshless lips split into a grin at my surprised expression. “It was just a matter of time. They were getting on everybody’s nerves. Want-to-be villains are just as irritating as want-to-be heroes. I saw Snakey here watching them and biding his time.”

“He ate the pretty one,” I admitted.

“Hmmm...good choice but he shouldn’t have done it. Snakes get slow when they’ve eaten.”

“He was fast enough for me.”

Eurytos gave a short bark of laughter, went to slap me on the back but thought better of it. The claw dropped to his side. His quick eyes took in more details about me. “Your hands are bleeding, my dear fellow.”

“The rocks up there are sharp,” I said, hiking a torn thumb back toward the place I’d come down.

“Indeed they are. That’s why we were expecting you to come through the gate. It’s a good lesson to me not to expect the usual from an unusual opponent. Erm....” he smoothed thumb and forefinger over the straggling mustache that half-hid his mouth. “You are our opponent, yes?”

“It’s why I’m here.”

“That’s what I imagined you’d say. You don’t mind dropping your sword, do you?” His hands moved fast for all their inequality. The arrow point covered me again.

“Not at all,” I said, and unbuckled the strap to throw it down away from my reach, sword and scabbard together. I regretted it; I liked the sword, though it was now more notched that it had been that morning, and the scabbard had been expensive, but it was best to allay whatever suspicions I could. Not that I felt Eurytos was a wide-hearted and easy-going kind of guy. He’d probably kept a close watch on his mother when she changed his diapers to make sure she didn’t cheat him.

“You wouldn’t like to reconsider your position? No doubt the boy-king has offered you a tidy sum to fight his battles for him but consider me as an alternate employer. As a fighting man myself, I know your worth far better than a beardless youth could ever do.” He smiled at me like a traveling merchant does when offering genuine snips of Aphrodite’s hair and medallions made by Hephaestus himself. “And the size of the shares have just increased!”

His wave took in the four men left to him.

I looked at them too, at least the two I could see without turning my back on Eurytos, which would be a short-lived error. I couldn’t tell if they were some kind of animal turned into a man or just men. They stood with their backs to the firepit, with swords drawn, legs braced for attack at a word from their leader. One wore a deep-brimmed hat, hiding his face. The other had tiny eyes and a pert nose that would have looked charming on a girl. Once the bristly chin and snot were added, it turned him into something from a traveling fair. I didn’t know where the other two were, exactly. Somewhere behind me, waiting for the signal to cut me down.

Eurytos’ eyes had a roving cast. Neither seemed capable of looking in the same direction at the same time. I had counted on some kind of hint from him, a glance, or a nod, to show me where his men would be standing behind me. I’d have to manage without it.

“You know I sent the first three boys back to Temas?” I asked.

“Why do you think I made them our sentries? They’d only be in the way here. The shepherd boy reported you were on your way but he wouldn’t come in. I shall have to look him up later. I don’t like people who don’t trust me.”

Behind me, I heard a thrumming growl, deeper and richer than a dog’s. A big cat sounds that way just before it lunges. “I don’t like him,” a throaty voice said from my immediate left. “He smells of blood.”

Eurytos showed him the palm of his human hand. “Down, Leander. Give the man a chance to decide.”

A gruff voice added, “He’s not much to look at, is he?” Then his voice broke into laughter, a half-hysterical, half-threatening sound I’d last heard at Cyprus where the king thought keeping hyenas beside his throne lent distinction to his court. He was right too, though perhaps not in the way he thought.

If I turned to fight the lion-man and the hyena, Eurytos could stab or shoot. If I fought Eurytos for the bow, either one of them could kill me. I didn’t know the exact properties of the other two but I could guess they were not now and never had been Cretan dancing girls.

“Your offer is flattering,” I said, “and I really want to know how you are doing the things you’ve done. But I have a reputation to maintain. You know how it is.”

“Yes, I know. I have the same problem.”

I hit him in the mouth before he could give the word. It was like punching a mountain. His head hardly rocked back at all. His independently functioning eyes could focus on one thing after all, focus with intense, burning hatred. “Get him.”

It looked as if I’d have to do things the hard way after all. If Eurytos had dropped the bow...but he hadn’t. I’d have to get another one.

Leander had leapt onto my sword which I’d already given up for lost. Hyena dodged and weaved, indecisive without his partner. But he wouldn’t attack on his own, not until I was wounded by one of the others.

I spun away from my own weapon and sprinted across and back to the cache by the tunnel door. Thinking that I was trying to escape, one of the other two ‘men’ ran that way to block my access to the tunnel. He snorted as he ran, turning his head to grin at me through protruding teeth like the jagged rocks above my head.

I skidded through the sand to the weapons cache. They were all stacked up together in an approved military style, swords on top, shields all around. I flung the shields aside like skipping stones, hardly caring where they went. A grunt and a groan told me they’d hit someone but that wasn’t my intention or objective.

As I’d hoped, there were a few greasy goat-skin bags, legs taut at each corner, looking life-like if headless. I snatched one of those and a bow. The full quiver of arrows was right beside it.

As I turned, the lion was racing toward me, half-transformed. I hit him right in the still-human jaw with the bag. The cork stuffed in the opening flew out under pressure. I’d like to think it hit someone but I have no proof.

The sand made it hard to run for them as well as for me, though they had the advantage of four paws. It flew out beneath my feet and I could not zig-zag very well. When the lion leapt upon my back, I went down hard, scraping off skin.

The arrows scattered from the quiver as I hit. My hand went to my small scabbard and I pulled my short sword. If he’d been completely transformed, I would have been completely dead. But no lion can bite through a man’s skull with a human mouth. It had to back off to have enough room to disembowel me with its giant paw. When it did, I rolled over.

It sprang on me again. I buried the sword and a good bit of my arm between the ribs. Throwing the dying thing aside, I flipped up onto my feet. The boar was closing in, followed by the hyena. Though changed, it seemed to recognize that its hunting partner was mortally wounded. There was no hesitation now in its savage eyes.

I pelted toward the fire, my heart all-but pounding through my side. Though I’d had only hope that my idea would work, and that the necessary ingredients would be present, I moved as though I’d never been anything but certain. It was too late for a change of plans.

I threw the arrows down beside the firepit, spilled the black liquid from the goat-skin over the arrow points, grabbed one up, set it to the bow, and thrust the iron point into the fire. The combination of tar, naphtha and sulphur blazed up with a crackle like a forest fire.

The animals held back from me as the arrow flared between us. It might have been the smell as much as fear. Even to my mere human senses, the stuff had reeked like all the rotten eggs ever laid before it started burning. Now it was all the eggs plus all the maggot-ridden meat.

“Stop!”

Eurytos came down the sand, limping, followed by the fourth man. “Stand back, all of you.”

The hyena whined and pawed at the beach. “I know,” Eurytos said as if in answer. “Go to him and wait there. We must be obedient.” The boar and the hyena slunk off, though the look in their eyes was eloquent.

Eurytos squatted down on his haunches, the fourth man standing behind him. “Put out the arrow, Eno. You don’t need it now.”

I extinguished it in the sand. “What do you want?”

“It’s what you should want that matters. I have just been sent a message regarding you.”

The jocularity had faded from his tone. He huddled down as if he were cold, his teeth chattering together. He did not look at me, while the man behind him never took his eyes off me. It began to bother me, that steady stare. He wore a hat like a farmer’s with a brim so deep I couldn’t see his eyes but I could feel them.

“Sent a message? Who came here?”

“She doesn’t need mortal mouths to speak to me, her faithful servant.”

“She?”
Doris
the Crone had spoken of a goddess. I’d assumed it was Artemis. She had domination over animals and had been known to turn men into them from time to time, usually after a spied-upon bath in the woods. But she wouldn’t turn animals into men. She liked them better than us, not that she had much opinion of the males of any species.

Eurytos dropped his hand and began idly drawing figures in the sand. “Do you know what it is to die? You who have dispatched many a soul to the Underworld?”

“Not yet.” This conversation had taken a strange turn.

“I died...once. A sea-captain cut off my hand, thrust his knife into my heart and threw me overboard. I sank down into the sea, deeper and deeper, colder and colder, for what seemed forever. Do you know there are fire-filled cracks at the bottom of the ocean, great fissures that run for miles? You fall through the blackness and the cold then suddenly you see below you light and fire and heat. The cracks are deep, so deep they open into Hades itself! There I fell, time out of mind. There She found me, made me her servant...made me? I begged her to let me serve her and she sent me back. But not as I had been. She gave me power over the beasts, to change them as I had been changed.”