Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One (8 page)

No one had ever heard the giant lizards make a sound before. But now they were howling, a rattling phlegmy screech as they fell before the rock. As they fell, however, they belched final fire at Castor, great gouts of it now until he was bathed in fire.

But he kept whirling until all the dragons had fallen. Then he collapsed, falling among them, sprawling on the sand. The crowd had fled in terror. The green bodies lay still. Only the golden one writhed slightly. Castor, in agony, lay there praying for death to stop his pain.

And that is how Jason and Pollux found him, lying on the sand among the broken lizards. Pollux gasped in horror. “What are these ghastly things?” he whispered.

“Whatever they are,” said Jason, “he seems to have killed them all.”

“But they've killed him, too,” sobbed Pollux.

Jason was kneeling at Castor's side, touching him gently. “He's still alive,” he said.

“Look at him, though,” cried Pollux. “Half his skin's burned off. He's in awful pain. I'm going to put him out of his misery, then follow him to Tartarus. We have two bodies but a single soul. I can't live without my twin.”

Jason felt himself melting with pity, but he tried not to show it. He knew he had to imitate coolness. “Do you really want to die before avenging him?” he said. “Don't you want to fight Amycus first? You owe it to your brother who has prepared the way. Besides, the giant might spare you the trouble of killing yourself.”

“I know,” groaned Pollux. “I want to fight him. But how can I leave Castor in this pain?”

“I can do something,” said Jason. He drew an arrow from his quiver and scratched Castor's forehead. The moaning immediately ceased, and the writhing. Castor breathed easily. “He's asleep,” said Jason. “He feels no pain. He'll gain strength as he sleeps. When he awakes, I'll heal his burns. I promise.”

Pollux knelt and kissed his brother's face. Then grasped Jason and cried, “Let's find Amycus then! I must fight! I can't wait!”

He rushed off and Jason followed.

11

Hero Meets Monster

By the time they reached the castle, word had already come to Amycus that his dragons had been battered to death. The news sent him into one of his rages, and he had killed three of his courtiers and was holding a fourth by the neck, strangling him, while issuing orders to the captain of his spearmen.

“They say it was a stranger who killed my dragons. A big blond youth, a Spartan. Find him, and bring him to me; I want to kill him with my own hands. Very slowly, and so painfully that he'll wish he had let the dragons burn him.”

“I'm a Spartan,” called a voice. “Will I do?”

Amycus gaped in astonishment as he saw Pollux and Jason standing in front of his throne.

“Yes, I'm a Spartan,” said Pollux. “And blond. Not big by your standards, you overgrown brute, but big enough to make things interesting if you dare fight me.”

The king was speechless, and everyone knew he was too furious to utter a word. Jason was watching him closely. The brass head could not change expression, but Jason, who had trained himself to observe body changes, saw the veins swell in the giant's neck. Saw the thick brown pelt that covered his torso grow spiky, like the hackles of an angered wolf. But when Amycus did speak, it was in a whisper, and somehow more menacing than if he had bellowed.

“Are you he who killed my dragons?”

“Not me,” said Pollux. “But someone very much like me. My twin, in fact. He has lost too much skin to do any fighting this week, so if you're really itching to avenge yourself on anyone, I suggest myself. How many times do I have to challenge you, you bowl-headed monstrosity? Let's go out to your blood-soaked meadow and fight.”

“Can you be ready by midafternoon?” said Amycus.

“I'm ready now.”

“I need a few hours to send word out so that we may have a good audience. I want as many people as possible there to see what I do to you.”

“Midafternoon, then,” said Pollux.

Jason had been studying the giant all this while, and was dismayed at what he saw. Although he respected his friend's skill, he didn't see how he could possibly stand up to a creature as powerful as the king. Amycus was about ten feet tall. His burnished brass head with its flat nose and ridged eye holes was simply a mallet. His neck was long and very thick, as wide as his head—one length of muscle, giving that murderous whiplike power to his butting. His shoulders were as wide as an ox yoke, his legs like tree trunks; his arms were almost as long as his legs. And although Jason could not see muscle under the bearlike pelt, he knew it was there. His hands were as big as garden spades. When clenched, they would be knobs of bone almost as hard as his head.

Jason cast a sidelong glance at Pollux, who was also staring at the king and was utterly undismayed at what he saw. A little smile played over his lips. His gray eyes were pale as frost.

“Go to the meadow now,” said the king, “and examine the ground. I want you to have every chance to make a fight of it.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” said Pollux. “I don't think you'll be disappointed in my efforts.”

He walked out of the throne room, the courtiers parting before him. Jason followed.

Jason was restless, seething with anxiety. He strolled about as Pollux studied the meadow. The hillside was filling with people. They were seating themselves on boulders along the slopes. A vast throng was gathering. Jason crossed to where Pollux was standing. “Have you chosen your ground?” he asked.

“Here,” said Pollux. It was a spot where the field tapered toward a cliff face, a wall of sheer rock.

“Why here?” asked Jason. “Wouldn't you do better in the middle of the field where your speed would count? He'll simply corner you here and pound you to pieces.”

“Exactly what I want him to think,” said Pollux.

Jason stayed with him now, waiting for the king to come. People were mobbing the slopes; it looked as though the entire population of the island had come. Vendors passed among them, selling prawns, honeycombs, and melons.

The king strode onto the meadow, surrounded by spearmen, attended by slaves. He went directly to Pollux. “Are you prepared to die?” he growled.

“I'm prepared to fight.”

“Have you chosen your ground?”

“Here,” said Pollux. “This rock wall is one boundary. The dimensions are whatever you choose.”

The king turned to his spearmen. “Pace it off. Fifteen strides long, fifteen strides wide. Stand your pickets.”

An officer paced off the distance and placed the men along the boundaries, making a square with the wall at one end. The armored men were a hedge of iron.

A trumpeter raised his horn and blew a clear blast. Then he addressed the crowd. “People of Bebrycos, you are gathered here to watch your king, Amycus, protector of the realm and hammer of justice, punish one who dares enter our land without invitation. Watch the fellow perish. Watch and admire.”

As this was being announced, the king's slaves were stripping their master. The sun glinted on his brass head. The trumpeter sounded his horn again. The fight began.

Pollux was a big youth, but he looked very small as he backed away from the stalking giant. Jason watched in anguish as the king worked every advantage of the tightly penned space. He could corner Pollux here, maul him with his great fists until he was ready for the death butt. Yet Pollux himself had chosen this place. Jason couldn't understand why.

But it was strange what was happening in the ring. It seemed more like a dance than a fight. Amycus shuffled after the youth, blocking him with shoulders and elbows, swinging at him. But Pollux drifted away from those fists and from those massive furry arms—moving very thriftily, just enough to escape the flailing fists. Stepping lightly away from the bull-like charges, dancing, twirling, dodging. He was untouched, though Amycus had aimed a hundred blows at him. He was untouched, but had not yet struck a blow of his own.

Suddenly, Pollux changed tactics. He stopped dancing and began to leap. He sprang from one side of the ring to the other. As soon as he touched ground he leaped again. Amycus rushed after him. Just as he reached him, Pollux rose straight into the air. He leaped higher than the king's head and launched a scything sideways kick. Amycus ducked, and the foot whizzed past his head. Jason thought, “Why does he duck? Kicking that head is kicking brass. The foot must break.”

Amycus must have thought the same thing at the same time. For, as Pollux landed with knees bent and immediately sprang into the air again and kicked again, this time the king did not duck. But foot did not meet head. It was exquisitely aimed. As Pollux came down, his foot swerved in the air and sank into the king's torso. He bent over, gasping.

But Amycus straightened up, immediately seeming to gain new strength from the pain. He bellowed, charged again. Pollux sprang away. This time Amycus did not rush after him but dove through the air. Dove halfway across the ring, hitting Pollux with his shoulder and hurling him against the hedge of armored men—who pushed him back into the ring.

Amycus was all over him now, blocking escape, mauling him. A terrific punch caught Pollux between shoulder and elbow. His left arm went limp. His mouth bled. The crowd roared. But it seemed that the taste of his own blood refreshed the Spartan. He moved swiftly, stepping away from Amycus, twirling, dancing, springing away, swaying out of reach. As reeds sway before a wind, so Pollux bent away from the giant's flailing fists.

Amycus was breathing heavily now. He kept rushing, punching. Now Pollux began to strike back, using only his right arm. He did not aim at the brass face, but at the body. The king's rib cage boomed like a drum under the youth's lightning fist. Nine blows Pollux struck, and whisked away before Amycus could strike back. The king's massive body was hidden by his pelt; it was hard to tell the effect of these blows. But Jason judged his torso to be one big bruise.

The giant's strength was undiminished, however—or so it seemed. He plowed ahead now, accepting all the punishment Pollux offered, taking all his punches, trying to get close enough to use his mallet head. The tactic filled Jason with anguish as he watched. It seemed to be working. Pollux was retreating, but straight back, without springing away. Jason thought he might be too tired to leap.

Amycus shuffled toward him, like a bear moving toward a fawn. Pollux retreated until he was stopped by the wall. He slumped against the rock, and Amycus was where he wanted to be. He did not punch, but seized the youth's shoulders, and drew back his head for the fatal butt. And in Jason's vision, the presence of death thickened the air, slowing everything. He saw the brass head smashing through the sunlight toward that beautiful face.

Then, more swiftly than the eye could follow, the yellow head twitched away. It moved just enough so that the king's head barely grazed it, and smashed into the rock wall. The roaring of the crowd changed into a vast sigh as it saw the rock wall split. Fracture lines radiated from the dent. And for a moment, it seemed, the brass head was socketed in the rock, holding Amycus still. Only a moment, but enough for Pollux to slip away behind him, and to raise his own fist.

He pivoted on the soles of his feet and smashed his bleeding knuckles into the brown pelt, just above the waist—a terrible kidney punch that would have killed anyone else. But Amycus turned to face his foe. The brass forehead was dented slightly, his face was scratched, but he seemed otherwise unhurt. When he moved, however, he moved slowly; something was muffling him. He lifted his arms—slowly. Pollux's left hand clawed itself painfully into the air; the arm was indeed broken. With two fingers of his left hand he lifted the king's chin in what looked like a weird caress.

He swung his right fist again. He planted his feet, turned on his ankles and twisted his body around with all the whiplike power of his spine, all the elastic strength of his shoulders, all his love of fighting, and all his loathing of the brass-headed brute who had caused his brother such agony.

His fist landed on the giant's throat. Jason, watching breathlessly, felt that he was attached to that fist, and he could feel the king's windpipe breaking under the blow. Amycus swayed on the grass. Blood gushed from every hole in the metal face. From nostrils, ears, mouth. He bellowed weakly, blowing bubbles of blood—then fell face down. And everyone in the vast crowd knew he would not rise again.

The people were yelling, jumping, screeching, roaring—not with rage but with joy. For now that Amycus was dead they could show what they felt. Jason rushed to Pollux and threw his arms about him.

“Want to be king?” he whispered. “They'll sit you right on the throne, if you wish.”

“I don't know,” said Pollux. “I'd have to talk it over with Castor. He'd have to share the throne, you know.”

“No!” called a voice.

The young men turned. It was a seal rearing up on the bright grass, flipper raised. “No,” he repeated. “My master, Poseidon, has other plans. You must go voyaging, the three of you, but in a proper ship this time. And other heroes will join the crew. From island to island you shall sail, seeking a magical prize, rescuing maidens as you go, killing monsters, cleansing my master's sea. Then, Jason, you will be ready for kingship, and all of you shall enter legend.”

“Spooky stuff,” murmured Pollux, grinning. “Let's go find Castor. He'll be waiting to hear about the fight.”

“A master builder shall come,” called the seal. “He'll build you a ship. Wait for him here.”

And the seal slid into the sea.

ANTEUS

For Cody Clinton,

our smallest giant

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