I stood frozen, desperately willing myself not to hear, but his words pushed their way in like a spear point. “Because after I cut her throat she couldn’t talk no more!” He let out a roar of laughter, digging his companion in the ribs.
I took an involuntary step toward him, not even sure what I was planning, but the flash of the knife point before my face stopped me. “One more step, slave boy. Just one more, ” he breathed.
Despite the rage flooding through me, I managed to stay silent. The two men walked away, laughing, and after a long moment I turned and crept back to the woodpile. I had recognized that knife by the engraving of the goddess Artemis on the handle. It had been my father’s coming-of-age gift to Melantha, the day she turned thirteen.
The noise of the boulder being pushed aside awoke me, and I bolted for the darkness of the back of the cave with the Greeks. The creature let its flocks in and pulled the boulder shut, then sniffed the air carefully and lumbered toward us. “Hungrier in evening, ” it grunted. “Hungrier now.”
Caught in the front row, I squirmed as its massive head swivelled on its shoulders, aiming its eye at us one by one before stopping on me.
Two powerful hands clamped onto my shoulder from behind me as Sophronios’s voice hissed in my ear. “You just stay put, boy. I knew Ury had kept you around for a reason.” I twisted frantically to escape that deep-set eye, but Sophronios held me pinned before him.
One of the creature’s flabby hands reached for me in the gloom. In desperation, I lunged straight up against the hands on my shoulders, then as Sophronios was briefly off balance, I slipped out of his grip to drop like a dead weight to the stone floor.
The huge hand shot over me to snatch up the crouching Sophronios instead. As the creature hoisted him high into the air, he shrieked and gibbered like a man insane.
“Wait, ” he cried out. “I’m not the one you wanted! It’s the slave! Take the slave! Oh, sweet gods, please, no! No!” His voice rose to a high-pitched shriek, abruptly cut off with a horrible liquid crunch as the Cyclops smashed his head against the rock wall above us. His skull shattered, spattering us with gore. In the dim light I caught a momentary glimpse of a soldier in the creature’s other hand, his eyes closed, mouth moving in what must have been a prayer, until it was cut short the same brutal way. Then came the quick sounds of knife against bone, knife against stone, and the grisly crunching, chewing noises of the night before.
The men muttered in shock and anger, and I closed my eyes quickly. “Did you see that?” came Ury’s growl. “That snivelling slave ducked so that thing would grab Sophro instead. Get up, you stinking coward.” A bronze-shod sandal kicked me in the ribs, and I struggled to appear unconscious.
Then came another voice. “Kick him not. He has fainted, I think.” Someone lifted my head and started gently slapping my cheeks. I let my eyes wobble open to see Pharos on one knee beside me. “Not to blame you for fainting, ” he rumbled. “But stand now, before the kicking begins once more.”
I stood up shakily. After what I’d just seen, my wobbliness was no act. “Oh, gods, ” I said, trying to sound dazed. “What happened? That huge hand, it . . . was coming right for me.” I frowned and looked around as if realizing something. From off to the side, Lopex was watching me closely. I pretended not to notice. “What—why am I still here?”
“You fainted, you worthless koprolith, and that thing took a better man because of you,” came Ury’s snarl. “I should kill you now and leave you out for a snack.”
Lopex spoke up, keeping his voice low. “Drop it, Ury. It could have been any of us. Now get ready, all of you. It’s time.”
Fetching two tan wineskins from behind a boulder, he strode out of the gloom to where the creature was finishing its grisly meal by the fire. I watched, as astonished as the first time.
“Ho, Cyclops!” he called. The creature stopped and turned its head toward him, a bloody, sandalled foot sticking out of its lipless mouth. I gagged.
“Any flesh goes down more smoothly with a cooling draught of wine,” he continued.
The creature looked at him suspiciously. “Wine, what is?” it grunted. “I know it not.”
Lopex unshouldered one of the wine skins. “I had brought these as a guest-gift. But now I must offer it to you in the hope that you will spare us.” He unlaced the mouth and held the skin up.
The creature snatched it. “Spare you not,” it growled. “But slow my hunger it may, if I like.” The creature opened its mouth when a frown creased its face. “Not to drink this gift-of-guest. To poison me, your plan must be.”
Lopex eyed the creature, hands on his hips. “If poisoning you would further my ends, I would do it in an instant, ” he replied. “But if you died here we would die with you, for all of my men together could not budge the boulder that seals us into your cave. If you disbelieve, let me drink some.”
The creature grunted and sprayed some wine from the skin into my master’s mouth, splashing his face and tunic a dark red. Waiting for a few moments until it was satisfied, it raised the skin to its own mouth and shot a stream of wine into the back of its throat.
It coughed momentarily, then recovered and squeezed the skin empty. Letting it fall into its lap, the creature growled, “Strong in mouth but good, this wine. Bring me more, or feast I shall upon your men.”
Lopex gestured for another skin and held it up. After several more, its speech had become slurred, but Lopex gave it no chance to think. “Creature!” he called, holding up yet another. “Drink! Do you not find the taste improves with each draught! Quickly, quickly! Drink!”
With each new skinful its massive hands grew clumsier, its balance poorer. As Lopex handed it yet another, I could see it wobbling where it sat. Frowning stupidly at the skin in its hand for a moment, it opened its mouth, but its huge fleshy eyelid flickered and slid shut. The wine skin slipped from its fingers, and the creature keeled slowly over to sprawl on the cave floor, its cheek to the ground. The cave filled with its snores.
Lopex watched until it was soundly asleep, then turned to us. “I thought so, ” he said, sounding pleased. “Look around. No grape presses. No fermentation pots. It’s never had true wine before. Six full skins should put that brute out until morning.”
The creature was sprawled on its back, its head facing our way, one flabby cheek pressed against the rock floor, its eye within easy reach. The men stoked the fire to prepare the stake, turning the point over and over in the flames until it was hard and hissing hot. But as the four men holding it took position in front of its face, the creature stirred. The men froze.
With an odd, high-pitched snort, it smacked its lips, rolled slightly and subsided on its back, its head now propped up against the cave wall. A trickle of drool seeped from the corner of its mouth and ran down its neck.
There was an anxious murmur from the men. “Now what will we do?” came Deklah’s plaintive whisper. “It’s too far! We can’t reach the eye any more!”
Lopex frowned for a moment. “The plan will still work. You’ll just have to thrust high, over the chest.”
Deklah stared at him, wild-eyed. “That’s your plan? What do we look like, Titans? How will we aim? It’s too far away!”
Lopex looked around. “I made the stake long enough for this. We just need someone to climb up on the chest to guide our aim. Someone light enough that it won’t wake.” His eye fell on me behind the woodpile, now illuminated by the blazing fire. “Boy! Come out here!”
I climbed out slowly. He picked up an unburnt branch from the fire and hacked at it with his sword, leaving a long forked stick. “Here’s where you come in, boy. Take this and climb up on that thing’s chest. You’re going to steer the stake into its eye.”
I looked up at the sleeping creature and quailed. Approach those hands—and that huge mouth? I looked around desperately as Lopex grabbed my shoulder.
“Don’t worry. With that much wine inside him, he won’t wake up. And you’ll just be up there for a few moments.”
His grip tightened as he leaned down and added, “And if you won’t do it, you’re no use to me anyway.”
I swallowed and looked up at the Cyclops. It chose that moment to twitch one of its flabby arms, and I leapt back. It didn’t move again, and I crept closer. From here, it was even bigger than I’d realized. Its chest was as thick as I was tall. I gulped, wondering how to climb up.
“Put your foot here.” Lopex bent beside me, his fingers laced to make a step. I put in one foot, and he immediately gave a powerful heave that threw me up onto the creature’s chest. The Cyclops grunted and I froze, but it just smacked its huge lips again and lapsed back into its stupor. I waited to see if it would move again.
Lopex hissed at me from the cave floor. “What are you doing, boy? Get going!” Trying to be as light as possible, I began to creep up its chest on my hands and knees as hot puffs of putrid breath washed over me. Ahead, sheets of snot flapped in a wormhole nostril big enough to put my fist in. I climbed gingerly to my feet and held the forked stick up tightly against my shoulder.
Lopex and his men had heated the tip again in the rekindled fire, and as they lowered it into the cleft by my cheek I could feel the white heat scorch my ear. “Now walk in and line us up with the eye, ” Lopex whispered loudly. “Hold it tight until we thrust, then jump off—fast.”
My mouth was dry as I crept across its heaving chest until the stake was lined up. It was pointed at the centre of the creature’s deep eye socket, a few paces away.
“Now!” The thrust was so strong it knocked the forked stick out of my hands. The stake rubbed painfully against my shoulder as it slid past me, off course and heading for the creature’s cheek. Grabbing it with both hands, I braced it on my shoulder and ran the point up its chest. Back on target, the stake slid across the bony rim to dive deep into the socket and plunge into the suddenly opening eyeball.
With a deafening shriek, the creature sat bolt upright. I was thrown off its chest onto a flabby thigh and flipped onto the stone floor, smashing the wind from me. The creature’s huge mouth opened and from it sprayed a long, shrill scream like a giant steam kettle. One huge hand reached up and ripped the stake from its eye, flinging it across the cavern. A bloody mixture of steaming ooze erupted from the shattered eyeball, splashing me as I lay stunned on the floor. A huge fist smashed down, missing me by a hand’s width. The Cyclops was writhing in agony, its body convulsively heaving off the ground, arms and legs beating furiously against the floor of the cave all around me. I staggered to my feet, put my head down and ran through a maelstrom of flailing limbs.
The Greeks were scattering in all directions, finding holes wherever they could. I was groping along the wall in the gloom when an arm—a human-sized one—reached out from a wide crevice and dragged me in. It was Lopex. “Stay here, boy, ” he whispered. “Keep still. It’s blind, but it can still hear.”
I nodded, panting. The creature’s screams were subsiding, but it was still thrashing unpredictably. After a few minutes, Lopex spoke.
“You did a good job up there, ” he said quietly. “How old are you really, boy?”
I was about to protest when I realized that he must know already. “Fifteen. I’m small for my age.”
He grunted. “I thought so. No twelve-year-old could do that. Not many adults either.” He rubbed his chin through his beard. “My own son Telemachus must be nearly your age. Why did you lie?”
I shrugged. “Would you have let a fifteen-year-old boy live? Ury nearly killed me as it was.”
Lopex nodded. “Your sharp tongue does you no good. But I was right to keep you. You keep thinking in a crisis when most men panic, and you’ve got the healer’s touch. You’re too useful to lose, Alexi.”
I looked sideways toward him, feeling an unexpected warmth on my face. In the gloom, his silhouette reminded me again of my father.
A pine knot popped in the fire. The Cyclops, now whimpering quietly by the wall, its knees drawn up to its chest, lifted its head.
“Nobah Djee?” it wheezed in the darkness. Lopex said nothing. “Find, I will, ” it continued. “Then squeeze you hard, your eyes to pop.”
Its voice turned suddenly crafty. “Men of Nobah Djee, ” it called out. “Let you go, if Nobah Djee you bring.” It paused, then added, “If bring him not, then eat you all.”
Lopex stirred angrily beside me. “Cyclops!” he called out. “I speak for my men. They are as loyal to me as my own sword. Each of them would rather die than betray me.”
I stared through the gloom at him, peering intently at the mouth of the crevasse. Was he insane? But there was no time to be angry. A huge hand shot toward us, smashing into the cave wall nearby. The impact showered us with gravel, drawing a howl of pain from the creature as the hand withdrew. I shook my head in disbelief. That mouth of his was going to get him into a lot of trouble. I froze as I recalled where I had heard those words. Was that what I was doing? Gods. No wonder I was getting beaten up so much.
The sound of meaty fingertips fumbling across the cave floor drew my eyes in the creature’s direction. A vast, pallid hand loomed from the darkness and began groping slowly toward us.
“Get back!” Lopex gestured toward the back of the fissure. I was already scrambling. The firelight didn’t reach far, and in the darkness I met the rear wall with a grunt. Lopex arrived and with a mighty shove hoisted me directly up the wall. I dug my fingers into a damp crack, but couldn’t find a foothold. My fingers began to ache as Lopex scaled the wall nearby.
The creature’s fingernails clicked against the gravel below me as it reached the cave wall. I held my breath. Very slowly, it began to slide up the wall toward my dangling feet.
A ragged fingernail as big as a platter scraped the bottom of my left foot. As I jerked it out of the way, my right hand gave under the strain and I tumbled off the wall to land flat on the creature’s bloody knuckles. It whipped its hand over with a jerk, trying to cup me in its palm, but the manoeuvre threw me off and slammed me against the wall, crushing the breath out of me. Four gigantic fingers groped toward me in the gloom.
As I struggled to stand, a pair of feet landed on the ground just in front of my face, the faint firelight reflecting off the inlaid brass on the sandals. With the hand approaching, Lopex whipped his sword from his back and thrust it deep under the creature’s middle fingernail.
Its scream was as loud as when we stabbed its eyeball. Lopex was nearly pulled over as the hand jerked back, but he clung to his sword, yanking it out as the hand retreated. He grabbed me under the arm and hauled me upright.
“Run, boy!” he hissed. I staggered out of the fissure, Lopex on my heels. In the main cavern, the dying fire still cast a flickering light on the creature now sucking its wounded finger, its face contorted in pain. Lopex hustled me deeper into the cave, out of reach of those monstrous hands.
“I think it’s had enough for tonight,” he remarked. “We should be safe for now.” But if I’d thought he might explain his reckless outburst up near the cave mouth, I was disappointed. As we reached a patch of pungent straw by the wall, he pointed to a spot nearby and lay down. “Get some rest,” he grunted, closing his eyes.
Moaning in its corner, the creature kept me from sleeping again that night, and the early morning bleating of its flocks, anxious to get out, brought any hope of rest to an end. The creature stirred, and a moment later I felt a hand shake my shoulder. It was Lopex.
“Wake up. You’re the stealthiest. Go and fetch some grapes from the baskets. I don’t want the men on empty stomachs this morning.”
He looked at my expression with what was very nearly a grin. “Would you prefer to go back to drudge work? Every skill has its price, Alexias.”
As I crept to the front of the cave, I felt a warmth spreading through me. He’d called me Alexias. I wondered for a moment what Mela would have thought of him, then stopped in my tracks. Mela would have reminded me that he was a Greek barbarian, one of the horde who had murdered our father and destroyed our city. I frow
ned, wondering why that seemed so hard to remember.
Climbing carefully into a boat-sized basket, I picked out several bunches of the creature’s huge grapes. As I climbed back out, my foot kicked something hard and metallic. It was a dagger, glinting in the early morning light around the boulder. As I bent to look, I realized it was my sister’s. Sophronios must have dropped it when the creature grabbed him. I stared at it for a moment before tucking it into my tunic.
As we ate, the Cyclops sat up, stretched, and reached into the basket I had just left to pull out a handful of grape clusters, scooping grapes, stems and leaves into its maw. It turned to face the bleating beasts around it as it chewed.
“Tend my flocks, no more I can. Left me blind, has Nobah Djee.” It paused. “Out to graze, must let you pass, but thieving men, in cave must stay.” It sat in thought for a moment, then climbed to its feet and put a shoulder to the boulder.
“Here we go, men, ” whispered Lopex. “Follow me. Wait for the sheep and slip out with them. Stay absolutely silent. Now, move.”
A sliver of light grew to a bright beam as the boulder moved. The Cyclops hadn’t corralled its animals last night, and they clustered eagerly around the gap. As we mingled with the sheep milling behind the goats at the entrance, I looked warily up at the creature’s face, looming ahead of me like a huge sickly moon as it squatted down beside the opening. Were we sure we’d blinded it? Gods, I hoped so. But the entrance was drawing nearer. In a few moments, I’d be safe.
The sheep were trickling out much too slowly. Something was wrong.
Nearest the entrance, I was the first to spot it. The Cyclops had laid down one giant arm across the opening like a gate. As each sheep approached, it carefully stroked the woolly creature before letting it out. Robbed of its sight, the creature was seeking us by touch.
I turned back, trying to retreat from those crushing fingers, but now drawn by the daylight, the bleating sheep were crowding eagerly forward, pushing me helplessly along with them. Stronger and heavier, the soldiers were wading forcefully back out of the tight-packed flock, but I was being swept ever closer. Unable to make a sound, I waved my arms frantically, trying to catch the eye of a soldier nearby.
Torn from Troy Page 13