Tamer of Horses

by Amalia Carosella

  Pirithous searched her face, the frown returning as a storm in his eyes. “Had I thought for a moment sending you to the stables would return you to me so grim, I would have insisted you remain at my side, little mouse.”

  She shook her head, smoothing the lines from his face and finding no little comfort in his concern. “It is nothing that you cannot make me forget easily enough,” she promised, for she could not see how it would do any good to tell him of her father’s concerns. No doubt it would only offend his pride, and what then? More than just her own mood soured, surely, and she would not let this feast be poisoned simply because she could not rule her own heart.

  “If I could steal you away this very moment, I would,” he said, catching her hand to press a kiss into her palm. She shivered at the gentle nip of his teeth against her skin, and he grinned slowly, much too pleased with her response. “But I fear now that we have come, it is not so easy to escape. My people are too eager to meet their queen.”

  “Queen.” She swallowed her sudden panic. Pirithous may have called her princess, but it had been a courtesy, nothing more. Among the centaurs she was simply an adopted daughter of her father, who himself would never claim the title of king. Leader, yes. Father of them all, as the son of Ixion, but nothing more. To be Pirithous’s wife was one thing, even to run his household a task she felt equal to, but she had thought she would have more time before he named her queen. Time to learn what it was to be Lapith instead of Centaur.

  Pirithous laughed as if he had heard her thoughts, but his eyes were warm, even gentle. “You need not fear, Mia. I will not throw you to the wolves, and Antiope will teach you what I cannot.”

  “Surely there is a more auspicious day, or some blessing needed from the gods?”

  “Better to begin as we mean to go on, little mouse. And this way, we give your people no reason to claim insult later. I will see this peace sealed in every way possible before this feast is ended.”

  She felt like a mouse then, as she had that first night, when she had come upon him naked in his bath. But this was nothing she could run from. Centaurus had traded her for this peace, given her up to Pirithous that she might be a voice for her people as queen. That the Lapiths might show the same respect for the centaurs now as they had shown under Dia’s rule, while she lived.

  Hippodamia took a steadying breath, then nodded.

  Pirithous cupped her cheek, his gray eyes alight with what seemed suddenly too near to pride. Her throat closed at the thought, her heart constricting. Because Centaurus must be wrong, if Pirithous could look at her like that.

  And then he turned away, facing their guests and drawing her forward. He had only to lift his head and raise his hand and the hall quieted.

  “Lapiths!” Those who had not seen his movements fell silent at the sound of his voice, obedient to their king. Pirithous grasped her hand, raising it high with his. “I give you your queen: Hippodamia, Tamer of Horses, Daughter of Centaurus, Princess of the Centaurs, and with the blessing of Zeus, my bride!”

  There was a roar in response, but it was a moment before she realized it did not come from the guests inside the megaron. Her head turned even as her mind struggled, knowing what she would see and refusing it, all at once.

  “Eurytion,” she said, his name no more than a whisper, and then her guardian was upon them, a thick branch in his hands for a club, swinging it with all his strength. “Eurytion, no!”

  Pirithous flung out his arm, pushing her back, but she ducked beneath it, twisting to place herself between them. Eurytion would not strike her, no matter how enraged, and Pirithous might be the son of Zeus, but centaurs were strong enough to daze even a demigod were he caught unaware. And if Pirithous fell, he would be helpless beneath Eurytion’s hooves.

  “Stop this!” she cried, throwing herself forward.

  Pirithous caught a handful of her gown, and Eurytion’s club arced down, as if he could not see her, could not stop himself from completing his swing. In that moment, her eyes wide with shock, she saw he was not alone. A dozen others charged with him, bellowing their hatred.

  “Hippodamia!” Pirithous’s arms wrapped around her, his body a living shield as the branch struck across his back, shattering against his flesh and bone. His eyes burned bright white, and wood smoke and lightning filled her nose. “Go to Antiope!”

  Eurytion roared again. Pirithous pushed her away, sending her stumbling, and spun to face the centaur’s charge.

  “Go!” he shouted again, not even sparing her a glance. Eurytion had a stool in his grasp, and Pirithous caught him by the wrist, stopping the blow. But the centaur had more than just his fists, and Pirithous could do nothing to block the strike of his hooves when Eurytion reared. “Get to the stairs! To the roof if need be, but go!”

  “This way, Hippodamia,” Antiope said, grabbing her by the arm. “Hurry!”

  “But Pirithous—”

  “Has fought and won more battles than you could ever dream,” she snapped. “Come, Mia. It is you he wants, and if we can but thwart him a time, he will calm!”

  She tripped after the Amazon queen, casting one last look back. Pirithous had only his table knife, but Theseus was forcing his way through, sword in hand. The Horse Lord’s son. But Eurytion was blind with rage. Had Poseidon himself risen up from the seas, he would not have stopped.

  “He isn’t after me,” Hippodamia said, dragging Antiope to a stop. “It isn’t me he wants, it’s Pirithous!”

  “Pirithous dead,” Antiope agreed, urging her on again, and for all her own strength, Hippodamia found she could not match the Amazon. “And then you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Pirithous

  It was the wine, Pirithous realized, the stink of it thick upon the centaur’s breath when he did not dodge quickly enough. Eurytion had him by the throat, bellowing into his face. He grabbed the beast’s arm, digging his thumb into the underside of the wrist until Eurytion’s grip failed. Pirithous dropped, letting the fall become a roll. The more distance he put between himself and the centaur’s hooves, the better off he would be. And he needed a sword, for he’d lost his knife almost immediately when it had stuck in Eurytion’s side. If he’d struck anything vital, the centaur didn’t show it, but the wine explained that too.

  “She is mine!” Eurytion roared, and before Pirithous could find his feet again, another stool came flying at his head.

  Pirithous lifted an arm to block it, then wrenched it from the centaur’s grasp. “She was never yours, Eurytion.” He stepped back, leading the centaur away from the passage Hippodamia had taken. “And this is no way to win her! Think of what she gave up for this peace, and you would have it shattered the very day it was born?”

  “As if you meant to keep it!” The centaur reared, striking out with his hooves, and Pirithous barely had time to duck.

  He’d already taken one hit that way, and his shoulder had not thanked him for it. He flexed his hand, testing the feeling there. If Eurytion had not caught him so squarely upon the joint, sending spikes of hot pain down the length of his arm, perhaps he would not have lost his hold upon the knife.

  But he did escape this time, and even risked a glance at the state of his hall. It wasn’t only Eurytion fighting, but it was clear the aim of the others was different. Until that moment, he hadn’t understood the screams of the women, but it was all he heard now. One of the palace women was sobbing in a corner, struggling to cover herself in the shreds of her gown. Blood stained the tiles beneath her, and her face was puffy with more than just tears. Another woman, the wife of one of his councilors, was being hauled back by the hair, the centaur’s lust more than obvious.

  “Pirithous!” Theseus’s sword sliced cleanly through the woman’s hair, freeing her from her attacker, and he sent a second blade skittering down the long table dividing them.

  It stopped nearer to Eurytion than him, and Pirithous dove for the weapon, cursing as he did so. A crash followed him, pottery shards exploding in sharp knives where
the sword had been. Pirithous rolled off the table, following the blade. He grabbed the sword, ignoring the stinging cuts across his forehead and arm, even the pottery sticking from his skin. Wine dripped from the table top, spilled from the shattered krater, but it was not as though he had never fought drenched just as completely in blood.

  “This is your last warning, Eurytion. Turn back and call the others off, and perhaps this peace might yet be saved.”

  The centaur sneered. “Do you think I care for your peace? For anything you might offer?”

  Pirithous bared his teeth. “If not for me, then for your princess. Think of Hippodamia!”

  “It is for her sake I act now! For her freedom! Once you are dead, nothing stands between us.”

  “But for my shade, and the blood on your hands, no, nothing at all. And do you think she is so faithless as to overlook such ruin?” He spread his arm, indicating the megaron, the screaming—he must finish this. And quickly, for his people’s sake. “Peace benefits us all.”

  “When you treat us like children? Insulting us with milk instead of honeyed wines? Peleus told us the truth. You and your people only laugh at us! But not after today. After today, they will think of us with terror in their hearts, and it will be your people who are hunted down like dogs!”

  Peleus. Of course. Stoking the fire of Eurytion’s anger, all the while pouring him drinks of unmixed wine, no doubt. Pirithous had wondered where he’d gone, and now he understood. And did Peleus fight against the centaurs, now? Make a show of his loyalty to the bonds of friendship? It was so well-twisted a plot, he might yet even fool the gods.

  “If you do not leave now, I will kill you,” Pirithous said calmly. Perhaps he could not touch Peleus, but he could do this much. And he would be lying if he said he did not want it. “Not even Hippodamia would blame me.”

  “Eurytion!” Centaurus’s bellow caused the centaur to hesitate, and Pirithous narrowed his eyes against the glare, for the centaur king was framed by sunlight. “Enough of this! You bring shame upon us all, and worse!”

  Eurytion’s tail flicked, his lips curling as he turned to face Centaurus. “I? It was not I who sold my daughter! Our gift from the gods! She might have been our redemption, our hope, but instead you threw her at this cur’s feet!”

  “Our hope for what, boy?” Centaurus demanded. “What better hope than peace?”

  “She could have given us children! Bred us back to man, more than beast!”

  “You would have killed her in the trying,” Centaurus snapped. “Wasted her life for nothing more than a fool’s dream. The gods have made us what we are, fated us to this form, and who are you to subvert them? Just another whelp, unworthy of her love. Better she live with Pirithous than die for your pride!”

  Eurytion reared, roaring, then charged, tearing the knife out of his own side as he did. Pirithous swore, vaulting back over the table to follow.

  “No!” It was a woman’s voice. Hippodamia’s voice, from the gallery above, Antiope at her side, though the Amazon’s attention was directed elsewhere, bow in hand, and arrows flying. Trust Antiope to protect the women, even over Theseus himself. But it meant she did not watch Hippodamia, who already scrambled over the rail.

  Too slow.

  They were both too slow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Hippodamia

  The knife. Hippodamia hung from the balcony, her heart pounding in her ears, but even before she could think of falling, the knife was already slicing through skin and sinew and bone.

  “No!” she cried again, her voice breaking on the word, and she reached one arm out, as if somehow she might stop it, might grab it all back. Antiope was shouting, grasping at her other arm, trying to haul her back up, but she couldn’t. And Hippodamia couldn’t do anything but watch her father’s blood spray across the room.

  Her vision blurred, hot tears searing her cheeks, and then Pirithous’s arms wrapped around her, easing her down as he called for Theseus. For Antiope to shoot Eurytion down. The other centaurs were maddened with rage, even their lust drowned by Centaurus’s blood, and more of them had spilled into the megaron now. She heard Cyllarus’s voice and Hylonome’s weeping, and Pirithous and Theseus stood together beneath Antiope and her bow.

  She could not stop shaking. Could not stand upon her own two legs when Pirithous set her to her feet, and yet she found herself scrambling away, reaching for her father, his body slumping as she watched. “Father. Father, please!”

  “Mia!” Pirithous caught at her arm, but she was wrenched from his grasp.

  Eurytion had her. An arrow through his shoulder and another in his flank, but he leapt up, soaring over Centaurus’s body even as she fought and clawed and screamed. “Father! No, let me go! Let me go!”

  “Never fear, Fawn. You’ll be free of them all.”

  She twisted in Eurytion’s arms, all her sorrow twisting with her, turning her inside out with rage and madness. One hand closed upon the arrow shaft that pierced his shoulder. He hissed and met her eyes, his own wide with confusion. Eurytion, her protector. Her friend—no longer. Eurytion who had gutted her father before her eyes, killing every hope of peace.

  Hippodamia tore the arrow free.

  The shock of it made him stumble, his arm weakened enough that Hippodamia felt herself slipping. But not enough. Not enough, and she would not let him steal her, would not let him have his way. Not while her father’s blood stained the painted floor, and the women wept, and the men cried out in shock and anger to have their wives and children borne away. Not when everything Centaurus had hoped for, worked toward, lay in ruins inside the megaron.

  She aimed for his face. So near to him, she could hardly have missed had she not lost the advantage of surprise. The arrow point caught his brow, and when he turned his head, it sliced across the bridge of his nose, barely avoiding his eye.

  Eurytion snarled, flinging her away. Blood poured down his face and he shook his head like a dog maddened by fleas, while Hippodamia struggled to arrest her fall, to right herself before he came for her again.

  But he only staggered back, another arrow sprouting from his breast. Another, piercing his heart, and another his throat, his stomach and withers. Eurytion collapsed, ebony eyes still so wide, so lost. And there was Pirithous, fighting to reach her side. Antiope standing upon a sloping table top and letting her arrows fly.

  “Mia!” Pirithous burst from the hall. How long had he been calling her name? She turned toward him, tripping over branches and stools, table legs and amphorae, their contents spilled upon the grass. Libations for the gods. When he caught her up, she let herself go limp, let the sobs break from her throat and her whole body shudder.

  “My father,” she gasped. “My father.”

  He cradled her against his chest, dropping to his knees and holding her tight. “Forgive me, Mia. I should have realized. Should have known. If I had only struck him down—”

  “We have not time for your grief, Pirithous, nor your wife’s,” Antiope interrupted. How she had found her way to them, Hippodamia did not know. “The centaurs have stopped their rutting, but they have only begun to fight. Peleus rallied the men by cheering your name as Centaurus fell, and Cyllarus will not hear that it was Eurytion’s doing. He will not hear anything but the cry for blood.”

  The words left a hollow, broken place in her heart. Centaurus fallen. Eurytion dead. How many others? How many others if Cyllarus would not listen?

  She pushed Pirithous away, rose on shaking legs and forced herself to see. Men and women, beaten and still upon the ground. Centaurs, too, maimed and dead. And this, in the courtyard, was not the worst of it, she knew. But from the megaron, there came shouting yet, and battle cries. The centaurs were inside. Their guests were dying, and Centaurus was gone.

  “He will hear me,” she said, though her voice was so hoarse she could barely hear herself. “He will hear the daughter of Centaurus, and he will take what is left of our people and go.”

  “Mia, it is not
safe,” Pirithous began, his voice low and urgent. “I will not risk you!”

  She met his eyes. “You called me queen, and now I must act as theirs. Surely you see that?”

  His jaw worked, muscles twitching beneath the surface. “It will not end this. Even if they leave.”

  Her spirit twisted, but there was no use in denying it. “I know.”

  “And whose queen will you be then, Hippodamia?”

  Tears pressed against her eyes, thickening her throat. To choose between her people and his should have been easy. But she did not know. She did not know what she must do but this.

  “Pirithous, Theseus is still inside,” Antiope said. “If they might listen, we must let her try.”

  He picked up his sword and stared at her hard, gray eyes flashing with emotions she could not name. She wished she could reassure him. Wished so much that she could promise to stay. “Pirithous—”

  “Do not leave my side,” he said, stopping her. His voice was raw. “Not today.”

  She swallowed all that she dared not say, and nodded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Pirithous

  With Antiope beside him, her bow traded for a small but no less deadly blade, they made their way through the brawl. Pirithous helped Hippodamia climb upon a table, the better to catch the attention of her people, before he took his place at her side.

  “Centaurs!” Hippodamia called out, her voice ringing over the clash of swords and makeshift clubs. He had not realized she could bellow so, but he should not have been surprised. “Centaurs, hear me!”

  It was the Lapiths who looked to her first, and Pirithous gestured them back with a flick of his sword. The megaron was in shambles, the hearth fire half-guttered, and even as his people retreated toward him, the centaurs followed, spittle flying with their roars.