The Eighth Arrow

by J. Augustine Wetta

  “I have heard the words of Nessos,” said a second Centaur, stepping from beside me into the circle. “I, Pholos, have as much reason to hate the race of men as he does. But my bow too shall be at their service.”

  “Aye. And mine,” said a third. “It has been too long since I was in a proper fight.” Then there was a chorus of shouts, whinnies, whoops, and neighs as the Centaurs voiced their approval.

  “So it is decided!” shouted Chiron. “The neighs have it. Today, the sons of Centauros and the sons of man march together!”

  There was a deafening cheer, and the Centaur beside me slapped me on the back so hard I fell on my face. “Sorry,” he said as he lifted me to my feet. “I haven’t felt this good in ages.”

  Once the cheering and backslapping died down, it was decided that the best way to cross the river was to mount us each on a Centaur’s back and have the others cover us from the shore, training their bows on any Harpy that came within range. Nessos, the red-haired Centaur, volunteered to carry Diomedes. The dark Centaur, Pholos, would carry me.

  “They will take you as far as the forest line,” said Chiron, “but once you enter the Wood of Suicides, you are on your own.”

  “Again with the gloomy names,” I moaned. “How about we refer to it as the ‘Wood of Helpful Maidens’ from now on.”

  The Centaurs regarded me in silence.

  “There are maidens in the woods?” asked Nessos.

  “That was humor,” explained Chiron, and there were polite nods all around.

  Then there followed an enormous commotion as each Centaur galloped off to his tent and returned bearing a quiver, a bow, and a long wooden pike. Chiron alone remained unarmed, unless one counted the arrow he had long since abandoned to the tangle of his beard. Once all were assembled, he spoke again. “Brethren, you know the drill. Hold your fire until they come within range—and for your own sakes, don’t aim straight up. That’s how we lost Phrixos.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Nolus over his shoulder. “We’ve gone hoof-to-claw with these old hags ten thousand times.”

  “Of course, we’ve never actually beat them,” murmured Pholos.

  At a brisk trot, the Centaurs escorted us up the Phlegethon until we came to a spot where the river widened into a shallow ford. Here the Centaurs stopped and formed in ranks while a detachment of younger ones made its way to the far side, its members planting spears in the sand.

  As yet, I had seen no clear sign of the enemy, but the thick woods that bordered the river were now rustling with hidden activity. Dark shapes moved among the shadows.

  “Quickly,” said Chiron. “When the Harpies figure out what we’re up to, our bows will not hold them off for long.” He lifted me onto Nessos’ back and gave me a clap on the shoulder. “Be well, Son of Laertes,” he said. “May the god of the four-letter name walk beside you.” We set off at a gallop into the river.

  Then the trees shook, the wind stirred, and the forest released a cloud of screaming Harpies into the wine-dark sky.

  All around was noise and chaos. The sky went dark and the wind whistled with beating wings. Behind me, I could hear Chiron shouting orders. Above, the relentless screaming of the hags. I hardly risked a look in either direction, however, for I’d never sat on a horse before, much less ridden one at a full gallop. I was desperately afraid I might slip from Pholos’ back and into the shallows of the boiling river. As it was, my legs were blistered toe to hip. Only when we reached the other side did I have an opportunity to take stock of the situation.

  What I saw was rather hard to believe. For all the racket they were making, neither side—Harpies or Centaurs—seemed to be fighting. The Harpies circled overhead, baring their fangs and screeching; the Centaurs crouched behind their pikes, drawing bows. But neither side seemed willing to attack—the Centaurs for fear of raining arrows on their own heads, and the Harpies for fear of the massed pikes, which bristled skyward like blades of grass.

  “Is this always how your battles go?” I shouted.

  Pholos nodded. “Pretty much so, yes. But as for you, I recommend making a dash for those woods while we’re still able to keep these hags at a distance.”

  I nodded.

  “Go now, and godspeed.”

  “Thank you,” I shouted back. I felt I ought to say more, but his attention had already turned to the Harpies above, so Diomedes and I set off at a sprint for the woods, nodding to the Centaurs on either side as we passed. Overhead, the enemy circled and screeched.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE FIFTH ARROW

  WE WERE ALMOST to the forest line when I heard the whistle of loosed bows. Then a wild scream erupted overhead, followed by a thump as a mass of feathers dropped to the ground ahead of us. A Harpy. She lay fluttering on her side, one wing pinned to her chest. A second arrow was lodged in her throat, and geysers of black gore bubbled up around it whenever she breathed. Diomedes, who was several steps ahead, halted beside her and drew his sword.

  “You go on,” he called. “I’ll finish this one. It’ll send a message to the others.”

  He raised his sword, but I reached him in time to catch his arm. “No, Diomedes.”

  He groaned. “Not again! Look, we don’t have time for this.”

  I ignored his protest and knelt beside the Harpy, examining first one wound, then the other. She struggled feebly but was too weakened to resist. The pinned wing was a minor sort of wound and required only that the arrow’s fletching be broken off before the wing could be freed, but the wound to her neck was serious. I looked into her face, pale for lack of blood and air. She wouldn’t be breathing much longer if the arrow weren’t removed.

  “What are you doing?” asked Diomedes.

  “Mercy over justice,” I muttered, reaching into my quiver. I found the sharp, white-fletched arrow and broke off the head.

  “Odysseus, you fool!”

  “Have faith, Diomedes.” I pressed the blade into the wound and opened it. Again, the Harpy struggled, but there was no strength in her. A wide puddle of blood spread around us.

  “He’s torturing her!” cried a Harpy from the cover of the forest. The trees shook.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said as I pulled the arrow from her throat. “This will help.” But the wound was too wide and deep. Every breath blew a spray of black blood; and, if truth be told, the Harpy looked worse now than before.

  I took Chiron’s flask from my belt and examined the murky oil.

  Diomedes touched my shoulder. “Odysseus, save it for someone important.”

  But I was too far along to turn back. I emptied half the oil into my palm and spread it over her throat. Then—and I honestly don’t know what came over me—I kissed the wound and blessed her. It was an awkward and irrational act, and just thinking of that creature’s foul stench makes me gag even now. It was clumsy, revolting, and foolish, yet I felt compelled to make some gesture of real sympathy. A gesture that would go beyond pity. I wanted the Harpy to know that I was moved by her suffering—that she was my equal, my friend. But why I felt so sorry for her, or how I found the strength to show my sorrow in such a dramatic way, I will never know. I think perhaps it was a greater power than my own that possessed me. Or perhaps I was simply trying to prove to myself that I wasn’t as wicked as the Centaurs thought—that there was more to my nature than villainy and deceit. But whatever the case, I know that when I pressed my lips to her throat and felt the heat of her blood on my face, something broke inside of me, something knit into the fabric of my soul. When I drew back, I was a different man.

  And the wound had healed.

  Diomedes gasped.

  I sat back on my haunches and stared, wiping the blood from my face.

  The Harpy lumbered to her feet.

  All the howls and screeches and curses ceased. There was a sudden stillness in the woods. There was an awed silence among the Centaurs. The monsters overhead folded their wings and dropped to the sand. And as both sides looked on, I bowed to the Harpy, placed my broken ar
row in her hands, and walked past her into the forest with Diomedes at my side.

  We walked into the forest, and the Harpies, silent as stone, watched us pass, turning only their heads.

  CHAPTER 8

  DOGS

  FOR SOME TIME, we wandered amid the stillness of the woods, finding and losing our way, discovering what appeared to be paths only to lose them again in tangles of thorny undergrowth. Every now and then, Diomedes would turn to me as though he had something to say, then frown and move on. And in this way, a silence that had been merely gloomy achieved an awkwardness that was positively unbearable. What’s more, Diomedes seemed to be watching me, but whenever I’d look over at him, he’d find an interesting stone or leaf to examine. And this happened repeatedly. Still, neither of us spoke.

  Finally, I’d had enough. “What’s the matter?” I said, planting myself squarely in his path.

  But Diomedes leaned away and glared into the woods.

  “Look here, if you—”

  “Hsst!” He held up his hand, shut his eyes, and tilted his head to the side.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  “Listen.”

  I listened but heard nothing. “Diomedes, don’t—”

  “Just listen!”

  Then I heard it too—a high, wild howl from deep in the forest. Then another behind us. Diomedes drew his sword and sidled toward me. “Wolves,” he whispered.

  He was almost right. One howl was answered by another, then by a patter of barks and yelps, then by a chorus of howls that seemed to come from every direction at once. The trees themselves trembled. We sprinted for a nearby clearing and set our backs to a large oak. I leaned my shield against the tree’s trunk and stabbed my two remaining arrows into the bark at eye level for quick access. Although the tree looked quite dead, the holes released a thick red sap, which ran all the way down the trunk. A peculiar characteristic, I thought to myself, especially for a tree that looked so dry and lifeless—but not a phenomenon to be long wondered at. A set of gray eyes appeared in the shadows at the edge of the clearing.

  “If there’s a way to get around a fight,” I said to Diomedes, “I’d like to take it.”

  “Wait for them to attack, then,” he said as another set of eyes took its place beside the first. And soon there were not only eyes but muzzles and fangs and red, dripping tongues peering out from behind every tree and bush. They appeared in twos and threes until the air was thick with their panting, and then one very large animal stepped into the clearing.

  The creatures that dwelt in the forest, it seemed, were not wolves but a great variety of dogs. To give Diomedes credit, some of them were distinctly wolflike. The one that stood before us now was an enormous beast, reaching easily the height of a man’s chest. Its head was the size of a bear’s, and the skin hung from its face in great drooping folds. As it plodded forward, it sniffed the air with its head aloft, and the rest of the pack followed. Its look was not entirely unfriendly, and I wondered for a moment whether it intended to greet or eat us. That question, however, was resolved for me as I watched two long strings of drool stretch from its jowls and hang, pendulum-like, as it examined us. The hound seemed to notice my disgust and shook its head from side to side, flinging slick gobs of slobber into the bushes on either side. Its lips made a wet percussion against its face like a round of polite applause.

  This seemed to encourage the others, who emerged cautiously from the woods, heads lowered and ears pressed flat to their heads. The variety of animals that crept into the clearing gave the situation an almost comic air. Some of the dogs were no bigger than rabbits. Others were as large as goats. But all seemed under the firm influence of the hound that stood before us in the clearing, licking its jowls with its long, red tongue.

  “I wouldn’t kiss this one,” muttered Diomedes.

  There was something vaguely familiar about the creature. I knew a well-bred Molossian when I saw one, and the dog that stood before me now licking its chops . . . well, once again, I was reminded of my own dear Argos, that loyal hound who waited twenty years while I fought at Troy and died on the day of my return. I said his name aloud now as I looked into the hound’s face. And to my surprise, it wagged its tail.

  “Argos?” I said again. Now that I thought of it, the patch of gray on his muzzle looked familiar.

  This time the dog actually barked and sat back on its haunches and raised a paw.

  “Argos!” I cried once more, and I really would have kissed him if just then, one of the larger hounds had not made a lunge for Diomedes. I plucked an arrow from the tree, but Argos sprang forward and caught the beast by its throat. There was a high—almost human—squeal as its neck snapped, and the dog collapsed in a heap at his feet. Then Argos turned to the others and gave a low growl that sent them into a frenzy of submission. I’d never seen so many wagging tails in my life.

  I had no sooner returned my arrows to my quiver than Argos was on top of me, slathering my face in a glaze of warm drool. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as I remembered from my childhood, but I didn’t have the heart or leverage to stop him. When he did pause to chew furiously at something beneath his leg, I thought I had finally been granted a reprieve, but the moment I moved, he was back at it again, applying his long tongue to every inch of exposed flesh from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers.

  “All right, boy, time for me to get up,” I said, straining against his great rump like a sack of sand on my chest. But Argos wouldn’t budge, and Diomedes had to pull him off. He got a face full of tongue in the process. “You and your dogs,” he groaned, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, but there was really no arguing with our reception. All around us, the hounds circled in jubilant clusters, yapping and wrestling among the leaves.

  One tiny rat of a dog took a sudden culinary interest in Diomedes’ foot. “You should call him Dionysus,” I said, plucking it from the ground by the scruff of its neck. The little creature’s tiny legs scrambled the air, and he yammered like an angry widow till I let him go. If not for the depressingly dead trees, I might have forgotten I was in Hell.

  “Well, Argos,” I said, taking his muzzle in both hands and shaking his head. He leaned heavily against my thigh. I scratched behind his ear. “You never thought I was such a bad fellow, eh?” He pressed so hard, I had to brace myself against the tree. “All these years, old hound, and you still know me.” He sat down on my foot and poked his nose at my bag of bread. “Sorry, boy. Not for you. But you wouldn’t like it anyway.” He gave a grunt and lay down, pinning both my feet. Good old Argos. I suppose he and I had enjoyed a unique sort of relationship.

  Greeks tend to think of dogs as utilitarian at best—good for hunting, and good for guarding your stuff, but otherwise out of place in the life of a civilized man. Dirty and ignoble. “I will leave your corpse for the dogs to eat” is not an uncommon threat on the battlefield. Likewise, “dog-face” is among our graver insults. But I never used that term of abuse, primarily because I’d never found it insulting. I had always been fond of dogs, and my own dog had a face that I felt inspired both love and loyalty. Say what you like about the species; they don’t have much in the way of hygiene or self-respect. But then, they don’t switch loyalties with anything like the regularity of their two-footed counterparts. And this, now that I think of it, must have been why I loved dear Argos so much. In a world of shifting loyalties and deceit, I knew exactly where I stood when I looked Argos in the face. For that matter, so did everyone else.

  “We should find Ajax,” said Diomedes, kicking at Dionysus, who kept clamoring about his feet. Diomedes was not fond of dogs.

  I looked around at the forest and threw up my hands. “Great idea, Diomedes. But where would we even begin to look for him?”

  “Who cares? Just so long as we keep moving.” He wrinkled his nose and gave Dionysus another kick. “And while we’re at it, let’s find some water. I’m thirsty, and your dog smells terrible.”

  I patted Argos on the head. Noble bea
st that he was, he had one extremely bad habit: if he found something dead, he would roll in it. And by the smell of things, he had found something very dead.

  “You do need a bath,” I said to him. Even after all this time, he recognized the word. Both ears went flat, and he whimpered. “Not to worry, old boy, the tree is our priority.” I turned to Diomedes. “So, genius, how do you suggest we find Ajax?”

  “Homer said to look for the tallest tree.”

  “And?”

  “And that was it.”

  “Terrific,” I said. “But then what? Is he in it? Under it? Guarding it?”

  “All he said was to look for the tallest tree.”

  “Then I guess we’d better start looking. When the Harpies get over their surprise, they’ll come for us. Let’s go, Argos.”

  Argos barked and bumped me with his head, which meant I was already not moving fast enough.

  So off we set—Argos and me, Diomedes and Dionysus, and a whole pack of baying hounds. A mighty racket we raised, yipping and howling as we traipsed through the dismal woods. All the way, I kept my eyes peeled for some sign of Ajax—or at least an exceptionally tall tree.