Medea (27 page)

I heard a woman scream a name: 'Androphagi!'

I climbed out of the wagon with Kore and Scylla at my side.

The night was as dark as summer nights get, but the watchfires were burning and I could see quite well. A man coated with oil and paint, his head shaved and stained with scarlet, was poised with his back to me. He was preparing to throw a short spear. I could see every muscle in his naked back and buttocks. I could see his target, a Scyth fighting off another painted naked man with a sword.

I broke the seal on my clay pot, inserted one of the darts into the pipe, and blew.

There was a faint 'pfft' and the feathered dart stuck into the middle of that broad back. The spear dropped. The attacker swung about as he fell, and I saw his lips writhe back over teeth which had all been filed to a point; horrible.

I reached him and put a hand to his throat. Dead. The snake venom which we had used to compound this poison was very effective and the Androphagos was quite dead. The Scyth won his contest with the sword, thrusting it through his opponent's chest. He drew out the blade, saw me and the fallen attacker, and shouted, 'My thanks, Sister!'

'How many are there, where did they come from?' I yelled. He was Dianthys' new husband and I did not know his name.

'Don't know how many, they came hunting through the wagons; they slew three guards. What we are taught to do is to fall back on the king's wagon - that way. There we shall stand at the last if we cannot defeat them before. Come,' said the young man. I followed him, creeping through the maze of little camps. One woman, at least, had been carried off sleeping from her bed, for I heard voices shrieking, 'They've taken her! Kill, kill, kill the savages!'

I saw another Androphagos. This one died before he realised what the tiny wound was. I found Iole, clutching at her wounded breast, wielding a bow.

'Get to the king,' she whispered to me. I tucked my shoulder under her arm. Iole, who was so brave and so beautiful, bleeding now and weakening. The camp was deafening with screams and shouts, all in Scythian; the Androphagi hunted in silence, like wolves. I heard bows twanging. As I was about to sink under Iole's weight, someone took her out of my arms. I turned to thank him and looked into another scarlet face with pointed fangs like a dog's. There was no room to use the pipe and he had slung my Iole over his shoulder like a parcel. Kore leapt for his throat. Scylla for his ankles, and he staggered and dropped my friend.

Then I stabbed him with a dart. He looked surprised for the moment it took the venom to penetrate his system. I dragged Iole off his collapsing body and went on through black shadows and grey and the scent of death and burning.

I saw the ring of the Scyths surrounding the king's wagon. Anemone was there, firing a bow. The air stank of blood and Androphagi - they reeked, unwashed skin and oil made from some unthinkable fleshly source. I killed another as I reached the Scythian guard and someone took Iole out of my grasp and laid her in the king's wagon. She would live if I could care for her soon. Kore and Scylla, at my knees, barked and then began to howl.

I did not think we were going to survive, but I would not go down into the dark without taking some sacrifices to please Hekate. I steadied my back against the wagon wheel and searched for a mark. A painted man paused obligingly in my view, and I blew again. I saw the feathery dart take in his hand. He plucked it out and threw it away. It took him longer to die, perhaps because the limb is further from the centre of being than the throat. He raised his spear again, cried some sort of challenge, shook his head, and fell.

I was coldly pleased.

'That's a good weapon!' yelled Anemone. 'The old woman in the cave?'

'Yes,' I yelled. 'How many warriors are there?'

'Hundreds,' she leaned down from her perch on the king's wagon. 'The Scyths have tempted Até, thinking that the Man-killers were defeated. They must have mustered all the tribes. Make sure that you are not taken alive, Scythling. And know that I loved you, that Anemone loved you, Medea.'

The attack began again. I had no time to tell Anemone that I loved her, though I did. I shot four more attackers with my darts. But I only had five left, and there would be no opportunity to make more. I watched a creeping ring of painted men, scarlet heads and oiled bodies, massing just out of bowshot. I knew what I had to do if the Scyths could not hold them off. I would not be taken alive to be defiled and murdered. I would kill my dogs first. The Androphagi also ate dogs. I could use my knife on my dearest friends, but a dart must be saved for me. I doubted I could find my heart with my own knife and a bungled suicide would leave me utterly at the mercy of those who had no mercy. I hoped that my flesh would poison them.

Kore and Scylla were pressed close to me, occasionally barking when an attacker came too close. Their closeness wrung my heart. Their warm bodies had comforted me in all my pain. But they would accompany me on the long path back to the Mother, to play in her fields forever or sleep with me in the warm dark of the Mother's womb.

The night seemed endless. Dawn would bring better light for the archers, but there was no lightening in the sky. I watched as the ring of attackers came closer, many falling to arrows and spears but replaced immediately by those behind. I resolved to keep my last darts until they were very close. Kore and Scylla had stopped howling. I think they knew that we were all going to die.

A painted man broke the ranks and raced towards us, screaming some challenge. He died with my dart in his chest. He plucked it out, scratching as from a mosquito bite, then crashed into our lines, his impetus carrying him on even after he was dead.

Then they all began to run. In a moment they would smash through our defences. They were careless of how many would die in that blood-soaked piece of ground between them and us, but enough would get through. The Scyths were defeated and Medea's destiny had arrived earlier than expected. I knelt, and my hounds nuzzled up to me. I drew my knife, weeping, whispering that we would meet again, that they should wait just a little for me, stay on the threshold of the dark cave, and I would come to them, my dearest companions.

Then, as my blade was at Scylla's throat and I wept as I stared into her trusting brown eyes, something came through the camp with a noise like the rumbling of a wagon over a rough path. A thud, a crash, a pause, then thud, crash, again. The Androphagi halted, wavering. Something from behind was felling their ranks like wheat. I could not see what it was, but I heard a name, shouted in Scythian, and the silent attackers broke and began to run.

It did not matter how they fled. A man was visible at the far side of the clearing. He was naked, wearing some sort of skin as a cloak. He swung a club made of most of a tree with silent efficiency, battering the attackers aside. The painted men, who had not made the slightest sound when they were hunting Scythian victims through our camp, cried aloud at the sight of him. '
Kallinikos
!' they screamed, and turned to run.

Which did not do them the slightest good. This
Kallinikos
had no expression that I could see. He did not look angry. He just swung and crushed the skull of every painted man with a terrible inevitability. That was the noise I had heard. Crash of club on skull. Thud as the body hit the ground. Crash, thud. I remained where I was, clutching my hounds, watching in horrified fascination.

Anemone came down from the wagon to join me.

'Who is he?' I demanded. 'Who is this
Kallinikos
?'

'I thought he was just a story,' she said, wiping absently at her mouth, which was bleeding. She had bitten her lip.

'What story?' I put the last of my darts back into the little clay pot. The war appeared to be over. The painted men were herded into a corner between two wagons, and this stranger was going to kill them all. They tried to escape, diving for him, stabbing and scratching and tearing, screaming in their own tongue for what was presumably mercy. It was horrible. He brought each one out and struck and dropped the body and struck again.

'He's an Achaean,' said Anemone. 'Gods of the Scyths, I was sure that we were going to die this night! They call him a hero. He strangled two snakes in his cradle when he was eight months old. He's the strongest man in the world. Are you unhurt, Medea?'

'Yes, not a scratch, but I was preparing to kill Kore and Scylla and then myself. I think I'd like to sit down.'

Anemone gave me a cup of the ice-wine which the Scyths use for disinfecting wounds and cleaning tarnished metal. They made it in winter by allowing a tub of wine to freeze, then pouring off the concentrate. I would never ordinarily drink the stuff, but I gulped. It was raw, and I choked and blinked, but the world appeared a little more bearable after I had swallowed a couple of times and passed the cup on. All around the king's wagon, the last-ditch ring of Scythian defenders were staring in fascination at the executioner who had come out of the darkness and saved us. Idanthyrsus ordered his fighters out, to inspect the camp, bring in the wounded, and report.

There were no more painted men. Not alive. I was about to move, to go and thank our rescuer, but Anemone grabbed me.

'Don't approach him,' she warned. 'If the stories are true he is mad. He might kill you as well.'

'What shall we do? He's wounded, see, he's bleeding, and there's an arrow through his leg.'

'Wait,' said the queen of the Scyths. 'The tales say that he'll collapse soon. Then we can tend him.'

I went into the king's wagon to see Iole. The wound proved to be superficial, a long slash which had, however, marred her smooth shoulder and round breast.

'The Amazons cut off that breast so they can shoot better,' she grinned at me. 'Now I shall have a warrior scar. Has
Kallinikos
really come?'

'Yes. He's standing in the clearing amongst heaps of dead painted men, and he hasn't moved for a long time. I'll go out and see what's happening. I just came to see if you were alive, sister.'

'I'm alive and the Androphagi aren't feasting on Scyths,' said Iole, and closed her eyes.

I returned to the clearing in time to see the saviour of the Scyths collapse bonelessly to the ground.

When we reached him he was quite unconscious. The queen ordered him carried to her own wagon, where I could tend him.

He was surprisingly heavy. As the young men laid him on a cloth beside the wagon so I could see to remove the arrows, the sun came up.

It rose in glory, red and gold, and I praised Hekate for allowing us to live another day. Medea was alive, Kore and Scylla were sitting at my feet, and I was about to try and save a legend's life.

I sang the prayers to Hekate as I washed off the blood to assess the man's injuries. He was not young. His hair was greying, and his face was lined. He was naked apart from what I now recognised as a lion skin. He was dusty and blood-soaked and he looked like a peasant. Although someone had plaited his hair carefully with feathers and shells, it had not been tended for a month.

I listened to the Scyths delivering reports to Anemone as I heated more water and then laid my knife in the flames. The arrows of the painted men were barbed and I would have to use great care in extracting them. I could not believe that
Kallinikos
was alive. I removed one arrow from his chest. It was not deep and had not penetrated the cavity where air must not be allowed to go, for Hekate teaches that air runs in the veins, and if the hollow of the torso is penetrated, then blood and air mix and the patient drowns. I cut another out of his forearm, where the muscle was twisted like leather thongs. Then I removed two from his right leg. One was almost through, and I slit a way for it, pulling the broken shaft out. Another was superficial. His hand was cut across the palm, probably from grabbing a sword.

After half an hour, when I was almost sickened by the extra damage I had done to him, I washed the wounds with salt water, then with fresh and then with the ice-wine. I stitched the grosser wounds and drank the rest of the spirit myself. At each point when I was inflicting further indignity on his body, I had felt for his heart, which beat strongly under my hand. Whoever this folk-tale was, he was made of inhumanly strong material.

Finally I bandaged all the injuries. He had stopped bleeding. He had a broad peasant's face with a strong jaw, a wide nose and a broad forehead. I had the young men carry him into Anemone's wagon and rummaged amongst the hanging herbs for fevergew and the disinfectant woundleaf. He would be in a raging fever when he woke. I also wondered about his battle-madnss. I had been told of a similar condition, perhaps, by the old women in the temple. They said that one should make a
lithos sophronister
, a stone of calm, and they had given me the list of ingredients, most of which I had. I needed the blood of a black dog and a certain mushroom, and I knew where I could get both of those things.

I left
Kallinikos
to sleep and went out to see what damage the Androphagi had done to the Scythians. Anemone was talking to the tenders of the wounded and the heads of families, and she seemed pleased.

'Only five killed, that is wonderful, considering that we were close enough to Death to smell his breath. Three guards died in the initial attack. Several Scyths are so wounded that they may not survive, but we acquitted ourselves well. We would have died in a way of which Ares would approve. But we didn't have to, which is cheering. How is the
Kallinikos
?'

"I can't imagine how he is still alive, but he is. I'm going out to get some herbs, can someone stay with him?'

'He won't wake for days, if the tales are true,' she said.

But he woke only a few hours later. I was compounding my
lithos sophronister
in a mortar. Kore had willingly given me three drops of her blood, as she would willingly have given me her heart or her life. Every time I thought of how close I had come to having to kill the dogs, I felt weak with gratitude to this efficient executioner. He was lying in my own bed, and I glanced across at him and saw that his eyes were open.