Action/Adventure, Drama
Set in c.1973
Disclaimers:
Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, The Sci-Fi Channel, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and The SciFi Channel. This story is written purely for my own entertainment, and that of anyone else who may happen to read it. No infringement of copyright is intended. It is not intended and should never be used for commercial purposes.
The original characters, situations and ideas contained within this work are the property of the author.
Author’s Notes:
Acknowledgements:
As always, I have to thank my beta reader, Sarah, for her diligent and entirely voluntary service.
Akrotiri
As he walked, Acastus brooded, as he was wont to do in recent years. Although once noted for bringing a bright and lively spirit to the Company of Gorgons, he had of late displayed a dark and melancholy face to the world. Even the opportunity of visiting his family, a rare treat as it was, did little to raise his spirits. Acastus’ kin lived close to the Hall of Medusa, but as a junior member of the company, he was very rarely released from his duties for long enough to call upon them. He suspected that his mentor and section prime, Meriope, had arranged this unexpected day of leave to try and lighten his mood; as yet it was not having the desired effect.
His mood did improve, however, when he entered his childhood home to be greeted by a beautiful, smiling girl of seventeen.
“Tala, little girl,” Acastus said fondly. He embraced his sister tightly and lifted her off her feet.
“Teka, you great ox,” Helena replied with equal affection. “And most people consent to call me a woman by now,” she added primly.
“You are still young,” Acastus insisted, although he knew that she spoke the truth.
“I am old enough to be married.”
Acastus snorted. “Yet too young to be pursued. I remember that, even if ‘most people’ do not, and if your would-be suitors persist in troubling our mother’s sleep…”
Helena laughed at his disapproval. “Better to be pursued too young than to be ignored too long,” she retorted. “A Gorgon, a squad leader of thirty-five, should surely be thinking of marriage at least.”
Acastus’ good humour dissolved in a moment. “I…think of it,” he assured her and then he changed the subject. “Have you had any word from Antigone or Priam lately?”
Helena eyed her brother with concern, but made no attempt to question him. “We received a letter from Antigone just last week. She has graduated as a chirurgeon and will leave the Sanctuary of Asclepius soon.”
“Then she will come home?”
“Only briefly,” Helena admitted. “She has been noticed by the priests for her skill and will soon leave Kritos for the Asclepieion on Epidaurus. She is to be trained as a Healer.”
Still oppressed by his own dark humour, Acastus’ pleasure was nonetheless genuine. “That is news indeed. You must let me know when she is here; I can not let her go without my congratulations and my blessing.”
“Of course.”
“And Priam?”
Helena shrugged. “He remains Priam. He has not written, but Meriope told mother that Damos reported in his last missive that Priam had managed to get one of Euripides’ shepherdesses into trouble.”
Acastus sighed. “Perhaps I should seek leave to travel to Halicarnasus,” he suggested.
Helena shook her head.
“Father always reined in Priam’s excesses,” Acastus argued.
“Priam’s excesses, when father was alive, were those of a youth of fourteen,” Helena reminded him. “I know that you seek to fill father’s place as best you can, but this will out as it will. The signs are not all unpromising,” she added. “Damos says that Priam is seeking to marry the girl. Mother is beside herself of course.”
“With rage or joy?” Acastus wondered aloud.
“It varies with the direction of the wind,” Helena replied. “She is delighted that he is to wed, but of course it puts an end to all hope that her precious boy will ever return home. Still, a good life as a shepherd is better than the direction in which he was going and better he lie with his own wife than with those of others.”
Acastus kissed the tattoo on his sister’s forehead. “Bitterness does not suit you, dear one,” he told her. “I know that it seems mother has favourites sometimes, but it is only absence makes it seem so. You should spend a month in the country, then you would see how rapturously she welcomed you back.”
“You would never let me go to the country.” Helena pouted prettily. “In the country, boys and girls sleep with each other; I might end up unceremoniously wed.”
“And as swiftly widowed,” Acastus growled.
“Fear not, dear brother, I am a good, civilised girl.”
“Any lovers?” Acastus asked.
“There was a girl, one of the prefects at the academy, but she favoured another.” Helena shook her head ruefully. “You?”
“No!” Acastus’ reply was sharper than he had intended.
Helena shied away from her brother’s anger, but quickly controlled her fear. “Anyway, everyone has favourites,” she said with a dejected sigh, but then she smiled. “You know you’re mine?”
“For now,” he allowed. He touched his sister’s face with his calloused fingers. “But I will lose you so soon.”
Helena looked away and blushed. “Mother is in the garden,” she said. “You should go through; I am attending to the meal. If you want to make yourself useful, you can dig me some carrots.”
Acastus took the fork from beside the back door and went out into Nissa’s garden. His mother was renowned as the finest gardener in Akrotiri and her yard was one of the most beautiful places on the entire planet of Kritos. One of her neighbours was looking over the fence, but not at the garden. Nissa herself was accounted one of the most beautiful of women and it was small wonder that Helena – who took after her mother in appearance – had so many suitors; almost as many as her widowed mother.
“Good morning, mother!” Acastus called out. He cast a fierce glower at the neighbour, who disappeared behind his own fence.
Nissa looked up from her flower beds. She wore an old robe and a floppy hat to protect her from the sun, but she rose with the dignity of a queen to greet her oldest son. “Acastus, my lamb,” she said, embracing him. “What are you doing with that fork, dear? I trust you had no intention of interfering with my garden?”
“No, not yours, mother,” he assured her. “Helena asked me to dig some carrots from her plot.”
“Then you may continue,” Nissa agreed. “Tell me how things are with you in the Hall?”
Acastus smiled and drove the fork into the earth. “Has Tal ma’te Meriope not informed you of everything?”
Nissa shook her head. “I want to hear from you.”
“Things in the Hall are well,” Acastus assured her. “A platoon leader’s post was available, but Meriope said that it was not time yet.”
“She told me that there was a warrior woman with whom you had grown close,” Nissa prodded, unable to contain her impatience.
The colour drained from his face. “She said…I…” His voice failed for a moment, but then realisation dawned. “Atalanta?” Acastus laughed. “Mother, she is married with a child of twelve. We are comrades and friends, nothing more.”
Nissa looked crestfallen. “You will grow lonely,” she cautioned.
“Not while I have so many friends,” he assured her, “and so close a family.” He found that he could not force a smile to his face and so turned away to pick a bunch of carrots from the newly-turned earth. “I am still young, mother. I will find someone,” he promised, but his voice was touched with melancholy.
“Meriope!” Nissa cried.
Acastus blushed, embarrassed that his mother had been listening to barracks rumours, but before he could protest that his regard for Meriope was purely that of a pupil for his teacher, Nissa had moved past him towards the house.
“Meriope! We had not thought to see you for weeks.”
Meriope clasped her friend in a powerful embrace. “Nissa, my dear. Acastus,” she added with a nod.
“Tal ma’te,” he replied, half-turning to hide his blushes.
“He looks so like his father,” Meriope commented.
Nissa looked unconvinced. “A little,” she admitted, “but Rathe was always more wiry. What brings you here today, Meriope? Not that you need a reason to visit, of course. Acastus, tell Helena to set another place at table.”
“Actually,” Meriope interrupted, “it is Acastus that I need to speak with.”
“Of course,” Nissa replied. “Then I will tell Helena. I hope that the two of you will be joining us when you are done with your Gorgon talk. You have not come to snatch my son away, have you?”
“Not at all,” Meriope assured her, “and I would be delighted to join you.”
Nissa beamed. “Then I will take those carrots, Acastus.”
“Tal ma’te?” Acastus asked, as Nissa walked back to the house.
Meriope turned on him with hard eyes. “Did you think that I was a fool?” she demanded. “Did you imagine that you could conceal this from me?”
Acastus, his head still full of the rumours that were spread about him, felt ever more awkward. “Tal ma’te…I am sorry, I…”
“You defeated Arachne in personal combat,” Meriope laughed, the frost melting from her expression. “Fates, Acastus! You bested the finest fighter in the Hall and you did not tell your teacher?”
“Oh. Well…I was not sure that you would be pleased. I know that Arachne is your friend and it was more luck than anything.”
Meriope smiled. “As has been said to me before now, against some fighters, luck will only take you so far. You have made me proud, Acastus; you are my finest pupil and one of the mightiest warriors in the company.”
“But not fit to be a platoon leader?”
“Warriors and generals are not always the same people, Acastus; Arachne herself had to come to terms with that. But your skill has not gone unnoticed and there is a cost for such distinction.”
“A cost, Tal ma’te?” Acastus replied tentatively.
“In your case, two costs,” his mentor explained. “Come into the house and I will explain.”
Acastus swallowed hard. “Yes, Tal ma’te.”
Helena was in a panic. Acastus was somewhat alarmed himself to note that Meriope had brought another four people with her: Glaucus, second of the section; his wife; their fifteen-year-old son and a small baby.
“Sir,” Acastus said, half-bowing to Glaucus.
“Acastus,” Glaucus replied. “I believe that you know my wife, Agema, and young Nestor.
“Indeed. Mistress Agema; Nestor.”
Agema smiled and bowed as best she could with a child in her arms. Nestor grinned broadly; the boy idolised Acastus.
“And this last is…?” Nissa asked.
Agema smiled and held the baby a little closer. “We wanted to call her Meriope, but the Primus would not hear of it,” she explained.
“It is too great an honour,” Meriope demurred, in a tone which defied anyone to assure her that she deserved that honour.
“We have chosen the next best thing, therefore,” Glaucus said. “She will be named after Meriope’s chariot: Penelope of Kalipolis.”
“Then we asked Meriope to be Penelope’s yat’ka,” Agema went on.
“She has done such a fine job with Nestor,” Glaucus agreed. “Not that he has become a warrior, as I had hoped,” he added, but without regret.
Meriope shrugged. “He is young, still,” she reminded them. “True, he has hands that are more clever than powerful, but he has a bold heart and swift reflexes.”
Nestor squirmed to be the focus of such attention, but although he blushed he also beamed with pride.
“But he is still young,” Meriope went on. “I consider him still to be in my care and I can not take on responsibility for his sister while I still have Nestor to worry about. That is why I believe that you should choose another to be yat’ka to Penelope; or, I should say, yat’kor.”
“But who?” Glaucus asked.
Meriope shook her head in mock despair. “Why do you think that I asked you to meet me here?” she asked. “Aside from the fact that Helena is the only woman in Akrotiri to surpass her mother in the kitchen and I hoped I might glean an invitation to lunch. I believe that you should entrust Penelope to Acastus. He is young himself, but he is brave, dutiful and skilled; a fine role model for any Jaffa. He will also defend her virtue like a tiger when she is grown.”
“That is certainly true,” Helena grumbled.
Nissa placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “You will be glad of him if any of your suitors ever exceed the bounds of decency,” she whispered. “Antigone was.”
Acastus felt stunned. “But…I could not, Tal ma’te. Could I?”
“Of course you can,” Meriope assured him. “I have done quite well with Nestor – if I say so myself – despite being childless; you will do no worse, I am sure. Besides, it is time that you took a stronger and more responsible role in society.”
“I am unsure,” Glaucus admitted. “Acastus is a fine warrior, but a bachelor still; a young man…”
“A Gorgon,” Meriope added. “An Olympios.”
This last sentence had an electrifying effect on the assembled company. All fell silent; Nissa stared; Nestor looked almost ready to worship Acastus as a god.
The first to break the stunned silence was Helena, who flung her arms around her brother with a squeal of delight. “Acastus! An Olympios!” she laughed.
“This is your second punishment for displaying such prodigal skill,” Meriope explained. “You must prepare yourself, my apprentice, for you have been chosen to represent the forces of the God King Minos at the nine hundred and thirty-fourth Olympiad.”
Glaucus and Agema did not stay for dinner; Helena was briefly relieved, then immediately mortified, lest she gain a reputation as a poor host. Meriope and Nissa distracted her from her worries by telling her the story of how Acastus had confronted Antigone’s overzealous admirer. After the meal, Acastus helped Helena to clear the table, keen to escape from his mother, his mentor and their reminiscences of his past failings.
In the kitchen, Helena wrapped her arms around her brother’s waist. “I am so proud,” she told him. “My brother, an Olympios!”
Acastus hugged her around the shoulders and forced a smile.
“And a yat’ka!” Helena went on. “Agema’s daughter is a lovely child, isn’t she?”
“She looked like any other baby to me, I’m afraid.”
Helena slapped his shoulder. “How can you say that? You’re supposed to be her guide and protector.”
“And I shall do my best,” he sighed.
Helena stepped back. “Aren’t you pleased?”
“I…I am flattered.”
“What’s wrong, Acastus?” Helena demanded. “You should be delighted.”
Acastus sat down at the kitchen table. “I know, but I can not. I just don’t know what that girl has to look forward to.”
“Acastus!”
Acastus shook his head again. “Sorry, little girl. I don’t mean to be this way.”
“You need a wife,” Helena declared. “Mother always says that Father was this way before they married, but I only remember him full of joy and life.”
“Father was this way because Mother was another man’s mistress,” Acastus reminded her. “That is not my sorrow.”
“Then what is?”
“Nothing, Helena, I assure you.”
Helena sat in her brother’s lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck leaned her head against his chest. “My poor brother, so afflicted by phantoms.”
Acastus shivered. He put an arm around Helena’s waist and rested one hand on her head so that she would not lift her eyes and see the tears in his eyes. “It is nothing,” he said again.
“If you…”
“No. I can not marry. Not now.”
“Not now?”
“Not…yet.”
“Then I won’t marry either,” Helena told him. “Then I can look after you and I won’t have to worry so much.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Acastus snapped. “If you foreswear marriage Akrotiri will undergo a sudden spate of suicides. I will marry, just not yet.”
“Well, soon you will be the most famous Jaffa in the galaxy. You will be spoiled for choice then.”
At that, Acastus laughed. “I think you overrate my chances…”
“In the Olympiad, or in love?”
“…but I thank you for your confidence.”
Helena sat back and wiped Acastus’ eyes with her sleeve. “Make us proud,” she told him.
“I will.”
*
Day 1 – The Olympic Oaths and Opening Rites
The first Olympiad had been held by the Goa’uld underlord Zeus in honour of his liege lord, Cronus. He had announced to all of the Titans that he would hold a great tournament on his fortress world, Olympus, where Cronus’ Jaffa could demonstrate their athletic prowess. The tables had been turned, however, when Zeus’ Jaffa had defeated Cronus’ athletes in every event. Cronus had been humiliated and at the climax of the event, Zeus had declared himself free of Cronus’ rule, launching the Titanomachy: the hundred year civil war between the loyal Titans and their rebel offspring, who named themselves the Olympians.
Cronus had
seized
In the
centuries since,
At the time of the nine hundred and thirty-fourth Olympiad, the system was held to be a common possession, to be held for common usage by the faction who had been victorious in the previous tournament. It was to Lord Hades – and his Queen, Persephone – that the honour of meeting the vast expense of holding the games fell on this occasion. As the master of the reigning champion, it was Hades’ duty to see to the arrangements for the tournament and as it was of course necessary to try and outdo the last Olympiad, this was an expensive affair. This might have explained why the various lords were so willing to surrender the world to the next Goa’uld who wanted to control it.
They would also have the duty – on their honour – of enforcing the Eirene Olympus and keeping the peace between the Jaffa servants of a dozen Olympians and as many Titans. This was not easy task; each of the Goa’uld would be hell-bent on victory and willing to use any means – or at least any means that did not directly contravene the torturous terms of the Olympic Treaty in such a way that it would be easily detected – to secure it. Past Olympiads had seen the sabotage and even the murder of opposing athletes; the use of every stimulant known to the Goa’uld race; the eugenic breeding, genetic manipulation or cellular alteration of both Jaffa and prim’ta; and the bribery and coercion of athletes and of the officiating Muses.
All athletes had to be Jaffa, sex, age and race were no restriction. Female Jaffa could be entered if they had the skill, although Dionysus’ Maenads had been banned eternally, for behaving in a manner which had brought the games into disrepute and, more to the point, revolted even the resilient sensibilities of the watching Goa’uld. As for incubator species, unas, shakri and panatans had all been entered at one time or another, although very few of these races had proven compatible enough with the prim’ta to survive as Jaffa past the end of the contest.
On one memorable occasion, a kalshek’tak Jaffa had been fielded as an athlete by Lord Hades himself; the vampire had violently rejected his prim’ta in the middle of the double stadion and expired in a pool of his own blood. Lord Hephaestus had entered cyborgs so heavily altered as to be unrecognisable as having once being human, until the last – nothing more than a symbiote held in an amniotic sac at the heart of a metal body – had been judged unlawful and future contestants restricted to a limit of forty percent modification.
The spectators at the Olympiad were few: the Goa’uld sponsors, or at least some functionary to represent them while they watched via long-range communication sphere; a handful of servants and ceremonial guards; the Muses in their role as official observers; and a small number of guests, invited to witness the greatness of the Titanic and Olympian armies. Nonetheless, the impact of the games was huge. It would play a great role in determining prestige among the factions for the next four years, as well as ending or reigniting dozens of conflicts and rivalries.
More than to the gods, however, the games were important to the Jaffa, because it was here alone that they had a chance to win immortality.
The Olympic
compound at the foot of
Two further temples, larger and more magnificent, had been constructed further up the slopes of the sacred mountain. These were dedicated to Zeus and Cronus and were there in case the leader of either of the two factions should arrive unannounced. It would not be unprecedented for one of these luminaries to make a surprise appearance and of course they could not be given any but the best accommodation. Hades had wisely chosen to be prepared for this eventuality. The Lady-Queen Hestia had once been taken unawares by Lord Zeus – not for the first time, if rumour be believed – and had had no choice but to put Lord Dionysus out of his temple to accommodate her liege. Both Zeus and Dionysus had been mortally offended; Hestia had surrendered the bulk of her holdings to Zeus and been forced to bestow the remainder upon Dionysus and accept a subservient place as his queen. While Zeus was likely to penalise one of his lords to a far lesser extent than he did the ladies and queens of the faction – for whatever reason, Mighty Zeus was noted for his bias against women – Lord Hades had no wish to be forced to surrender even one acre of his territory in recompense for such a faux pas.
The stadium itself was built to enclose the stadion track, two hundred paces in length and seventy-five wide. The stands rose twenty feet above the sand of the arena, then raked up another thirty, creating a colossal area of seating for a few dozen watchers. At the north end of the stadium the great statue of Lord Zeus loomed over the hosts’ royal box and glowered at the equally magnificent image of Lord Cronus which dominated the south and shadowed the gallery of the Muses. The east and west stands were watched over by the six women who were they nearest that the Olympians and Titans themselves had to gods: in the west, the Moirae – the Fates – and in the east, the Erinyes – the Furies.
Acastus emerged into the stadium from the Gate of the Erinyes – the western entrance, facing the great statues of the Furies. Although some might call it blasphemous, Acastus looked up and blew a kiss to the three figures: Tisiphone, the Avenger of Blood; Alecto, the Implacable; and Megaera, the Jealous One. They were savage figures, but Acastus was quite glad to enter under the remorseless gaze of those avenging spirits; they punished breaches of filial duty and his family were everything to him. Besides, their serpent locks were enough akin to those of the Gorgon helm that Nike’s élite had adopted the Furies as unofficial patrons, and dragon-winged and snake-haired they might be, but these renderings were actually quite lovely.
“If it is favour you seek, look to our backs,” Atalanta suggested in a whisper, glancing over her shoulder at the figures of the three Moirae. “They have more say in what shall be than the Kindly Ones.”
“True,” Acastus murmured, “but Clotho is barely a child and Atropos a crone.”
“Admittedly, Lachesis is rather splendid,” Sisiphon added, “but overall, I have to agree with Acastus; I would sooner tangle with the Kindly Ones, claws and all.”
Atalanta shook
her head and Xenophon shot a
dirty look over his shoulder; it was clear that the captain of
Poseidon’s squad
– a burly warrior of the Taurus Guard – did not
think well of Minos’
representatives, who had come to
“Anyway,” Acastus continued, in an even softer whisper, “there is no value in petitioning the Moirae. Their decisions were made a long time ago; the thread is spun and measured and awaits only the final cut.”
“You are a theologian as well?” Atalanta scoffed. “I suppose it is a small mercy that your attention is not entirely absorbed by pretty girls.”
“Squad!” Xenophon barked impatiently. “Salute to the Lord Hades and the Lady Persephone!”
The Jaffa turned and clapped their fists to their chests in salute to the box beneath the statue of Zeus.
“Salute to the Muses!”
They turned and repeated their salute towards the gallery at the south end of the stadium. Despite Xenophon’s use of the plural, only one of the Muses had appeared to officiate over these games. The feuds of the Olympians and the Titans were notable for their bitterness and ferocity, even by the standards of the Goa’uld. In order for any kind of diplomacy and commerce to exist there had arisen the need for a neutral party. This was the role that fell to the Muses, the twelve symbiote-daughters of Zeus by the Titan Mnemosyne, who had long served as the tenuous liaisons between the various System Lords of the two factions. Two of the sisters – Lady Clio and Lady Euterpe – had come to Kritos to test the nominated athletes, but the woman in the box, flanked by several ranks of armed Jaffa in the white ceremonial armour of the Boeotian Guard, was not one of those.
“Lady Melpomene,” Sisiphon whispered. “She seems to have little faith in the Eirene Olympus.”
Acastus could barely blame Lady Melpomene for her paranoia. Thirty guards might seem excessive, especially as the bodyguards of the Muses were the only Jaffa at the Olympiad permitted under the Treaty to bear fully-charged energy weapons, but of the twelve sisters, only the reclusive Mneme had never been shot and the Lady Erato – reputedly the best-loved of the Muses – had been slain while attempting to broker peace between Hephaestus and Coeus. The party responsible – the Titan, Coeus – had been wiped out in a concerted assault of the Olympic and Titanic armies, but this gave the surviving Muses little comfort and less reassurance. This was why they never travelled without considerable protection.
“Swear the oath!” Xenophon commanded.
As one, the Jaffa held their hands over their hearts and spoke in unison. “We swear in the sight of the Moirae and of the Erinyes that we shall obey the laws and statues of the Olympiad. We shall abide by the rulings of the Muses and comport ourselves so as to bring honour to our masters. We shall compete to the best of our ability, but use no prohibited means to enhance our performance.”
As he swore the oath, Acastus wondered if a human might consider a Jaffa’s prim’ta to be an unnatural stimulant or enhancement, but it was an idle thought; after all, no human would ever compete in the Olympics. Besides, the oath was all form. At least half of the competitors would cheat as much as they were able, with the complete collusion of their masters. The only real sin was to be caught by supporters of a rival interest. To Acastus, such behaviour was inexplicable; what value could there be in attaining a victory without honour?
“Turn to the gate!” Xenophon snapped and the Jaffa filed out. In the tunnel behind the Gate of the Erinyes, they passed Hephaestus’ squad – a grim-faced assortment – waiting their turn while Aphrodite’s athletes emerged from the Gate of the Moirae.
“So,” Atalanta said, “I know that I am to compete in three track races, the cross country and the melee shooting, but what about the rest of us?” She gave a soft moan as Acastus worked a particularly difficult knot out of the muscles of her shoulders.
“I am in the stadion, double and hoplitodromos, the pentathlon, both hand-to-hand events and the melee,” Acastus said.
“An impressive tally.”
“I am beginning to suspect that Primus Meriope hates me,” he mused. Without the slightest trace of self-consciousness, he ran his hands down Atalanta’s naked back, acting for all the world as though half the men in the barracks would not kill to have their hands where his were.
Acastus had never lied to his mother; it could not have escaped his attention that Atalanta was a woman of considerable beauty, but she was merely a friend and comrade and he was the same to her. Once graduated from their apprenticeships, Medusa’s Jaffa shared their dormitories, with no separation of men and women. The two Gorgons were therefore largely oblivious to the jealous gazes which Poseidon’s other warriors shot towards Acastus.
“It is a heavy load for you,” Atalanta agreed.
“I will be lucky if I can still walk by the time of the stadion,” Acastus said with a rueful chuckle, “let alone run. You have only five events; why are you so tense?”
“Five is no small number, and I am worried about the cross country race,” Atalanta admitted; it would have been futile to deny that she was anxious when he could feel the tension in every muscle. “I have heard tell that more athletes are injured in that event than any other.”
“All of the athletes away from the stadium and out of sight,” Acastus agreed. “The pentathlon is much the same, I believe.”
“You will be careful, won’t you?” Atalanta asked.
“As careful as you,” he promised. “I think Sisiphon is wiser or luckier than we; he is only running in the stadion and the double and fighting armed and unarmed. Four events and nothing outside the stadium.”
“Where is Sisiphon?”
“He is spying out the land,” Acastus replied, “and the competition. He is a scout by training. He says that is the only reason he is even on the squad.”
“I doubt that,” Atalanta chuckled. “He must have displayed some ability to have impressed the Muses. The Ladies Clio and Euterpe spent eight hours testing my abilities before they approved my inclusion in the tournament.”
“Really?” Acastus asked, surprised.
Atalanta propped herself on her elbow and turned to look quizzically at her comrade. “What do you mean?”
“All they did with me was look me over and mark my examination documents.”
Atalanta grinned. “And how long did they spend looking?”
“About an hour…or so.”
“Typical,” Atalanta snorted. “I have to struggle even to be allowed to compete; all a male athlete has to do is show a bit of thigh.”
“Well, a lot of thigh,” Acastus noted, defensively.
With a pattering of feet, Sisiphon dashed into the squad’s rest room. “Cover yourselves!” he snapped, snatching up a pair of robes and tossing them to the Gorgons. “The Lady…”
The rest of Sisiphon’s words were lost in the hubbub as the warriors wrapped robes and towels around their naked forms and scrambled to line up in the centre of the room.
The lady of whom Sisiphon had spoken entered the rest room. She was flanked by a nymph and moved with the dignity of a queen, but for a Goa’uld her garb was humble. She wore a robe of sky blue and shimmering, opalescent grey fabric. Her forearms were bound by delicate, golden bands and ribbons; gold and lapis studded the straps of her sandals. Most notably, however, the left side of her face was covered by an exquisitely-crafted half-mask of gold, supported by a narrow band which encircled her head and held her long, black hair in place. She stood before the athletes and cast her grey good eye along their line; her gaze paused for a moment on each of them and rested longest on Atalanta.
At last she turned to Xenophon. “You are all dressed,” she said. “How very disappointing.”
“I…forgive us, Lady Mentor,” Xenophon stammered. “Jaffa; dis…”
Lady Mentor raised her hand with a kindly laugh. “At ease, Jaffa. Spare my poor nymph’s blushes,” she implored, although the girl in question wore a mischievous grin that suggested it would take a great deal to draw a blush to her cheeks. “You are the pride of Poseidon’s forces, but that must matter little to you now. There are so few opportunities for any Jaffa to attain personal glory.”
“We live to serve, My Lady,” Xenophon assured her.
“Of course,” she replied, impatiently. “As Lord Poseidon’s representative at these games it is my honour to see you strive to uphold the reputation of your god. I trust that you are ready and that you shall comport yourselves with honour?”
“Yes, My Lady.”
“Good,” Mentor said, cutting short any further obsequies. She seemed mercurial and brusque, even for a Goa’uld, but Acastus found himself warming to her. Mentor seemed to have no time for empty flattery; in that – and in some other, indefinable way – she reminded him of Captain Medusa.
“That is my part in the proceedings. Yours will be as follows. This evening, all athletes are required to attend the ritual sacrifices to Zeus, Cronus and to our host, Lord Hades. You will also have an opportunity to make your own offerings to Poseidon and his underlords; I suggest that you also take the opportunity to look over the opposition. The games begin in earnest tomorrow with the double stadion in the morning and the melee shooting event in the afternoon.”
The Jaffa nodded their understanding. This was expected; the four-hundred pace foot race was one of the least prestigious events and as such was usually the first to be contested, likewise the shooting. It was the tests of true strength, speed and endurance that held the greatest place in the Jaffa heart.
“The evening will see further ritual sacrifices and the third day plays host to the thrown weapons event and the static shooting.” These were minor events, of little consequence and none of Poseidon’s Jaffa were competing. “Those unoccupied will be expected to assist in preparations for the Festival of Zeus in the evening. On day four the pentathlon will be competed, followed by the long foot race and further ritual sacrifices.”
Xenophon stifled a groan; clearly he was entered in both events. The pentathlon was a gruelling combination: a horse ride and an upriver swim of one thousand paces each, a long run across rugged country, and then a skirmish against automated enemies to reach a target range for the final spear-throwing match. To follow that with a fifteen-thousand pace endurance race would exhaust Xenophon and he would certainly have little hope of victory in the latter event.
Mentor ’s eye revealed something that might be sympathy, but that was all the sign she gave before she pressed on. “Day five sees the ippokotion” – Lady Mentor sounded as though the equestrian events were of particular interest to her; for most of the squad it simply meant another day of rest – “while the cross-country and swimming races will take place on day six.”
Now it was Thessalius’ turn to groan. The young Jaffa would be faced with a sixteen mile run over rough terrain, followed by several rounds of six-hundred pace swimming races. Acastus’ sympathy was great: He was competing in four of the remaining six events.
“On day seven, after the morning sacrifices, the hoplitodromos will be held, but I advise those of you also competing in the unarmed combat to save your strength for the afternoon. Lose the race and you lose nothing more; lose a bout in the pankration and you may well lose your lives.”
Acastus was impressed that she genuinely seemed to care; it was something else that made her seem more like Medusa. She was right about the seventh day’s events; the armoured race was a contest of little note and death in combat was not unusual, even in the ritual arena.
“Survive the pankration and you will be allowed to participate in that day’s ritual; the largest and most sombre by far, the Festival of the Moirae. On day eight the main event is the skirmish shooting, but there is also the archery. The ninth day will be entirely given over to the panoplation; again, those fighting in the armed event should be sure to rest well the night before. The tenth day will see the stadion and the Festival of the Muses; on the eleventh day the olive wreaths will be presented to the victors and the final ritual sacrifices shall be conducted. At sunset of the final day, the Eirene Olympus ends. All of you must attend the presentation, but you must be on board your transport and ready to leave by noon, because the traditional destruction of the stadium by the defeated sponsors is loosely arranged to begin as soon as the peace ends and there is always the chance that someone will get trigger happy and commence ahead of schedule.”
Mentor looked them over again. “Have you learned much of your opposition?” she asked Sisiphon.
“Not as yet, My Lady.” The Taurus Guard did not bother to ask how Lady Mentor knew of his activities. It was said that even Lord Poseidon had no secrets from his councillor; having met her, it was not hard to believe.
“Very well. Iphigenia,” she said, addressing her nymph. “Make your report.”
The slender girl stepped forward and made a small bow to her mistress. “My Lady,” she acknowledged. “Jaffa.” She turned and addressed herself principally to Xenophon. “At My Lady’s bidding, I have compiled a survey of the athletes competing in the Olympiad. It is a strong field, but there are only a dozen serious contenders. Foremost, of course, is Ephialtes of Hades, champion of the…”
“We know who Ephialtes is,” Xenophon assured her.
Every Jaffa
in the Olympic and Titanic territories knew that
name, for it had been
given to the nine hundred and thirty-third Olympiad. The past four
years had
been the years of Ephialtes; as the stadion champion, he was the most
famous Jaffa
in the entire
galaxy. This was the glory of which
Iphigenia blushed. “Of course. Other than Ephialtes, the servants of our host, Lord Hades, present little challenge. The other favourites for the stadion are Tithonus, a servant of Aphrodite, and Nimeus and Atalanta of our own squad.”
“How serious a threat is this Tithonus?” Xenophon asked.
“He is fast,” Iphigenia admitted, “but he would appear to have been chosen more for looks than prowess. He is most handsome,” she added, with a small blush, “but fleet of foot, agile, and not without endurance.”
“Indeed?” Atalanta raised an eyebrow and the nymph grinned lasciviously.
Mentor gave a small frown. “How my servants perform their duties does not concern me,” she said, with the unspoken warning that it most certainly did not concern any Jaffa. “Continue, Iphigenia.”
“Yes, My Lady. The most fiercely contested event in this Olympiad shall most likely be the pentathlon. The favourites are: Master Xenophon; Metrocles, a servant of Oceanus and also a favourite in the swimming; Iason, a cross-country runner and captain of Lady-Queen Demeter’s squad; Dardanus, the defending champion; and Latona, one of the Companions of Artemis.”
Acastus was a little slighted not to be listed among the front-runners; he felt that he had the edge over Xenophon at least.
Xenophon nodded. “Combat?”
“Theocritus of Elysia and one of Atlas’ giants, Onyx, are the strongest hopes, but Amadines of Thracis and Mandracles of Aetna may present an unpleasant surprise. In other areas it looks to be a fairly open field.” The young woman looked concerned. “There is something else,” she admitted. “Zeus has entered only three athletes and of them I know almost nothing.”
“My Lady,” Sisiphon said, “in this case I was able to learn something.”
“Speak,” Lady Mentor ordered.
“I have seen the giants of Atlas,” Sisiphon said, “but never have I seen anything like these three. They are huge; monstrous creatures of vast size and terrifying demeanour. They are called Gargittios, Orthon and Cerberus. The servants at their barracks call them the Hounds of Zeus. He expects them to triumph in all events.”
“What are they that he can be so confident?” Acastus asked.
Xenophon shot Acastus a warning look for speaking out of turn, but Lady Mentor answered before the Captain could issue a reprimand.
“I have heard only vague reports,” she admitted, “but I believe that I can say with certainty that they are the result of a thousand years of breeding, aimed at producing the perfect athletes to ensure Zeus’ domination of the Olympiad. Genetic manipulation was used at the genesis of their bloodlines, but they themselves have been neither altered, nor engineered and so the Muses have allowed their participation. Each has been entered in every event, although Cerberus is a runner, Orthon a fighter and Gargittios a swimmer. They are likely to be the greatest threat to you, both as rival athletes and as a danger to your lives.
“Do not be discouraged, however. There is no such thing as a perfect athlete; you will beat them if you can find their weaknesses.”
Xenophon nodded. “Then with your permission, My Lady, we shall return to our training.”
“You have my permission and my blessing, Captain. As the leader of this squad, you shall attend on me after the ceremonies tonight; I hope to have more information on the Hounds by then.”
As the Jaffa returned to their exercises, Sisiphon went over to Acastus. “You are another unknown quantity, my friend,” he said. “Young and untried, but many people consider you a threat to the favourites.”
Acastus smiled. “Thank you, Sisiphon.”
“I am not merely seeking to boost your ego, but to warn you, Acastus. You will be watched by many eyes. Aside from the Hounds, only one athlete is entered for so many events as you; a servant of Dionysus named Moera.”
“A Maenad?” Acastus asked, warily. He had heard enough stories of Dionysus’ wild women to fear an encounter with one. They were said to be savage, feral creatures with wanton, insatiable appetites. If the tales were true, they were peerless lovers, but they fed on their luckless paramours, gorging on warm human – or Jaffa – flesh, purely for pleasure.
“You know that a Maenad would not even be allowed in the stadium, let alone to be entered in the games. However, I did catch sight of this Moera and she is as close to a Maenad as you and I are ever likely to see. I do not think that she is your match, but there is some bestial power about her. Beware.”
“I suppose that I will have to encounter her,” Acastus mused.
“It would be hard not to meet her at some point. She is competing in every event that you are.”
*
That night, during the ritual sacrifices to Zeus, Cronus and the Muses, Poseidon’s squad sized up the opposition. There were two hundred and eighty-three competitors, of all shapes and sizes, but all eyes were drawn, first and foremost, to the three hounds. As Sisiphon had told them, Cerberus, Orthon and Gargittios were huge; Orthon, the largest of the three, was well over seven feet tall. There were others there worth taking note of, however, from the champions Ephialtes and Dardanus to newcomers like Tithonus and Latona.
As was usual, there were few female athletes present, with only Artemis – who never entered a male Jaffa for the games – entering more than one woman. This was something of a relief to Acastus, who understood that every man here was skilled, but that a woman who found her way to the Olympiad must be truly exceptional. He was not blasé, however; not only would his male opponents provide challenge enough, there was at least one female present who was his nearest rival; and possibly a cannibal.
At last, Acastus managed to find his way to a position from which he could see Dionysus’ squad around the edge of the ritual bonfire. It was considered acceptable for Jaffa competitors to conduct the rites of their own gods in this opening ceremony, but the behaviour of the Dionysians bordered on the blasphemous. The rites were notionally a solemn event, but these Jaffa danced wildly about a smaller fire, clutching each other close and working themselves into an ecstatic frenzy. He had heard many rumours about the Dionysian Jaffa; that they revelled in the flesh far more than a Jaffa should, and that they treated death as so much a part of life that they paid it no mind.
In the heart of the squad of nine Jaffa, a lone woman danced, throwing her body against those of her comrades with crazed abandon, and Acastus could see what Sisiphon had meant about her. Her pale, amber eyes were wide and wild, her long hair a tangled mane and her handsome features were set into a kind of bestial snarl. In the light of the ritual fires, her olive skin glowed through the long, ragged holes that had been torn – by her hands or another’s – in her once-demure robe. She was more like an animal than a Jaffa, and yet…there was an undeniable presence about Moera; a sensuality that Acastus found fascinating, in spite of himself.
It was only when the woman suddenly stopped dancing and turned her fiercely flashing eyes on him that Acastus realised that he had been staring. He tried to look away, but her gaze seemed to hold him paralysed.
“Someone seems quite taken with you,” Atalanta noted. She was standing at Acastus’ shoulder and he knew that he must truly have been distracted not to have noticed her approach.
He broke away from Moera’s lantern gaze. He felt weary to the depths of his soul and Moera’s interest in him did little to refresh him. Aware that his bleak thoughts were out of place, he forced himself to grin impudently when he turned to his friend. “Many seem taken with you.”
He regretted the quip at once, for Atalanta seemed rather subdued by the suggestion. “It is almost as though they do not see a warrior in me.”
“That will change,” Acastus assured her.
Atalanta shrugged and then sought solace in teasing her comrade. “She is still staring at you.”
Reluctantly, Acastus let his gaze be drawn back to Moera’s. “She is my arch-rival, it seems.”
One of Dionysus’ other Jaffa put his arms around Moera from behind, one hand clutching her hip and the other cupping her breast through the torn robe. Acastus expected the woman to repulse the man, perhaps violently, and he was shocked by the twist of anger that seized him when instead she leaned back into his arms. The Dionysian Jaffa were infamous for their scandalous abandon; it seemed that their reputation was not undeserved.
“Ignore her,” Atalanta advised, as Moera and her lover spun back into the whirling Bacchanal. “Either that or find the girl and bed her; you’re a free man, after all and she doesn’t look like one to stand on propriety.”
The back of Acastus’ neck flushed red. “Somehow, I do not think that I would be best advised to sneak into the Dionysian barracks.”
“Such things can be done,” Atalanta shrugged. “I did manage to meet my husband when he was a warrior in an enemy camp.”
“Yes, Atalanta,” Acastus sighed, having heard the story a dozen times before, “and I appreciate the benefits of your experience, but I believe that I will resist the urge.”
“As you wish, although such restraint can be unhealthy. Do you have a lover, Acastus? I have never asked.”
“I do not.”
“That’s odd, don’t you think? Most young men and women have a lover; even if you are not taken with one of your male comrades have none of the girls who swoon over you caught your eye?”
“It would be wrong to…”
“Your mother could hardly disapprove, and you know better than your brother how to avoid accidents.”
“Atalanta, please do not press this.”
The warrior-woman sighed. “As you wish. I suppose that I just worry about you. You are like a brother to me, Acastus; you know that.”
“And you are quite as annoying as any of my sisters,” he assured her, “with the added aggravation that you are older and wiser than I, instead of just believing that you are.”
“Well, you may be right not to dwell on matters of romance,” Atalanta conceded, as one or other of the Hounds crossed her line of sight; Orthon, she thought, although they all looked alike to her. “The woman may be a challenger, but so are those things, and I wager we shall have more trouble from them.”
“I shall not take that wager. I can scarcely believe that anything so brutal would be allowed to compete in honourable competition.”
“Only true Jaffa treat the games with honour; our sponsors merely wish us to win. We can only hope that with all of the effort put into breeding them so big, the Hounds’ creators were too arrogant to train them properly.”
Over by the sacrificial fires, the high priest of Hades slaughtered the last of the mighty oxen chosen for the occasion. The hot blood of the beast steamed and hissed as it sprayed across the bonfire and a hundred trumpets blared, signalling the end of the rites of sacrifice and the beginning of the inaugural feast. Without pause, the Dionysians fell upon the charred carcasses of their sacrificial beasts, hauling them from the fires and tearing the hot flesh with their fingers and teeth.
“I shall retire soon,” Acastus decided, turning his face from the scene. “I do not wish to run the double stadion weighed down with heavy food.”
“Agreed; but let us not run on an empty stomach, either.”
*
Acastus wandered slowly around the grounds of Poseidon’s barracks, gazing up at the stars. He had spent three hours in kelno’reem, but the dreamless release of sleep eluded him still. He enjoyed stargazing in Akrotiri and it always helped him to relax, but here the constellations were unfamiliar and uncomforting.
His reverie was broken by the sound of someone climbing – with a fair attempt at stealth – up the wall around the barracks. Unarmed, Acastus chose to melt into the shadows rather than meet the intruder head on. He crouched in the darkness and felt for a suitable rock. The largest he could find was only the size of a child’s fist and so, with a silent curse against all landscape gardeners, he palmed it to add weight to his own punch.
Acastus heard the intruder pause at the top of the wall and then, with catlike grace, she dropped to the ground. She wore a simple robe and long, wild hair flowed out behind her as she fell. She crouched on the turf, sniffing the air; it was her feral grace that gave her away.
“Moera?” Acastus asked, his surprise overriding his caution.
The woman spun to face him and took a step backwards, flexing her fingers like claws. Her lips parted in a savage snarl, but as her luminous eyes fell upon him her mouth curled into a kind of smile. Acastus wondered if what the woman could be doing here. Had she come to try and disable the competition, or was she doing as Atalanta had suggested he do? The latter seemed unlikely, as she seemed able to find such distraction in her own barracks.
“You know me?” she asked, tilting her head on one side.
“I know your name. I am Acastus of Halicarnasus.”
“Yes. I came for you.” The woman’s words could be taken more than one way and her tone gave little away.
“Why have you come for me? You know that you have earned death just for setting foot in this compound under the rule of the Eirene.”
“Only if you speak of it. And I came because I knew that you would not.” She took a step towards him, her entire body rolling with the motion and her voice dropping to a sensual purr. “I saw how you looked at me, Acastus.”
“Your presence flatters me, then.”
“You speak cleverly and prettily. I have little time for words, however,” she added, taking another rolling step.
“I…I regret that I can offer you nothing else,” Acastus said, although it was not easy to say. This close to her, he felt an instant connection between them; almost overwhelming and entirely sexual. She radiated a fierce, demanding vitality that was difficult to resist. And yet, he knew nothing about her except that he wanted her as he had never wanted a woman before; not even…
Bitter memory helped him, but it still took all of his strength to fight his desire.
Moera’s eyes narrowed. “You would reject me?” she hissed.
“Never,” Acastus assured her, certain that any other answer would invite a sudden and painful death. “However, neither of us – myself in particular – would compete at our best if we were to expend so much energy the night before the games began. I would not wish to give you poor sport in the morning.”
Moera gave a sharp laugh. “Pretty words, but I will test them, be assured. After the tournament, perhaps?”
Acastus bowed, although he never took his eyes off the woman. “It would be my honour.”
“I shall see you on the field tomorrow. As you save your strength tonight, I expect great things from you.”
“I shall endeavour not to disappoint.”
Moera stepped close and brushed her lips against his, the touch sending a shudder through his whole body; she growled and he almost echoed the sound. She stepped away, grinned at him and then ran to the wall, scrambled up the ivy and disappeared into the night. She left Acastus feeling dazed and confused, and not a little intimidated. She was strong, fast and agile and would be difficult to beat.
As he made his way back towards the barracks, he wondered if he could defeat such a natural athlete. After a few moments, his thoughts turned to how he could safely break his assignation with this deadly female. After a few minutes more, he began to question whether he should try to do so. Atalanta and Helena were right; it was unusual for a man of his age not to have taken a lover. Perhaps it was time that he gave in to temptation, even if Moera would not be the only love of his life.
*
Day 2 – The double-stadion and the melee shooting
Poseidon’s Jaffa were over-represented in the double-stadion. Four of the thirty-one competitors in this least of events ran in the Sea God’s name. Acastus flexed his muscles to loosen them and cursed the long, loose tunic that threatened to tangle his legs. He had trained naked and in armour, but never in anything quite like the traditional garb of the Olympios, adopted over nudity following the debacle at the three hundred and third Olympiad, when the Maenads made their memorable first – and only – appearance.
The competitors assembled on the starting line and ranged themselves out. This would be a straightforward race from the southern end of the two-hundred pace track to the northern and back again. There was enough space on the track for the runners to go more-or-less abreast on the straight, but it was at the turn that there would be trouble. At the far end of the track, the runners would be bunched together, some running one way, the others already running back; a perfect opportunity for the trailing runners to take a swipe at the leaders. Because of this, Acastus was particularly concerned to see that the draw had placed him between Cerberus and a burly Cryoguard who proved to be Amadines, the Jaffa named by Iphigenia as a strong contended in the fighting events.
Moera, favourably placed at one end of the line, shot Acastus a lascivious wink that did nothing to help him focus on the race. Cerberus looked down at the young Gorgon and gave a broad grin, exposing teeth that had been filed to ragged points.
The athletes turned from each other and focused all of their attention on the far end of the track as the air in front of them crackled with power. The energy shield enforced fair play and ensured that false starts were rare; if an athlete began before the signal, he would strike the shield and rebound with ten times the force of the impact. Although he knew that this event was of little importance, Acastus felt his mouth grow dry as he waited for the signal. His palms were sweating with anticipation and he rubbed them together, as though by removing the sweat he could remove the sense of growing anxiety.
“Let the athletes be ruled by their oaths!” The voice of Lady Melpomene boomed out, speaking the words of the ritual caution. Her gallery was behind them, but her words were amplified and broadcast from the entire perimeter of the stadium. “The athletes will stand at their marks!”
As one, the athletes took a step forward, placing one foot on the starting line. Acastus felt the hair on his toes stand on end as they drew close to the shield.
“The athletes will take their stance!”
The Jaffa dropped into thirty-one slightly different starting positions. Acastus favoured a standing start for the double stadion and Cerberus apparently felt the same, but Amadines crouched low, bending his weight over his forward foot until his head almost touched the energy shield.
A mighty cacophony of horns arose and the race began; the air shimmered as thirty-one bodies broke through the dissipating shield.
Amadines had a good start from his crouch, tearing through the first hundred paces, but he soon began to flag. As Acastus had expected, the Cryoguard was trying to run the race as a sprint, but he lacked the endurance to maintain such a pace for so long. Acastus felt that he was doing well, but away to his right he saw that Atalanta was well ahead of him and Nimeus, on the far side of Cerberus, was matching her. Cerberus himself began slowly, but he simply never stopped accelerating. He soon drew level with Acastus and passed him, powering forward, past Nimeus, growing faster and faster until Acastus could not believe he would be able to stop at the line.
He was right. Cerberus skidded to a halt several paces beyond the line, losing vital yards as he turned. He crossed the line running back just as Nimeus began his turn and for a moment the two were right on top of one another. As Cerberus accelerated past the Taurus Guard, he snapped up his elbow and caught the smaller Jaffa square in the face, knocking him flat.
As Acastus sped towards him, Cerberus raised his other elbow. Forewarned, however, Acastus pitched his momentum into a diving roll under the blow. He tumbled to a halt on the line and took off after Cerberus, noting with some satisfaction that the Hound had staggered when his treacherous attack failed to connect. Despite this, the big Jaffa was impossible to catch. As before, he did not flag; he simply gained speed until he reached the line and this time he did not stop until he reached the stadium wall and braced himself with his hands.
For a moment, it looked as though the Muse’s guards might actually shoot the Hound. It was clear that he had no intention of trying to scale the wall and attack Lady Melpomene, however, and so the staff weapons were lowered. Cerberus looked up to the gallery and gave a mocking laugh.
Acastus saw little of this, for as soon as he had crossed the line he jogged to a halt and then turned to walk back towards Nimeus. His fallen comrade lay very still, although his chest still rose and fell, and Sisiphon crouched over him.
“Furies, those Hounds are fast,” Atalanta gasped, walking over and leaning on Acastus’ shoulder for support.
Acastus slowed. “You ran well,” he told her.
“Not well enough; I know that.”
“Who won?”
“I do not know. We shall have to wait on the Muse’s decision.”
This was always the case in the Olympiad, of course. Olive wreaths were awarded at the discretion of the officiating Muse or Muses; as a matter of strict technicality actually winning the event was unimportant. Fortunately for Atalanta, if not for Acastus, the Muses were not permitted by the Olympiad’s sponsors to merely indulge their whims and reward their favourites and the only true discretion permitted to them was to disqualify those who displeased them or who breached the rules of the tournament.
The trumpets blared, and the two Gorgons turned to listen to the announcements.
“The athlete who attained third place in the double stadion,” Melpomene announced, “is Atalanta of Stymphalia!”
“Congratulations,” Acastus said. Atalanta smiled, but third place brought no glory, however good the run.
“The athlete who attained second place in the double stadion is Cerberus of Iolchus!”
Atalanta could not suppress a flash of satisfaction that Cerberus had not won the event.
“The victor of the double stadion is Moera of Phrygia!”
Acastus turned to look for the feral woman, only to find her grinning at his shoulder.
“You proved poor sport after all,” she teased. “I hope to find you still save your energies.” She darted forward and kissed him on the lips and then bestowed a similar kiss on Atalanta before jogging away to the waiting embraces of her jubilant squad. Acastus looked away, not wishing to see the other Dionysians greet her.
Atalanta raised an eyebrow.
“Do not ask,” Acastus told her. “If you love me, do not ask.”
“As you wish.”
The two Gorgons turned back towards Sisiphon and Nimeus and Acastus felt a chill in his blood. Nimeus’ breathing was much harder to see now and Sisiphon’s pose was one of great concern.
“He is drifting in and out of consciousness,” Sisiphon explained.
Atalanta nodded. “We’ll return him to the barracks. I can take his legs and…”
“No,” Sisiphon whispered.
“Sisiphon?”
“It…It is of no matter now.” He reached down and gently closed Nimeus’ eyes.
“Still, we can not mourn him here. We can…”
“It is alright!” Sisiphon snapped. “The need for care is passed; he can not be hurt any more. I will take him.” He gently gathered the other man into his arms and stood.
Acastus and Atalanta watched in surprise as Sisiphon struggled away.
“I had no idea,” Atalanta sighed. “Pity Sisiphon.”
“Pity Nimeus,” Acastus said darkly. “That was nothing short of murder, Atalanta, and the hound would have done the same to me if he could.”
“Thank the Fates that you were too quick for that.”
“Too slow,” Acastus corrected. “I knew what he planned because Nimeus reached that fate first.”
Atalanta took his arm. “Come, my friend; I’ve no stomach for jubilation.”
Acastus nodded his agreement. “It is an ill-starred beginning to the contest. I fear that this Olympiad will be bloody.”
*
Nimeus’ death bred great anger in Poseidon’s barracks, especially when word reached the athletes that Cerberus would receive no more than a warning for his actions, by order of Lord Hades in person. They knew that the Lady Mentor would lodge an appeal for the Muse to override the host’s cautious sentence, but the killer was Zeus’ man and even the Muses could not cross him with impunity.
“We must focus, however,” Xenophon told his squad. “We know now where the true danger lies, but our duty has not changed. We must be wary of these Hounds of Zeus, but we have come to give our all in competition. For Nimeus’ sake, we must thwart the Hounds by triumphing over them.”
There was a murmur of angry agreement from the squad.
“If I get the chance…” Sisiphon growled.
“Control yourself,” Atalanta hissed. “If you tangle with Cerberus in anger, he will crush you!”
“And the squad will be cast out in order to placate Lord Zeus,” Xenophon added. “There is a time and a place for revenge and it is not here and it is not now.”
Sisiphon fumed, but in silence.
“Now; let those of us engaged in the melee shooting prepare,” Xenophon commanded. “And for the Furies’ sake, watch your backs! I do not wish to bury any more friends at this Olympiad.”
*
Of course, the
melee shooting match was in
many ways a fatal accident simply waiting to happen. The competitors in
this
event – almost one hundred and sixty of them –
stood in a great loop in the
stadium, facing the ring of holographic projectors from which the
targets, some
static and some mobile, would be projected. When the match began, the
targets
would appear and disappear, twisting and leaping around the ring. Any
Force fields protected the stands where the sponsors and their guests sat. No such precautions existed for the athletes. Injury was common in the melee; death was not unusual.
The voice of the Muse boomed out. “Let the athletes be ruled by their oaths!”
To Acastus’ great relief, he was placed nowhere near to any of Zeus’ warriors and neither was Atalanta. He did find himself standing right beside Moera, however, and struggled not to let himself become distracted as they waited.
The Muse laid out the rules of the event: “The match will be marked by three blasts of the horn. Athletes will begin firing at the sound of the first horn; a second horn will signal the end of the match and athletes will cease fire immediately. No points will be scored after the second horn and any shot fired after the third horn sounds will result in disqualification from the event. The athletes will arm their staffs!”
The hiss and thump as one hundred and sixty staff weapons snapped open in unison was almost deafening. Acastus felt his scalp prickle as the simultaneous opening discharges unleashed a massive electromagnetic surge.
“Fates guide your hand, Jaffa,” Acastus whispered.
“And to where would you have it guided?” Moera asked.
> Startled, Acastus could not help glancing at Moera. Her eyes remained fixed above the targeting ring, however, and Acastus cursed himself for a fool as the horns blared out for the start of the match.
As he turned back, Acastus saw a static target, a simple set of concentric circles, appear from the ring. His staff blast hit the target dead on, but he was sure that at least two other Jaffa had beaten him to it. A second target – a springing deer – leaped up and this time Acastus scored the first hit, taking it in mid flight while Moera timed her shot for the apex of the leap.
After that, it was impossible to track the scoring. The targets – game animals, enemy warriors and even death gliders – came thick and fast and all that Acastus had time to do was react, fire, and scan for the next target. Instinct took over and it seemed only moments before the second horn blast signalled the end of the match. The targets kept leaping, but Acastus snapped his staff weapon closed at once. Many of the competitors kept firing, apparently not having heard the horns; fourteen warriors suffered a disqualification for this excessive zeal, and Melpomene called their names out before announcing the winners. One of Poseidon’s warriors – Polydeuces of Corinthos – was included on that list and was now due for a very ill-tempered lecture from Xenophon.
Acastus looked around as the disgraced shooters left the arena; they could count themselves lucky to be able to depart. The ground was littered with injured Jaffa; it seemed as though about one in ten of the athletes had been badly hit. Acastus had passed through the match unscathed, most likely because he was not considered a serious contender, but his feelings regarding Moera’s similar good luck were complicated and mixed. It might have made his life easier if she had been injured, but he was pleased that she was unhurt.
Acastus closed his eyes and murmured a benediction for the dead. He opened them again and saw Moera watching him with some bemusement; it seemed that the Dionysian reputation for disregarding death was well earned.
The voice of the Muse boomed out. “Aetes of Tyres is disqualified from the Olympiad for the deliberate shooting of Orthon of Iolchus!”
“Poor shooting,” Moera muttered as Aetes – a Raven Guard with sinister, hooded eyes – was led away. “Orthon isn’t dead. But yours was fine shooting,” she commended. “You have a sure hand.”
Acastus smiled. “I fear we have suffered from being placed so close. I am sure that you stole as many kills from me as I did from you. We might have had an easier time beside a less skilled warrior.”
“But where would be the pleasure in it?”
Servants from the various barracks came to collect their wounded; half-a-dozen Jaffa were not moving as they were taken away, but one was roaring in pain and rage. Orthon had suffered a blast to the shoulder, but did not seem greatly disabled.
The Muse spoke again. “The athlete who attained third place in the shooting match is Tithonus of Kyprios!”
“Not just a pretty face,” Moera purred, casting a smouldering glance towards the slim, beautiful young warrior.
“You do know how to make a man feel special,” Acastus noted.
Moera gave a deep, throaty chuckle and stroked Acastus’ arm. “Do not take it so. My interest in him does not end my interest in you.”
Acastus swallowed hard, trying not to show how hard that had hit him, but he was so shaken by her matter-of-factness that he missed the next announcement.
“Congratulations,” Moera said, squeezing his bicep.
“What?”
“Second place is nothing to shrug off.”
“Second…?” Acastus was rattled to think how distracted he must have been to miss that.
“Acastus!” Atalanta ran up and hugged him tight. “Fine shooting, my friend! Fine shooting indeed.”
“The victor of the shooting match is Atalanta of Stymphalia!” the Muse declared.
Atalanta looked thunderstruck. “Furies!” she gasped.
Acastus clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Chel’mok, Atalanta!”
“Many congratulations,” Moera added, brushing her fingers against the skin of Atalanta’s arm.
Atalanta took a step away from the Dionysian. “I think one of yours was killed,” she said coolly.
“Who?” Moera asked calmly.
“Anaster
of
Moera merely nodded once. “He will live on through his children.”
“You did not know him well?”
“He was my brother. Congratulations to you both; I must help to bear him.”
*
Day 3 – the throwing event, static shooting and the Festival of Zeus
“This is…weak,” Atalanta accused. “I realise that thrown weapons are not a major part of the machinery of modern warfare, but these fools barely seem to have trained.”
“Some of them are quite skilled,” Acastus replied distractedly, although he had barely glanced at the competition. His mind was quite absorbed by his own dark thoughts.
In the arena below them, one of Ares’ Cryoguards cast a javelin into the centre of the target. The Gorgons did not know the man’s name, but he soon would; there could be no doubt that he would win this match. The three Hounds were terrible, their presence in the throwing event an embarrassment to their master. They had not scored a single gold strike between them, although they threw with such power that they had broken seven target butts.
“The Ram has some ability, but no more than I do. You could defeat these champions easily, even on your worst day. Why are you not entered in this event?”
“Partly because I felt that six events is enough for a mere mortal like myself.”
“Perhaps a fair point, but this would not have taxed you.”
“This was the one event that I thought might not break my back, but Primus Meriope asked that I not consider an entry. She suggested to me that we should not display overmuch the extent of our training; in particular, she wishes the accuracy with which the Gorgons can engage with thrown weapons to remain as a surprise for any who might think to take us unprepared.”
Atalanta chuckled. “I sometimes think that Primus Meriope is too subtle for her own good.”
“I know that she is more subtle than I; for the rest, I put my faith in her.”
Acastus turned away from the arena and leaned back against the statue of Megaera. It was almost blasphemous for them to have climbed up to the platform where the statues of the Erinyes stood, but the air was clearer here and they knew that there would be no punishment; however much they might revere these mythical figures, the Goa’uld would never openly accord them sacrosanct status. Besides, if they had truly wished to keep people away, they would have guarded the stairs up to the platform, rather than simply concealing them.
“I do not think that I understand Moera,” Acastus sighed.
Atalanta chuckled. “Oh, my young friend; if any man ever understood a woman…”
“Does Leias not understand you?”
“I should hope not! The joy of my marriage would be in great jeopardy if Leias knew all that I thought and I am certain that he has thoughts that I do not want to know.”
“How can that be?”
“Well, I am certain that Leias neither needs nor wants to know how close I came to accepting Metrocles’ proposition.”
“Metrocles?” Acastus asked, confused.
“Oceanus’ champion swimmer,” Atalanta explained.
“He asked…But you are a married woman, Atalanta!”
“I know that; that is why I refused his offer, however tempting it might have been.”
“Tempting?”
Atalanta sighed. “He does have an exceptional body.”
“Atalanta!”
“I don’t know what you have to be upset about,” she challenged. “You’re not my husband.”
Acastus looked away from her, unable to meet her eyes.
“Acastus?”
“I do not like the thought of you breaking your vows,” he sighed. “I do not like the thought of uncovering any flaw in you.”
“I am flawed,” she assured him in a quiet voice.
Acastus took her hand and squeezed it gently. “I’m sorry, old friend. It was not my intention to lecture. I am sorry that you had to face that.”
“I expected it.”
“You did?”
“When I was put forward for the Olympiad, I was told that many athletes see the games as a chance to take a lover without fear of attachment or consequence. It seems that this is indeed the case.”
Acastus was shocked. “Who told you that?”
“Ilena, of course. Even among the Gorgons, few Jaffa are Olympians. For two from the same battalion, let alone company, to attend the same event is almost unheard of.”
“And you think that this is what Moera is seeking from me?”
“A lover without consequence? I do not think that she has much difficulty finding those at home. No; she wants something else, although I know not what. You should be wary of her, Acastus.”
“I am,” he promised, with a sigh. “I know that she has not set her aim on me alone.”
“And?”
“And…I do not know,” Acastus admitted. “She is very attractive, but… She is not what I want; not what I have sought.”
Atalanta shrugged. “Well, you would certainly not be the only one to seek such a release here. I think it likely that you would find it only once with Moera, however. Be prepared for that, won’t you?”
“That is my difficulty. I am not sure that is something that I could prepare for.”
“Then do not take her.”
“I am not sure that I can safely do that, either. I do not think that Moera would take rejection well. Has any man ever faced such a dilemma?”
“Yes,” Atalanta assured him. “But if you do decide to risk her embrace, I suggest you do so the day after tomorrow. You will have no events for two days after the pentathlon and that should give you time to recover your strength.”
“You think my need could be so great?” Acastus laughed.
“I am sure of it. That is a very energetic girl, Acastus and one who will take some satisfying.”
Acastus smiled. “And Metrocles?”
“Will no doubt find another to provide that which he seeks. He is a most handsome young Jaffa and I seem to be almost unique among athletes in holding to my vows. Perhaps Primus Meriope’s example has inspired me.”
There were four great festivals held during the Olympiad, honouring the highest lords of the competing factions, the Moirae who watched over the tournament and the Muses who controlled it. The first of the four was the Festival of Zeus, a collective rite of sacrifice and accord intended to cement the Eirene Olympus. Each squad would offer their own sacrifices to Mighty Lord Zeus, before assembling with their masters at the bonfire lit by Zeus’ own athletes to exchange gifts with the other squads and sponsors in a gesture of good faith.
As Poseidon’s squad received their gifts, each was passed to Mentor’s nymph, Iphigenia. The nymph’s dress was a masterpiece of sartorial and electronic engineering: it was not only a shimmering silken sheath that showed off her figure to dazzling effect, but also incorporated a complicated web of sensors and detectors which scanned each gift for monitoring devices, explosives and other booby traps. To refuse the gifts would have been an unthinkable insult; to accept them without precaution, nothing short of folly. Lady Mentor had chosen two of the Jaffa – Acastus and Xenophon – to act as a ceremonial guard: as the only member of the squad to win an event so far, Atalanta had been entrusted with the honour of presenting the squad’s gifts to the other sponsors.
Iphigenia passed an exquisitely crafted blade to Xenophon. She tapped a finger against the corner of her eye, the signal to place Lord Hephaestus’ gift with the other items which had been found to contain monitoring devices.
“The devil of it is that the items that we most want to remove from our presence are just the ones that we can not dump because the givers would know,” Acastus muttered.
Iphigenia laughed. “Ah, but how could they confront us without admitting to the discourtesy of placing the surveillance devices in the first place?” she asked. She flashed the two warriors a dazzling smile and then turned to receive the next gift.
Dionysus’ squad was represented by their captain, Kanos of Nysa, the man whom Acastus had seen embracing Moera at the first ritual sacrifice. Kanos carried nothing, but he led a woman by the hand. He wore an expression of embarrassment that seemed uncharacteristic for Dionysus’ Jaffa. The woman was petite and athletic, with a striking face, long dark hair and blurry, drugged eyes.
“Lady Mentor,” the man said, pushing the woman forward. “I present to you this gift from my master, Lord Dionysus.”
Mentor inclined her head. “We thank you, Master Kanos,” she replied formally, gesturing for Iphigenia to come and take the woman’s hand. “And our gratitude to your master; Lord Dionysus is truly generous to his allies.” As Kanos walked away, she turned to regard the drugged girl. “And what am I to do with this?” she wondered aloud.
“I think I can guess what Dionysus had in mind,” Iphigenia remarked. She was curiously outspoken for a nymph, but Mentor seemed to tolerate it.
“I have heard it rumoured that Lord Minos was to represent Great Lord Poseidon,” Xenophon remarked. “It may be that Dionysus expected as much.”
“Perhaps so,” Mentor agreed. “Iphigenia?”
Iphigenia ran a hand around the woman’s silhouette. “She is untainted, save by the sedatives,” the nymph replied. “You do not suppose that she would be violent without them?”
“I doubt even Dionysus would risk so direct and traceable an assault,” Mentor replied, “and this is no Maenad. But we should be cautious; I shall watch her. Come here, girl.” She held out an arm and the woman obediently moved to her side. At a gentle touch she slumped wearily to the ground and leaned her head against the Goa’uld’s hip. As the next athlete approached with his gift, Mentor dropped her hand to stroke the woman’s head.
“She is quite sweet, really,” Mentor noted.
“Not the word I should choose,” Xenophon murmured, watching the curve of the woman’s back as she bent her body to Mentor’s leg like a sleepy kitten. Acastus refrained from cautioning Xenophon to keep his mind on his duty; no Jaffa liked to be lectured by his juniors.
Once the gift giving was completed, Mentor dispatched Acastus with Xenophon and Iphigenia to return her gifts to her quarters – and to secure the dangerous ones where they could do no harm. Acastus was sure that he detected an almost mischievous twinkle in her eyes when she entrusted Xenophon with the girl. Once they reached the precinct, Xenophon insisted that Iphigenia help him to put the young woman safely to bed.
“And you are leaving her on her own?” Iphigenia teased.
“I do not bed drugged women,” Xenophon replied sternly as he locked the door to the bedroom. He pressed the key into Iphigenia’s hand. “Just in case. A woman need not be altered to be a threat.”
“How true,” the nymph replied.
The three of them walked back to the ritual ground, where the sacrificial fires now blazed high. Iphigenia almost ran; she was clearly eager to return to the fires, or to one of the Jaffa whom they had left in their crimson light. Acastus could not have turned away from the flames. The Jaffa had begun to dance, feeling secure under the eyes of the Muse’s white-robed guards. The Goa’uld had withdrawn to their own celebrations, leaving their servants to their pleasures. There was even some mingling going on, with members of one squad starting to bleed into the others. As Atalanta had noted, many romances – or liaisons, at least – had sprung up between the athletes and many Jaffa had openly sought their lovers tonight. Some of the braver unattached men were even hovering around the Companions of Artemis, an act akin to a moth fluttering around a fire, for it was death to touch one of the Huntresses.
It was of course dangerous to put yourself among any of the enemy, but the appeal was undeniable and Acastus found himself drifting towards Dionysus’ bonfire. Once more, the Dionysians had cast propriety to the winds, but this time a dozen or so of the other athletes had joined them. Acastus was pleased to see that Moera’s erstwhile lover, Kanos, was entwined with a man in the robes of Ares’ Cryoguard, but a moment later he saw Moera herself. She stood in front of Aphrodite’s runner, Tithonus, with one hand stroking his chest and the other resting on his hip. Tithonus was staring at her with a lazy smile on his face, his body angled hungrily towards her. As much as it hurt to realise that he had made no unique connection with Moera, Acastus felt greater anger to see how casually Tithonus accepted her interest, as though it were nothing of note.
Angry, hurt, and angry at himself for being hurt, Acastus turned away. His gaze fell on a slight figure standing in the shadows, staring as Acastus had been at Moera and Tithonus. Slowly, Acastus approached her.
“Mistress Iphigenia,” he said softly.
“Jaffa,” she replied. Her eyes shimmered with tears and burned with fury. “Will you escort me back to the precinct, please; I find I have no more stomach for celebration.”
“Of course, mistress,” he replied; he felt much the same himself.
He took Iphigenia’s arm and they walked back the way they had so recently come. Acastus recalled the spring in the nymph’s step as they approached the ritual ground; her feet were dragging now, but not from reluctance to leave.
Acastus released Iphigenia’s arm at the entrance to Lady Mentor’s sanctum, but she stayed by his side. “My chamber is quiet and secure,” she told him, apropos of nothing.
“I am sorry,” Acastus replied.
Iphigenia shrugged. “It is probably for the best. The Gods bless you, Jaffa.”
“And you, mistress.”
The nymph walked away and Acastus watched her go. His heart ached for her pain that was so like his own.
“You are a man of integrity.”
Acastus started at the sound of Lady Mentor’s voice, speaking at his shoulder. He had thought her dangerous before; now he wondered if even Captain Medusa could have challenged her.
“My lady.”
“You would have found her embrace more gentle than the Dionysian’s,” Mentor continued.
“It would have been bitter,” Acastus replied.
“Perhaps. I will protect you if the Dionysian seeks to make trouble, Jaffa. It is my duty to look to the health of the Jaffa who represent my Lord Poseidon and I will not allow a jealous athlete to interfere with my squad.”
“I thank you, my Lady.”
“On the other hand, you might do well to take a pragmatic view of this affair,” Lady Mentor added. “I am given to understand that you are seeking for one great love to complete your life.”
“I…yes, my Lady,” he admitted, surprised how much she knew. “My tal ma’te and her husband met while still very young. They had no lovers, no false starts, only the love that they still bear for one another. I envy…” He broke off, realising that of course a Goa’uld lady would not wish to hear his story.
“It is a state much to be desired,” Lady Mentor assured him, “but…Well, not to belittle your tal ma’te’s marriage, you may find that there are advantages to having lain with a woman such as Moera of Phrygia before meeting your one true love.”
Acastus blushed, uncomfortably. “I am not sure that I…”
“Oh,
you understand me well enough,
“You know of my Captain?” Acastus asked, feeling a swell of pride for his commander, who so often went unregarded, even by her direct superiors.
“Indeed. I have watched Captain Medusa with great interest ever since I became my Lord Poseidon’s right hand. She shows great promise; I should be a fool not to pay heed to her doings.”
Acastus bristled, angry at Lady Mentor’s implication. He knew his Captain despised her superiors, but she took too much pride in good service to ever betray them.
“Hmm,” Mentor purred.
“My Lady?”
“It is rare for a captain to inspire such loyalty. Lady Medusa must be extraordinary indeed.”
“You are most kind to say so, but my Captain bears no title of nobility,” Acastus noted boldly, half-expecting to be struck down for his temerity.
“Indeed?” Lady Mentor asked. “She has the right to do so; intriguing that she does not.” She stood a while in thought. “You may go, Jaffa,” she added after a long pause.
“Thank you, my Lady,” Acastus said.
*
Day 4 – the pentathlon and the long stadium race
The staff weapon had many strengths. It delivered a powerful blast at range, and was an effective close-combat weapon, granting the skilled user both reach and speed. One thing that it could not do, however, was be easily carried so as to leave the hands free. The two hundred and nine competitors in the Olympic pentathlon were required to carry their staff weapons from the start of the race to the finish, which was not too difficult during the riding and running stages of the race, but could prove difficult when attempting a one thousand pace swim against the slow but heavy current of the River Hippocrene. To meet this challenge the pentathletes had devised a number of carrying devices and hangers and Acastus had chosen to carry his staff in a long leather tube across his back.
“That will tangle you as you swim,” Moera cautioned; she herself wore no carrier at all.
“Perhaps,” he allowed, trying hard not to look at her.
Standing side-by-side, holding the reins of their horses, the two Jaffa surveyed what they could see of the competition. Acastus tried to banish the image of Moera and Tithonus from his mind and concentrate on the race, but it was not easy.
“A strong field,” Moera commented.
“Indeed,” Acastus agreed and his eyes sought those whom Iphigenia had named as the favourites.
He could see Metrocles a few places to his left; Atalanta’s would-be sweetheart was a broad-shouldered Jaffa with the powerful, sleek build of a born swimmer. He would be slower on land than many of his opponents, but he could build a good lead in the water and would emerge from the river less fatigued than most. Xenophon was beginning the race three ranks in front of Acastus. Dark and unsmiling, he stood next to a man who was his inverse image; Iason, Demeter’s captain, golden-haired and fair-skinned, but just as dour as Xenophon. He could not see the champion, Dardanus, now, but he had seen him earlier in the day. Dardanus had grey in his black hair and although he appeared supremely confidant his horse seemed far more anxious.
Acastus was not only a skilled rider, he also spent much of his free time in the stables of Akrotiri and knew horses well; as such, he found himself judging the field by the quality of their steeds. Without question the finest and most beautiful steed was a tall, strong, silver-haired mare who stood by the last of the favourites, the Huntress Latona. Latona herself was a woman of some beauty – Artemis chose her Companions on the basis of looks as well as skill and strength – and she stood with the haughty, dignified demeanour of a goddess.
“Do not waste your stares on her,” Moera suggested tartly. “The Companions of Artemis foreswear the company of all men.”
“So I have been told,” Acastus agreed, “although it might be better to look on one who has foresworn all men than on one who forswears none.”
Moera gave a low, throaty chuckle.
Acastus tightened his hand into a fist and turned his gaze from Latona and towards the three huge, chestnut geldings whose thankless task would be to carry the three Hounds of Zeus. “This will be ugly,” he mused.
“They are already ugly,” Moera replied. “And those I do foreswear.”
“You do have standards, then?”
“Very high standards,” Moera assured him. “This is an exceptional field from which to select, however.”
Acastus tried to focus on the relatively simple matter of the tournament. Two hundred Jaffa and as many horses made a great deal of noise; a blast of the horns was needed to call attention to the Muse before she spoke.
“Let the athletes be ruled by their oaths!” Melpomene declared, with more optimism than realism. If Cerberus would chance a killing blow in the stadium, he and his would not shrink from the chance to pare down the field once they were out of the sight of official witnesses.
“The athletes will stand ready!”
The Jaffa stood at the heads of their nervous horses, patting their noses and murmuring soothing words. They would not mount until the horns sounded, but the steeds could sense the tension in the atmosphere and they were growing skittish. Most of the riders had no idea how to soothe them and they were beginning to buck and paw at the ground.
Acastus stroked Ataxis’ mane and she stood calm and steadfast. The powerful roan knew and trusted her rider and she obeyed him without hesitation. When the starting horns sounded and Acastus swung himself onto her back, Ataxis was as steady as a rock, and with barely a touch of his feet she surged forward, dancing gracefully between the flashing, plunging hooves of the poor, panicked beasts of the other athletes. With barely a stumble, she broke from the pack and cantered along the open track towards the Hippocrene.
From the start there were only eight or nine riders in the running for the first stage, and of those only Iason and Latona were among the favourites. The leading horses ate up the five thousand paces to the river in almost no time at all. As they jumped down and ran for the water, the leaders had a good five-hundred pace lead on their pursuers.
Acastus swung the tube from his back and, as he reached the water, he paused to discard the baldric that had held it in place. He plunged into the current and began to swim, holding the watertight tube out in front of him with his left arm and swimming with powerful strokes of his legs and his right arm. Moera had been right to say that the straps would have tangled him in the water and so he had practiced for weeks in the river Lethe, which ran past Akrotiri to the sea, to master this particular swimming technique. He could now swim as swiftly with one arm as he had once done with two. He was glad that he had trained in a river instead of a pool, otherwise the current would have destroyed him.
Even with this practice, Acastus’ body was burning by the time he dragged himself out of the river at the landing stage and he was aware that many of the athletes had passed him in the water. He stumbled as he left the landing stage, but instead of forging on he let himself weave off the course and dropped into a crouch. As part of his training as a Gorgon he had learned to refresh himself by briefly slipping into a shallow state of kelno’reem and he did this now. He lost precious seconds as he crouched by the road, but the burning of his muscles eased. He rose with new strength in his limbs and set off at a run. Another dozen Jaffa passed him while he meditated, but in the first two hundred paces he had passed them again.
The pack spread out as they ran the five thousand paces from the landing stage to the Gauntlet, and as Acastus ducked and wove through the trees he often lost sight of all of his opponents. He could have been quite alone and he knew that this was the time when the Hounds or any other opportunist would strike. He was not very surprised, therefore, when the quiet of the wood was broken by a sharp cry.
The sound came from a rocky gully to the left of the track. Without thinking, Acastus turned from his course and ran along the top of this gully. He was well out of sight of the track when he saw the source of the scream. The Huntress, Latona, had been forced from the track and knocked down by one of the Hounds; Zeus’ thug stood over her with a bloody knife in his hand. Three other Jaffa already lay dead in the gully. Clearly the Hounds’ bid to dominate the games was moving to a new and even more deadly level.
Acastus did not hesitate; he took a two-handed grip at the firing end of his staff weapon and leaped down into the gully. The mace head of the weapon, a small, hard ball set with projecting knobs, slammed into the Hound’s skull with all of Acastus’ weight and strength behind it. With a soft grunt, the huge Jaffa – Orthon, Acastus thought; the largest of them – dropped to the ground. The knife dropped from his fingers and Latona swept it up; she took a stumbling step towards Orthon, but Acastus seized her arm before she could strike.
“Release me!” she cried.
“If you kill him, the blood will lie on your hands,” Acastus explained as calmly as he could. “Brute as he is, he is Zeus’ champion and the Great Lord will demand your life.”
“He has murdered three others here!” Latona protested.
Acastus clung to the struggling warrior-woman and clamped a hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out and attracting further attention. “And if you slay him, you will die for their murders also. Hades will not cross Zeus; not for your mistress and not over this. We will tell our mistresses, but we can not act alone and we can not act now.”
Slowly, Latona grew calm and Acastus released her.
“You speak wisely,” she said. “You show great sense for a man.”
“I had a good teacher. A woman.”
“Naturally.” A wry smile creased her lips. “You are right; we should leave this place. You must support me,” she added. “My leg is broken.”
Acastus was deeply impressed that the woman had stood for so long on a broken leg, although her endurance would not make its healing any easier. He could see now that her right leg was bent out of shape at the shin and so he offered his shoulder under her right arm and laid a supportive arm around her waist.
“Do not be too familiar, Jaffa,” Latona cautioned.
“I would not think of it,” Acastus promised, although the truth was that the moment she spoke he had become uncomfortably aware that the injured athlete was also a woman of remarkable beauty. He suspected – perhaps uncharitably – that this had been her purpose when she spoke, as much as to remind him that she was not for any man to touch.
“You may leave me here,” Latona announced, when they had hobbled across the course and into the rocks on the far side from the gully. “Return to the race with my best wishes; I shall heal as best I can here and then make my own way back to the arena.”
“As you wish, Mistress Latona.”
The Huntress blushed. “You shame me, Jaffa, for I do not know your name.”
“I am Acastus of Halicarnasus,” he replied.
Latona’s face wrinkled in displeasure. “You serve Minos?”
“I serve Medusa,” Acastus replied proudly. “I am a Gorgon.”
“Another woman?” Latona smiled again. “No wonder you are so wise. I have heard my mistress speak of Medusa; she sounds a worthy captain.”
“She is that.”
Latona nodded. “The Moirae be with you and your captain, Acastus of Halicarnasus,” she said. “Now go. Run hard.”
“Fates watch over you,” Acastus replied. He turned to go, but Latona called him back.
“Your staff weapon,” she said.
Acastus followed her pointing finger and saw that she shaft of his staff weapon was cracked. After all his efforts to keep the weapon dry, it would never fire again.
“You struck a mighty blow indeed,” Latona commended him. “I would be honoured if my valiant defender would bear my staff.” She held out her weapon; it was silver and the firing head was shaped in the form of the greyhound so beloved of Artemis.
With a bow, Acastus accepted, handing the Huntress his broken weapon in its place. Latona’s staff was lighter than he was used to, but a heavier counterweight in the mace head meant that the balance was excellent. “The honour is mine, Mistress Latona,” he assured her. “Fare you well.”
He turned and bounded down the rocks towards the course. Latona watched him go and then closed her eyes and slipped into kelno’reem.
Acastus pushed himself as hard as he could, and once more passed several opponents who must have been terribly confused – not to say frustrated – to see him overtake them a second time. Nevertheless, when he reached the deadly, tak-lined ravine that was the Gauntlet, there were six or seven Jaffa ahead of him. As many more had already been rendered unconscious by the takunitagaminiturintarons. At the far end of the ravine, the bulky shapes of Cerberus and Gargittios drew back their arms to throw their final spears. Moera was sprinting the final chain to the spear range.
Acastus hurled himself headlong into the Gauntlet. The rules of the fourth section of the pentathlon were quite specific: he had to make his way along the ravine, avoiding the incapacitating tak blasts; and he had to return fire and hit five of the automated weapons. His only hope of victory was that those ahead of him would miss all of their throws or be brought down by the taks. The former was actually quite likely, judging by what he had seen while watching the thrown weapon contest.
Ignoring everything else, Acastus rolled and sprang and jinked to avoid the tak blasts. He spun Latona’s slender staff in his hand and rocked the firing stud so that two plasma blasts stabbed out; two taks fell silent. He reached the end of the range as a third tak hissed and sparked into inaction and then rolled backwards, coming to his knees and snapping off two quick shots to complete the Gauntlet.
Behind him at the range, a horn blared; someone had won and he could only hope that it was Moera and not one of the Hounds. As he turned and charged for the range, a second blast announced that another athlete had struck the target. Acastus snatched up a javelin and threw; his aim was sure, but the horn blared a third time just before his throw struck home.
Once more, Acastus crouched and allowed himself a brief lapse into kelno’reem before he rose and approached Moera. The Dionysian’s face was red with effort and she breathed hard, her lips curled back from her teeth in a feral snarl.
“How went it?” Acastus asked.
“Cerberus struck the target first,” she fumed. “More by luck than by skill. I was only second. And what of you, Acastus? I was certain that you were ahead of me, but you seem determined to disappoint me.”
“I was delayed,” Acastus replied evasively. He might have elaborated, but the Muse was speaking from her gallery at the top of the ravine wall.
“The athlete Cerberus of Iolchus is disqualified from the pentathlon,” Melpomene announced. “This athlete is judged to have destroyed only four takunitagaminiturintarons during the passage of the Gauntlet and to have deliberately sought to impede another athlete.”
Acastus looked at Moera and smiled. She winked at him. Cerberus looked ready to shed blood.
“This being so, the athlete who attained third place in the pentathlon is Acastus of Halicarnasus.”
Moera kissed Acastus on the cheek; even having seen her with Tithonus, her touch made his blood boil in his veins.
“The athlete who attained second place in the pentathlon is Gargittios of Iolchus. The victor of the pentathlon is Moera of Phrygia.”
Acastus turned and returned Moera’s gesture, kissing her on the cheek.
“That is for third place,” she protested. Without ceremony, she took hold of Acastus’ hair and kissed him soundly on the mouth. Her mouth opened against his; her tongue parted his lips and her breath burned in his throat.
Acastus gasped in shock. “I…I must try harder next time.”
“In the games?” Moera asked, “or do you mean the next kiss?”
Acastus blushed. “Perhaps we should return to the stadium. I wish to see to my horse and besides, I must speak to Lady Mentor. I would not want Orthon to wake before she has a chance to discover him.”
“Discover Orthon?”
“I shall explain as we walk,” he promised.
Moera waited patiently while Acastus tended to Ataxis. By the time Acastus had made his report to Lady Mentor, Moera’s steed had been taken care of by one of her fellow athletes, but he was determined to see to the needs of his horse in person. Moera’s gaze rested heavily upon him while he worked, making it difficult to concentrate. Only once Ataxis was settled did Acastus turn towards the Dionysian; he was surprised to see her walking away. She turned at the stable door, however, and indicated with a smouldering gaze that he should follow her.
Moving quickly, she led him around behind the stables and back towards the Dionysian camp. Just as he was beginning to wonder if it might not be more sensible to turn back, Moera turned suddenly and disappeared into a hidden passage. Acastus followed and found himself at the foot of a staircase. He recognised this as the mirror of the passage and stair that he and Atalanta had climbed to reach the platform behind the statues of the Erinyes. He was therefore unsurprised when they emerged from the stairwell into the space behind the three Moirae.
Moera sat with her back against the statues. “You have never been with a woman before, have you?”
“I have not.”
“With a man?”
Acastus shook his head.
“Strange for such a healthy, handsome Jaffa,” she purred. She cocked her head to one side. “Is there something wrong with you?”
“You are as bad as Atalanta,” Acastus sighed. “No, there is nothing wrong with me. I simply wish to find one person to spend my life with, as my mentor did.”
“A worthy aim. And have you found such a person?”
He shook his head again, then stopped and nodded. Moera rose and put a finger on his cheek; it came away damp with his tears and she tasted the salt water with a stroke of her tongue. “She haunts you.”
“She…died badly.”
She stepped closer to him and kissed his cheeks, her tongue lapping at his tears. “Let her go,” she urged. “I will help you to be free of her.”
“I do not want to be free.”
“Then you will never find another,” she told him baldly. “Release her and your eyes will open,” she promised. “Give me what I want and I can give you what you need.”
Acastus swallowed hard. “I’m not sure…”
She kissed him again and leaned her body into his. “Then let me decide,” she said, her voice thick with desire and invitation.
“I will,” he agreed.
*
Atalanta made her way slowly back towards the barracks, feeling somewhat drained by her efforts. She had given the five-thousand pace race her all, but still the Hounds – or the two of them who ran – had charged away from her. She knew that this was her strongest event, but she would not even have managed to come in third had Orthon not been absent from the event.
Back in the barracks, she slumped onto her bunk. “Third place,” she sighed. There was no response. She hauled herself up and looked to Acastus’ bunk. It was empty. “Xenophon!” she called. “Xenophon? Where is Acastus?”
“How should I know?” the captain groused. “I barely saw him.” He shook his head. “It was a ghastly mess, though. The Hounds raced ahead on the cross country and then one of them waited to ambush the favourites. Orthon was found with the bodies of Iason, Dardanus and Thessalius.”
“Thessalius was not a favourite,” Atalanta gasped horrified. “Why would they kill him?”
“I believe that they mistook him for me,” Xenophon replied. “They killed him for me!”
“Then what became of you?”
Xenophon gave a bitter laugh. “I fell off my horse,” he snarled. “I fell far behind and, although I caught up in the end, I was struck down by the taks. That damned Cerberus took a swing at me,” he explained. “I avoided him, but not the tak.”
Atlanta forced her stiffened body to rise. She crossed to where Xenophon sat and laid a hand on his shoulder. “The Hound would have done you worse injury,” she assured him.
“I know. I am tempted to go with Sisiphon and murder them in their sleep.”
“You presume that they sleep,” Atalanta pointed out. “But what shall happen to Orthon now?”
“Lady Mentor and Lady Artemis found him with blood on his hands. He will be ejected from the competition and it is to be hoped that he may be executed by his master.”
Atalanta nodded in agreement. “And…Acastus?” she asked. “Is he unhurt?”
Xenophon gave a grunt of feigned disinterest. “I am sure that he is well. He avoided the taks and attained third place. He was last seen with the Dionysian slut who won the event; perhaps he is with her still,” he suggested with ill grace.
“I hope that he is not hurt,” she sighed.
Once more, Xenophon’s expression suggested that he could not care less where Acastus was, but he could not maintain the pose. “As do I,” he sighed.
Atalanta raised an eyebrow in inquiry.
“My concern is entirely selfish,” he assured her. “What he has done to earn such favour I do not know, but he has been summoned to attend Lady Artemis the evening after next. If he does not show up, I fear that the Great Huntress will make a eunuch of me.”
“And that would not please Iphegenia,” Atalanta teased, although her heart was filled with dread. “But what could Lady Artemis want from Acastus?”
Xenophon shrugged. “I know not, but I only hope that it is nothing too pleasant, for his sake. I do not truly believe that she eats those men who enjoy her favours, but I do know that they are never seen again.”
Atalanta shivered. Xenophon put a hand on her shoulder. “You are exhausted,” he noted.
“Weary, certainly. I had hoped that Acastus could attend to my aches and pains,” she sighed.
“Perhaps…I could do so?”
Atalanta gave Xenophon a searching look. “Perhaps you could,” she agreed. “Although I think that your need is greater than mine.”
Acastus finally dragged himself back to the barracks shortly before the evening meal, waking Atalanta from a pleasant sleep. She looked up at him and gave a teasing grin. “Were you beaten by your defeated foes, or is your rather tattered state a consequence of some more pleasant diversion?”
“I am not certain,” Acastus groaned.
Atalanta chuckled. “It serves you right for not being here when I returned. You caused me much anxiety, Acastus. Congratulations on attaining third place, however,” she said.
“And the same congratulations to you,” he replied. “You ran well, and I believe that Cerberus is weakening.”
“Not enough; but how did you see me?”
“I was on the platform behind the Fates,” he explained. “I watched you.”
“I am flattered that you found the time. Was this before or after you made love to the Maenad?” she asked tartly.
“During,” he replied. “And…in between.”
Atalanta sat up and stared at her friend with a kind of dawning horror on her features. “That is more than merely audacious,” she said. “I think it may well be blasphemy, as well as one of the most protracted bouts of lovemaking I have ever heard of outside of the more dubious claims of the God King himself.”
“It…had little to do with love,” Acastus assured her. “There was much passion, but my heart was empty. I felt no tenderness towards her.”
“Poor Moera.”
“She did not want my tenderness, certainly she showed me none in return. I wanted to feel something towards her, but it seemed that she would not allow it.”
“Do you regret it?”
“I do not know. She showed me…”
“Yes?” Atalanta’s tone was teasing, but her gaze was serious.
“I still do not understand women, but then I do not know how an uda’jeet functions.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“I do not know how a glider functions, but I can fly one.”
“Alright,” Atalanta chuckled. “Let us leave that analogy by the wayside, before I start to become offended,” she suggested. “You make it sound as though Moera was training you to please a woman.”
He nodded dumbly.
“Then happy is the woman that you wed, Acastus. You were already a good man, and now a skilled lover as well.” She shook her head in astonishment. “You have certainly had a more satisfying games than I,” she sighed.
“I am not so sure. And you at least have gained a victory.”
“There are victories,” she told him, “and there are victories.”
“That there are,” he agreed, “but this does not feel like one.”
*
Day 5 – the flat horse race, the chase and the Festival of Cronus
Exhausted from his various exertions, and from attending the sacrifices, Acastus was in no hurry to rise early the next day, but he was not to be allowed his rest.
“Up, sluggard!” Xenophon commanded.
“Why?” Acastus demanded.
With an easy stride, Lady Mentor moved up to stand alongside her squad captain. “I need you to take poor Thessalius’ place in the horse races,” she explained. “I would not ask, but I am afraid it is a matter of pride. Poseidon’s stables have always been the envy of the Empire and he demands that he be represented.”
Acastus stilled his head before it could begin to shake. “I ran Ataxis hard yesterday,” he said, making sure not to draw any conclusions from this statement.
“Of course,” Lady Mentor replied. “Ready yourself and join me in the stables.”
Acastus sighed and sat up.
In the stables, Acastus found Atalanta attending to the harnessing of a horse; a magnificent grey stallion with long legs and a tall, proud neck.
“Come,” Mentor commanded. “Come and greet your steed.”
Acastus advanced slowly and lifted his hand to touch the stallion’s nose. “He is splendid,” he whispered. “All due to Ataxis, but I have never seen such a horse.”
Mentor advanced and twisted her hand in the stallion’s mane. “He is called Boreas, for he is as swift as the wind.” Boreas turned his head and she leaned close to let him nuzzle her face. “He is among the finest that my stables have ever produced.”
Acastus inclined his head in acknowledgement of the honour that she did him.
“Lethe,” Mentor called, and a young woman led out another horse. Acastus hardly recognised her as the slave given to Lady Mentor by Dionysus’ squad. Free from the drugs that had bound her, Lethe had a beautiful, lively face and she moved with a vigour that was matched by the steed at her side. The white mare was not as proud as Boreas, but she had a joyful, tripping step that made Acastus love her at once.
“And this is Megaera,” Mentor announced. “Do not let her playful air fool you, Jaffa; she is as contrary as a king.”
“Megaera?” Acastus asked. He had never heard a horse named for one of the Furies before. He approached the mare cautiously and laid a hand on her nose. The mare skittered nervously and tried to bite him, but he stepped in quickly and caught her ear in a gentle grip. He put his mouth next to her head and whispered: “I like your name.” The horse danced from side to side for a moment, then grew still.
“You are honoured,” Mentor assured him with a laugh. “Megaera likes you. That is good, for you are to ride her in the chase. Now, you must take Boreas out to the arena for the sprint.”
“Yes, my lady.” Acastus patted Megaera’s nose, bowed low to Lady Mentor and then took Boreas’ bridle from Atalanta. Megaera whickered jealously, but Lethe stroked the mare’s neck and she grew calm.
“Furies ride with you, my friend,” Atalanta said. “And thank the Fates the Hounds do not; their horses have blown their wind and no other can bear them,” she added with a grin.
“Poor beasts,” Acastus sighed. “Come Boreas; let us do what we can together for the glory of Poseidon’s stables.” He patted the beast’s flank and leaned in to whisper in his ear: “And for your own Lady Mentor.” Somehow, he felt better to be riding for her, rather than for Poseidon.
The flat race was a straight sprint along the length of the stadium; a simple, but demanding event given the sheer number of horses competing. Like the short foot races, it was the press and not the distance that created the challenge. Boreas was one of over a hundred horses at the starting line, all jostling for position. Rather than fight for a place, Acastus eased Boreas back behind the first row and found a place for the stallion behind two ungainly beasts in the colours of Ares and Atlas. The grey pranced impatiently, but Acastus soothed him with a gentle hand.
The muse stood in her box and cried out: “Let the athletes be ruled by their oaths!” The usual hush fell across the stadium. “The race will commence on the sounding of the horn.”
The horses skittered nervously, unhappy at being packed so tightly together. Acastus allowed Boreas to ease further back still to avoid being crowded by the Cryoguard in front. “Easy, Boreas,” he murmured. “Easy.”
The horns blared. The Cryoguard and the Giant in front of him kicked their horses hard and tried to force their way through the pack. As each fought to get clear of the other they shoved against the riders to either side, were pushed back together and sprang hard apart. The Giant’s horse stumbled and fell, tripping two others, while the Cryoguard’s gelding ignored his master’s whip and shied into a thoroughbred bay that reared at the impact.
Acastus clicked his tongue and Boreas burst through the gap that had opened up. He flew down the stadium as though his hooves were winged. Acastus kept Boreas running straight, well past the finishing line. He let Boreas run on to the columns supporting the Muse’s box and guided the grey into their shelter so that he would not be crushed by the pack that followed.
Slowly, the stadium grew still again, until the only sounds to be heard were the stamping of hooves and the squeals of injured and dying horses. Acastus squeezed his eyes closed and wished that he could block out those pitiable cries. He stroked Boreas’ flank, grateful to have brought the magnificent grey through unharmed. Only when the grey was calm did Acastus trot him out from under the box.
“Third place was attained by Phrixus, of the stables of Aphrodite,” the Muse announced. Tithonus lifted his hands in triumph, although in fact, victory in the horse races was credited to the Goa’uld who bred the horse.
“Second place was attained by Bellus, of the stables of Dionysus.”
Acastus looked around at that, but the Dionysian horse – a mad-eyed brute with a dappled grey coat – was ridden by one of the male athletes; there was no sign of Moera.
“Victory was attained by Boreas, of the stables of Poseidon!”
Acastus bent low over the stallion’s neck and rubbed his flank. “Well run, my friend,” he whispered. “Well run indeed.”
As soon as he could manage it he jumped down from the saddle and led Boreas back to the stables. With a squeal of excitement, Atalanta caught her friend in a powerful hug. “Well ridden, Acastus,” she congratulated him.
“The praise should belong to Boreas,” he demurred.
“I think you’ll find it does,” she reminded him, “but I know that you played a part.”
“Tell me, Gorgon,” Lady Mentor said, “why were you not entered for this event already?”
“Ataxis is no sprinter, my lady,” he explained. “We have no sprinters in the stables of Akrotiri; my captain’s steeds are bred for strength over distance.”
Lady Mentor smiled. “Then when I send Boreas to service your Ataxis, you may make me an offering of the foal, for I do not think that Boreas will sire anything but a sprinter.”
Acastus fought to maintain his composure. “You do me great honour, my lady,” he gasped.
“It is earned, my champion. Now, Lethe will see to Boreas; I suggest that you take a little time to acquaint yourself with Megaera. After that you may bask in your victory for a time. Be ready for the chase this afternoon.”
Acastus bowed low. “Thank you, my lady,” he said.
“Thank you, Jaffa.”
“Well,” Atalanta said. “It seems that you have attracted great favour.”
“I know,” Acastus agreed. “It is starting to make me nervous.”
Atalanta’s grin faded a little. “Do you know what Lady Artemis might want with you?” she asked. “I am worried. Few athletes are called to appear before a rival sponsor.”
“I saved the life of her Companion when Orthon attacked her,” Acastus explained. “I suspect that she wishes to add my account to her official complaint.” He shook his head sadly. “I am only sorry that Orthon could not be stopped before he killed…”
Atalanta’s face was sombre.
“Atalanta?”
“Orthon was not removed from the games,” she explained. “He has been…suspended,” she went on, her voice filled with ill-suppressed fury. “He will not be permitted to compete in the cross-country event.”
Acastus was livid with rage. “Suspended!” he roared.
“Hush!” Atalanta snapped. “Perhaps I ought not to have told you yet, but…”
“There is nothing to be done, I suppose.”
“I believe that Lady Mentor and Lady Artemis have protested, but Mighty Lord Zeus seems to be determined that his monsters will triumph and he is clearly applying all the pressure he can. With Cronus still reeling from his defeat at the hands of Apophis…”
“I know,” Acastus assured her. He sighed again. “But to see such dishonest and dishonourable conduct go unpunished, and to know…Cerberus and Gargittios will hardly be dissuaded by such a penalty from trying to work the same treachery in the cross-country run. You must be careful, Atalanta.”
“I shall be. In the meantime, I thank the Fates that they are not competing in this afternoon’s chase.”
Acastus sighed. “Why?” he demanded suddenly.
“Because I fear for you!”
“No; I mean, why would they do such a thing as this? What virtue is there in a victory won without honour? This is not the field of battle, it is a game. Why play a game if not by the rules?”
“I know not,” Atalanta assured him. “I can not see what glory they bring to their masters through such base treachery.”
“To the Goa’uld, only victory is glorious.”
The two Gorgons were startled, having quite forgotten Lethe’s presence.
“The Jaffa here seek only to make their masters proud of them,” the girl went on. “How can they achieve that without victory?”
Acastus looked at Atalanta; his confusion was mirrored in her eyes. “But are their masters not proud of them already, merely for winning a place here?”
“Does not their skill assure them favour?”
Lethe looked at them in surprise. “I envy you your master,” she told them.
Acastus returned to the stable after a light lunch with the prospect of a long, hard ride ahead of him. Where the flat was a contest of pure speed, the chase was a test of endurance. The competing athletes would pursue a lead rider through the countryside around the stadium. The ‘quarry’ would be relieved on two occasions by a fresh rider on a fresh horse and so the pace was punishing. The challenge for the athletes was to stay close on the trail without wearing their horse out too soon. At the end of the chase, the remaining riders returned to the stadium for a final dash to the finish. If they fell too far behind, they would be out of the running at the end of the race; if their horse fell lame or lost her wind, the rider would be forced to retire.
Acastus would have preferred to ride Ataxis for the chase. Even tired from the previous day, he believed that his mare would have beaten most of the field, but Lady Mentor had asked him to ride her horse and he could not refuse. Megaera was a spirited animal; indeed, his concern was that she would prove too spirited. In the early stages of the chase he would need her to hold back and keep something in reserve and he was worried she would simply plough in, regardless. She was a good, sound beast, but if she refused his authority they would be lost.
Before the race, he spent a long time in her stable, holding her head close to his and speaking to her in a soft, firm voice. Each time she tried to pull away or nip at him, a gentle tug on her mane would remind her who was, notionally, in charge.
“Shall I saddle her for you, master?”
Acastus looked around in surprise. He had become engrossed in his communication with the horse and once again had not heard Lethe approach. “Yes, thank you,” he replied. “Leave the harness, however; I will bridle her myself.”
“Yes, master.”
Acastus stood back to watch as the girl went about her business, and it was unmistakable that this was her business. Whatever Dionysus had had in mind when he presented her to Lady Mentor, the girl had clearly worked with horses for most of her life. As she placed the saddle on Megaera’s back, she stroked the animal’s neck to keep her calm and murmured wordless encouragement to the mare.
“She is beautiful,” the girl murmured. “I wish I could ride her.”
“I think that she would like that,” Acastus replied.
“Alas that it is not allowed. Only Jaffa may compete here.”
Acastus smiled. “Only Jaffa may compete,” he agreed, “but she needs to be walked to warm her up for the race.” He took the bridle and slipped it onto Megaera’s slim, graceful head. “Why do you not give her a few turns around the yard before we force her to take my bulk?”
“Oh, thank you, master!” Lethe beamed and kissed his cheek.
The girl rode instinctively. There was nothing trained about the way she kept her balance, shifting her weight with Megaera’s stride as though they were linked in mind and body. It was beautiful to watch and her joy was boundless.
“Well now; I wonder if Dionysus understood the worth of his gift.”
Acastus turned and bowed. “My lady.”
“By design or accident, Dionysus has delivered to me a Pelionan maid,” Mentor explained. “It is said that the wildest horse will grow tame under Pelionan hands and perhaps, if she grows to trust me, she will lead me to the herds of Ixion. Now that would be fine stock to breed in my stables.”
Acastus could not restrain a smile. “My lady shows great wisdom in matters of horse breeding,” he said.
She turned to face him, the morning sun glinting on her half mask. “A matter of necessity in the court of my Lord Poseidon, but not an arduous one. You seem remarkably well informed on the subject for a shepherd boy,” she noted.
“I was born in Halicarnasus, but raised in Akrotiri,” he explained. “When I was eight years old I began helping with my captain’s herds on the Akrotiri Plain. I have had a great love of them ever since.”
Lethe nudged Megaera’s flanks and the mare trotted over to stop before Lady Mentor. Lethe slipped from the horse’s back and dropped into a low bow before Lady Mentor; Megaera, however, showed little deference for rank and moved to nuzzle Acastus’ face.
“And they clearly love you in return,” Mentor remarked. “My blessing on you, Jaffa; I trust you will bring honour to my stables once more.”
Acastus bowed low. “I shall strive to bring honour to you, my lady.”
The Goa’uld laughed. “Do you hear him, Lethe? Does he not speak prettily?”
“Yes, my lady.” Lethe looked up at him with an admiring gaze. “Megaera thinks so also.”
“I am sure that she does, and I trust that you understand what honour has been paid to you,” she added, fixing her one good eye on the Jaffa. “Such folk do not lightly commend horsemanship. Come, Lethe; you shall attend me in the stands.”
“My lady.”
As Mentor swept from the stables, Lethe turned briefly and smiled at Acastus. “Ride her well, Acastus,” she said. “Mind her eagerness; she wants to do well for you.”
Acastus put his arms around the mare’s neck and ruffled her mane. “I shall take good care of her,” he promised.
“Lethe!”
The girl darted a glance over her shoulder. “Ixion’s blessings on you and on Megaera,” she whispered and then she hurried away.
Acastus watched her go in amazement. He had, if he were honest, doubted Mentor when she said that the girl was Pelionan. Captain Medusa’s tek’ippa had spoken of the folk of Pelion and the Ixion herds as a myth. It was a myth that Acastus would have loved to believe in – the horse masters who rode as one with their great winged horses – but surely a myth nonetheless. Yet the girl had offered the blessings of Ixion and certainly no other worshipped that enemy of Zeus.
“And what better blessing could we receive?” he asked Megaera. The mare whickered happily in response.
The competitors lined up beneath the gallery of the Muses, facing the great gate at the northern end of the stadium. Once more, Acastus allowed his steed to be forced towards the rear of the ranks of runners. Megaera was unhappy to back off from a challenge, but she was equally unhappy with the press of bodies and reluctantly bowed to her rider’s experience.
Acastus rubbed the side of Megaera’s neck. “It’s alright, my beauty,” he murmured. “It’s alright. Bide your time.”
He looked up at
the closed gates and his gaze
continued up to the host’s gallery. Lord Hades glowered down
onto the stadium
with his cold, hard eyes; at his side, imperious and proud, sat
Persephone, his
Queen. Many said that Persephone was the most beautiful Queen of the
Olympians,
although not in the hearing of the other
On an impulse, Acastus raised his hand in salute to the nymph; he could not see if she reacted, but it seemed as though the Queen inclined her head in acknowledgement, no doubt presuming that the accolade was paid to her.
Megaera jostled under him, unhappy to share Acastus’ attention.
“No need to be jealous, my beauty,” he assured her. “I don’t even know her name.”
With a clatter of chains and counterweights, the great doors swung open. They would close once the runners had left and the southern gates would open to admit them on their return. As the gates parted, the athletes saw their quarry, a slim youth on a lean horse. He lifted his hand to display a slender wand, bound around by the coils of a single serpent. Megaera tripped excitedly, recognising the game.
“Easy. Easy.”
“Let the athletes be ruled by their oaths!” the Muse commanded. “The race will commence on the sounding of the horn. Any rider who deviates from the course set by the quarry shall be dismissed from the event.”
“Ready, my beauty?”
Megaera whinnied eagerly, her muscles trembling with anticipation. When the horn blared, she bunched to spring forward, but Acastus reined her back and, as the quarry surged away, he allowed her only a little of her head. He hoped that she would calm down once they managed to get into a steady rhythm, otherwise they would exhaust themselves fighting each other to control their pace.
As the mare tried to lunge forward once more, Acastus leaned forward over her neck. “Trust me, Megaera,” he called to her. “Trust me.”
Whether it was his words or his tone or just the confidence of his seat, the spirited mare began to ease off, accepting the pace that he set. “That’s the way, my beauty,” he told her approvingly.
By the first change of quarry, a dozen or more athletes had already fallen behind, their mounts exhausted by attempting too great a pace. Acastus was unimpressed by these failures; they should have been able at least to keep pace with the quarry until the changeover.
As they cantered through the Olympian woods, a second quarry-horse, fresh and eager, galloped out of the trees. The rider who had led them so far lifted the baton above his head and then held it out. The new rider took the wand, held it aloft and then spurred his horse forward. He was heavier-set than the first and his horse was slighter. That was good; this pair could not possibly keep the same demanding pace as their predecessors.
Acastus clicked his tongue and relaxed the reins, letting Megaera speed up. She stretched her legs and passed easily through the slower horses, enjoying the chance to show her speed. Regretfully, Acastus reined her back before she could charge through to the front of the pack. He wanted her to have space around her and the leading riders had clustered too tightly together; he was sure that there would be a collision and he did not want the highly-strung white too close when it happened.
It happened just before they reached the second changeover. A powerful Jaffa in the colours of Aphrodite had been pushing his flagging horse, a big, bay stallion, increasingly hard over the last half mile. He had set out with an air of authority, but desperation had sapped his confidence and now he beat at his unfortunate steed with a bully’s strength. With a last valiant effort, the horse tried to meet its master’s demands, but its strength was gone.
The bay tripped, stumbled, and then toppled headlong, spilling its rider onto the ground and crashing into the chestnut mare to its right. That horse slewed sideways and slammed into a dappled grey, while the fallen bay kicked out madly and gashed the leg of a handsome, roan gelding with his back hooves. The grey and the roan both fell among the hooves of the pack and half-a-dozen others stumbled. The rider of the chestnut mare wrestled with her and managed to keep her on her feet almost by force of will alone. Fortunately, Acastus had seen the bay’s first stumble and he guided Megaera wide to avoid the fallen horses altogether, but the white mare was clearly disconcerted by the flailing mass of hooves and the plaintive squeals of the injured.
To distract her from this tragic site, Acastus gave Megaera her head and let her run; she stretched out and passed the chestnut, whose rider – to his great credit – was easing her out of the running. The chestnut was favouring her left foreleg and would never have run again if she had been forced to finish the race. As they approached the rest of the front runners, Acastus pulled Megaera back. The leading pack was now full of jittery, panicking horses and he wanted to keep Megaera clear of the tangle.
In all the confusion, the changeover was almost overlooked; even Acastus missed the actual moment of transition and only saw the new rider hold the wand aloft. One of the front runners missed even that; he followed the retiring quarry off the trail and took himself out of the race.
As the confusion died down, the front runners slowed. The excitement and tumult had made the horses weary before their time and they were flagging now. One by one they dropped back and Megaera carried Acastus past them. A number of riders who had been saving their steeds for this final leg now pushed forward from the back, but when the field settled into its rhythm, Acastus and Megaera led, less than three lengths behind the quarry.
The new rider turned and glanced back at the athletes. Acastus had just a momentary glimpse of large, dark eyes and an expression of fierce exultation, but it was enough for him to recognise the face of the statue of the Fury Megaera in the stadium. Acastus almost reined back in fear, but then he remembered that the Furies were his deities and that he rode upon Megaera’s namesake. If this was an omen, it could only bode well for him.
The woods opened up ahead and the stadium loomed in the distance. The gates gaped wide. Behind Acastus, the other riders began to make their breaks for the finish. Acastus braced to restrain Megaera’s impatience for another hundred yards, but this time the mare did not try to surge forward. A doubt began to grow in the back of Acastus’ mind: had she run as much as she could?
As the gates drew nearer he said a silent prayer and he gave Megaera her head. All his fears dissolved as the white sprang forward, muscles surging beneath her skin. She hurled herself into a full gallop; her hooves barely seemed to touch the ground as she powered away from the rest of the field, her stride eating up the distance. Acastus let the rhythm of Megaera’s hoofbeats, the undulating motion of her gallop subsume him. For just a few minutes, the race was all. There was no bloodshed, no treachery, only a test of the rider’s skill and the horse’s strength. The feeling of pure and honest competition was intoxicating. Acastus was filled with an undiluted joy that he knew was shared by his steed.
Megaera ran as though it were the only thing she knew, as though she had been born on the hoof and never slowed. Incredibly, they were even gaining on the quarry; the two horses passed through the gateway with their flanks almost touching. Megaera tossed her head dismissively and put on a final spurt to leave the quarry behind as she passed the finishing mark.
Acastus leaned over and patted Megaera’s lathered neck. “Well done,” he told her proudly. “Oh, well done, my beautiful Megaera.”
The white mare snorted proudly. Acastus slid down from her back and began to walk her around the stadium to cool down; she had given her all to the final dash and he hoped that she had not hurt herself. He stroked her nose and fussed over her.
“An excellent run, Jaffa.”
Acastus turned and looked up at the quarry rider. She wore a gentle smile now and he recognised her. Her face was the face of the statue of Megaera, but she was the nymph who had stood at Queen Persephone’s side. Before he could speak to her, she had turned her horse and cantered off across the stadium. Still unwilling to share his attention, Megaera nudged him with her nose. Absent-mindedly, he stroked her mane, but he watched the nymph until she disappeared through the Gate of the Erinyes.
“Come on,” he sighed, as soon as their victory had been announced. “Let’s get you rubbed down before you catch a chill.”
“You ran her magnificently,” Lethe remarked as she lifted the saddle from Megaera’s back. “And she was superb,” she crooned, rubbing the mare’s lathered flank.
“Your blessing seems to have worked,” Acastus replied, patting the mare’s nose affectionately. “If you bring some warm water, I’ll rub her down before we let her rest.”
“I will tend to her,” Lethe promised him. “You must prepare for the Festival of Cronus.”
Acastus shook his head. “I can miss the festival,” he assured her.
“No you can not. Your victories today belong to the stables of Poseidon, but the horses can not attend the festivities; you must represent them on the champions’ table.”
Acastus groaned, feeling all the peace of the race leave him at the thought of re-entering the politics of the tournament.
*
The Festival of Cronus was the second of the Olympiad’s great rituals of sacrifice and celebration. The festival began with the sacrifices to Cronus – which of course had to be every bit as lavish as, but no more lavish than, the sacrifices to Zeus – and continued with the Elysian Feast, a vast banquet at which the hosts were required to cater for all of the athletes and sponsors at tables laid out in the stadium.
The Jaffa ate at twelve long tables, running from north to south. A smaller table had been set up on a raised platform beneath the statues of the Moirae; this was where the Muse would be joined by all those who had attained victory in the events so far. The sponsors ate at east-west tables on platforms at the north and south ends of the great arena. The Olympians would begin on the table beneath the hosts’ box and the Titans beneath the Muse’s gallery, but by tradition Lord Hades would begin the meal by leading his lords to the north of the stadium, where they would sit down to dine with the Titanic ladies, while the lords of Cronus’ faction took their places in the south to dine with Queen Persephone and the other Olympian ladies.
As Lethe had pointed out, Acastus would be required to take a place on the Muse’s table, not on his own account but on behalf of Boreas and Megaera. He was not looking forward to it. Aside from taking supper with a Goa’uld – always a dangerous prospect – Moera’s two victories would mean that she would be there as well and he did not relish the prospect of seeing her again. She had made little secret of the fact that she planned to spend this day completing her seduction of the lissom Tithonus and he thanked the Fates that Aphrodite’s athlete would not be present.
“Who is on the Muse’s table?” he asked.
“Besides the two of us?” Atalanta asked.
Acastus gave a sigh of relief. “I had almost forgotten that you would be present, but it is a comfort to know.”
“Do not fear, my friend; I shall protect you from the nasty Dionysian if you can keep between me and the damned Hound.”
He shuddered. “Cerberus. I had forgotten that he was also a victor. At least his brothers will not be there. I suppose there will be the Cryoguard who won the throwing event,” he added.
“Remus is his name,” Atalanta expanded. “And the last will be the victor of the static shooting. I believe that was Metes of Solaria, one of Hyperion’s athletes. I know nothing of him.”
“I do not relish the thought of this meal,” Acastus sighed.
Atalanta shrugged. “At least the food should be good,” she reminded him. “And it will keep you from Artemis’ clutches for another day.”
Acastus gave a dry chuckle. “Thank you, Atalanta; that has really helped my appetite.”
The Elysian Feast was awkward, to say the least. The food was indeed superb, but the atmosphere on the Muse’s table was muted by the presence of Cerberus. An air of unvoiced hostility hung over the sponsors’ tables. The athletes’ tables looked more convivial; many of the barriers between the squads had been broken down, but there was still distrust. The looming bulks of Gargittios and Orthon were surrounded by pools of silence and brooding resentment and one group remained apart.
Acastus experienced mixed feelings on discovering that Moera was not present. The thought that she might have been hurt was not a comfortable one, but he knew that he would have been more upset by her presence. It was better not to see her again, especially as Atalanta had her hands full dealing with the advances of her dinner companions, all of whom seemed to think that any woman would leap at the chance to bed an Olympic champion, even one who was an Olympic champion herself. To redirect their attentions, she spent most of the dinner clinging to Acastus’ arm like a limpet. Acastus did not mind, but he did think that she was drawing a few unkind glances from the Muse.
A few of Poseidon’s athletes, those who had found lovers outside of their own barracks, stayed out after the feast, but most were only too glad to return to their own bunks.
“Never has such fine food sat so heavily on so many stomachs,” Xenophon groaned. “Why schedule a great feast for people who are certain to be anxious and paranoid?”
“Because we are not meant to enjoy it,” Atalanta replied, “just to admire the lavishness of the arrangements and the generosity of our hosts. And perhaps be seduced by the Muses.”
“The Muse seemed to be the only one not trying to seduce you,” Acastus noted.
Atalanta laughed. “It was you she was trying to seduce, you fool.” Her teasing look became one of concern. “Did you not notice?”
“I was a little distracted.”
“Moera’s absence upset you so?”
Acastus shrugged. “This is not something I am used to dealing with,” he explained. “I tried to prepare myself to ignore her and now I just…I want to know if she is alright.”
“Just do not try breaking into the Dionysian compound,” Xenophon insisted. “I will speak to my lady’s nymph. Iphigenia is a resourceful young Jaffa; she may be able to find out what has become of your Maenad.”
Acastus inclined his head. “Thank you.”
“Get some rest, now and tomorrow,” the captain went on.
“Yes, tek ma’te,” Acastus agreed.
“You have a very heavy schedule the day after and I want you fit and ready. You and Atalanta have become our great hopes, young Acastus.”
“Thank you, tek ma’te. I shall begin my kelno’reem at once.”
Atalanta laid a hand on his arm. “Rest well, old friend.”
“I shall, but first…There are things that I must think over.”
“Moera?”
“Among other things. Perhaps in kelno’reem I can find the clarity I need.”
“Do not spend too much time in futile contemplation,” Atalanta advised.
He gave her a weak smile.
“Atalanta,” Xenophon called. “We must discuss our strategy for tomorrow. The cross country will be treacherous.”
“Of course, Xenophon,” she agreed. “Bide well, Acastus.”
*
Day 6 - cross-country run, swimming
Acastus woke from the dreamless peace of sleep into a silent dormitory. Most of his fellow athletes were still resting, either in their bunks or in the meditation shrines; aside from the two who were dead. Carefully, so as not to wake his sleeping comrades, Acastus padded out to the bathhouse to wash and refresh himself. He was not the only one to seek the peace and relaxation of the steam room.
“Atalanta,” he called.
“Good morrow, friend,” she replied. “You are up very early for an idle athlete.”
“You know that I sleep only lightly.” Acastus padded towards the sound of her voice. “Besides, I wanted to be sure of seeing you before the start of the race.”
Atalanta’s face appeared through the steam. “Were you worried I might not come back?” she asked with a smile. Acastus did not return the smile; seeing this, Atalanta grew serious again. “I will be back,” she assured him.
“Be very careful, Atalanta.”
“Of course.”
“The Hounds will not flinch from trying to remove the competition – not if all that it costs them is a suspension – and they saw in the long stadium race that you are a threat to them.”
“They saw that they could beat me easily.”
Acastus sat beside his friend and took her hand in his. “They saw that they were faster than you, but that you were fresh when they were worn to their limit. Not even Cerberus can beat you over this distance and they know it. They will run fast to get ahead and Cerberus will leave Gargittios to…Watch for him, Atalanta. He will come from the trees; somewhere there is a ravine or gully to hide the bodies. You are my dearest friend Atalanta; I do not want to have to seek you in the woods.”
> “You will not have to,” she promised, but it did little to ease the worries in his heart.
Acastus spent the morning training for the pankration. The unarmed combat event was difficult because a Jaffa would be required to face so many different fighting styles. Not only skill, strength and speed were required, but adaptability, a weakness in most Jaffa fighting arts. As a Gorgon, Acastus’ training was far broader than most – he was skilled in no fewer than three very different forms of martial art himself – but he could not afford to be complacent. Mostly for this reason, although partly to keep from thinking too much about where Atalanta was and what might be happening to her, he sought out his comrades as they woke and prevailed on each of them to spar with him. He defeated them all, but did not feel unduly cheered. Of all of Poseidon’s squad, only Xenophon and Sisiphon were skilled enough to join him in the circle and it was no common Jaffa that concerned him; it was Orthon.
As Atalanta had told him, the murderous Hound had not been expelled from the games, only suspended from the cross country event so as not to allow him out of sight of the Muse. Acastus took some comfort from this – Orthon, the fighter, the War Hound, would have been the Hounds’ chosen killer in the cross country as in the pentathlon – but it did mean that there was every chance of Acastus meeting the brute in the pankration.
As the end of the cross country run approached, Acastus found his way back up to the platform behind the statues of the Erinyes. He took the risk of leaning out from the platform, grasping one of Alecto’s wings to support his weight, to take a close look at Megaera’s snarling face. It was a lovely face indeed, and was very much like that of Persephone’s nymph. He ducked back out of sight and waited for the runners to return.
The south gate swung open. Acastus watched, his heart in his mouth, and his blood ran cold when Cerberus led the way into the stadium. A moment later, his heart leaped; Atalanta was barely five strides behind the Hound and running hard. She was almost at the end of her strength, but she had something left, and that little was more than could be said for Cerberus. Zeus’ abomination had simply carried his own great weight too far. He slowed as Atalanta put on a final surge of strength and she passed him within five paces of the finishing line.
Triumph swelled Acastus’ heart, but as the other runners followed he felt a growing fear. There was no sign of Gargittios, and no sign of Xenophon.
*
“He is dead,” Lady Mentor told the Jaffa. She had gathered the remainder of the squad in the barracks for the announcement. “I am sorry to be the bearer of this news.” She bowed her head respectfully and then left them.
“Xenophon was my sister’s husband,” Leucasius said. “What do I say to her? I had feared that I must lie to her and conceal his infidelity. How petty that now seems.”
“Gargittios!” Polydeuces snarled. “Curse those Hounds! Surely now they will be removed.”
“No proof,” Acastus sighed in disgust.
“They found the bodies of Xenophon and Tartarion!” Leucasius snapped.
“And Gargittios says that Xenophon attacked him,” Atalanta reminded him. “We should be grateful that the Muse is not bowing to Zeus’ pressure to have our late captain posthumously expelled.” A fragile smile flickered across her lips. “And that he broke the bastard’s arm before he died,” she added.
There was a murmur of agreement at that.
“The circles will be bloody,” Sisiphon hissed. “So many deaths are already on that murderous account…”
“Do not seek for vengeance in the circle,” Atalanta cautioned. “If you attack in anger, you only play into their hands. You must be calm.”
“How can I be calm when I know what they have done?” Sisiphon demanded.
“You must find a way to be calm despite your anger.”
Leucasius nodded in agreement. “Attend to our captain,” he told Sisiphon.
“Our captain?” Atalanta looked as baffled as the others.
“You are senior,” Leucasius said, “and you have attained two victories now. As has Acastus,” he admitted, “but he is junior to you in your own company and his victories belong to our lord’s stables. You must take Xenophon’s place, Atalanta.”
These words caught Sisiphon’s attention and seemed to calm him. “He is correct,” he agreed. “Will you lead us in lament for Xenophon?”
“I will,” she agreed, but there was a shadow over her that caused Acastus much concern.
They spoke the funeral rites for their fallen captain, after which they retired to their own unquiet thoughts. Acastus followed Atalanta to her bunk.
“To add insult to injury, Gargittios went on to win the swimming event,” Atalanta fumed. “With a broken wrist, the Furies take him.”
Acastus sat beside her and took her hand. “I am sorry that Xenophon is dead. For a Taurus Guard, he was a good man.” He laid a hand on her cheek. “But I am glad that you were not killed.”
Atalanta could not meet his gaze.
“What is wrong, old friend?”
“He…Xenophon passed me, running hard; I did not consider it at the time, but he was running too hard. He could never have kept up that pace. When I realised that he was not coming back, I saw only too clearly what he had done.”
“Atalanta…”
“He knew that Gargittios was waiting and he ran ahead to be sure that the Hound took him instead of me.”
Acastus sighed. “He blamed himself for Thessalius’ death,” he reminded her.
She shook her head; tears shone in her eyes. “Last night, Xenophon asked me to lie with him. When I refused, he asked if he could at least kiss me. He looked so sad and serious that I allowed it. I think that he loved me, Acastus; that was why he died for me.” She gazed sorrowfully at her friend. “I want to go home, Acastus. I want to return to my husband and our company and escape from men who want to lead me astray…or give their lives for me unasked.”
Acastus wrapped his arms around her. “It was his choice. As you say, you did not ask it, but he felt you worth the sacrifice.”
“Would you die for me?” she asked.
“As you would for me,” he assured her.
“And that is the difference, Acastus,” she said. “He sought to die for me, but he was not prepared to let me die for him.”
Acastus squeezed her shoulder.
“You must go,” she said. “Lady Artemis must not be kept waiting and you will need to clean yourself up.”
“I had almost succeeded in forgetting,” Acastus replied. “My thanks, Atalanta. You have nothing now until the stadion. Get some rest old woman?”
“On your way, young pup,” she retorted. “And try to restrain that boyish charm of yours. I don’t want to find that the Lady Artemis has eaten you alive.”
*
Acastus bathed thoroughly and then dressed in his best robes. He had brought them to wear for the presentation ceremony at the climax of the Olympiad, but one did not attend on a goddess in a barracks wrap. Before he left he returned to Atalanta’s bunk for final approval and she declared him ready.
Two of the Companions stood guard at the door of the shrine of Artemis, armed only with spears. They eyed him in an unnerving, predatory fashion before admitting him and directing him to pass directly to the sanctum of the goddess. He entered the chambers of the Great Huntress and bowed low before the slender figure of the Lady Artemis.
“Jaffa,” the goddess said. “Your performance in the ippokotion was most impressive, as were your efforts in the pentathlon. I can not doubt that you would have been victorious there, had you not stopped to give aid to my Companion.”
“It is not my place to speculate, my lady.”
“Perhaps not, but the idle mind will wander and I suspect not only that you know now that you would have been victorious, but that you knew at the time that you were sacrificing your victory when you acted to protect my servant from the Hound of Zeus…and from her own ill-considered rage.”
Acastus kept his eyes fixed on the floor of the bower. He felt himself blushing, even as he wondered if the lady truly meant her words to be received as praise. The Goa’uld might well consider the sacrifice of victory too great a price for the life of a Jaffa.
“Your actions were courageous, yet they also showed great wisdom,” Artemis went on. She approached Acastus, laid a finger beneath his chin and tilted his head upwards. “Such virtue in one so handsome is to be treasured.”
Acastus swallowed hard. The Lady Artemis was unquestionably lovely, but it was her eyes that absorbed all of his attention. They were a rare, dark green and very beautiful, but they were fierce and hungry like those of a hawk or a cat; the eyes of a predator, impassive, impersonal and deadly.
Artemis released his chin and his gaze. “I wish to reward you for your courage and for the service that you have done me, although I perceive that you did not act on my behalf.” She turned, and with a curt gesture for him to follow, led the way to a small door. “I have a gift for you, Jaffa.” So saying, she opened the door and ushered him into her innermost sanctum. Acastus knew that he had no choice but to go; this was an honour extended to few Jaffa and refusal would invite a swift death.
The room beyond the door was hung with curtains of white silk. A woman knelt in prayer before a simple shrine; her back was to the door and her slender form was draped in the same ivory cloth. Her long, black hair was a stark contrast to the pale robe, and was held back with a silver clasp in the shape of a bow. Acastus caught his breath; the bow was the sign of Artemis and all of her Jaffa wore that tattoo on their brows, but he knew that only the Companions were permitted to wear the silver bow in their hair.
“Latona,” Artemis called softly.
The woman rose and turned to face them, her eyes cast down with a demureness that seemed out of place with her strength and elegance. “My Lady,” she murmured.
Artemis held out her hand. “Your bow,” she commanded.
Latona reached up and took the silver clasp from her hair. The dark mane fell loosely about her shoulders as, with trembling fingers, she passed the bow to her mistress. Acastus caught a clear sight of the clasp as she relinquished it. It was an exquisite piece of work, fashioned in intricate and perfect detail. More than that, however, it was the symbol that marked her as a Companion. Small wonder that her hand shook as she released it.
Artemis closed her slim, strong fingers over the clasp. “You are no longer my Huntress, Latona,” she said. “Your bow shall be returned to you at moonset. Until that moment, you are a woman.”
“Yes, my lady,” Latona replied, her voice trembling just as her hand had done.
Artemis turned her hard gaze on Acastus and, although he towered above her in stature, he felt small in the sight of those fierce eyes. “If you squander or abuse my gift, my wrath shall be terrible,” she told him. She left the bower and closed the door behind her.
Latona stepped forward, favouring her injured leg. She gave a nervous smile and took Acastus by the hand. “Come,” she said, leading him towards a curtained bed.
Acastus recoiled in fear. “But it is forbidden…”
“…for a Companion of Artemis to lie with or seek the society of any man,” Latona agreed. “But as My Lady has said, until the moon sets I am no Huntress; only a woman like any other.”
“Oh.” Acastus let himself be drawn forward. He was awestruck and momentarily unable to speak or resist. Few Jaffa could have understood what she had just done as a Gorgon could and that understanding took his breath away. It was plain to him that she loved Artemis just as he loved Medusa and that setting aside the silver clasp, even for an evening, was as though he had set aside his Gorgon’s helm. Her body was wrapped in white silk, but Latona could not have made herself any more naked.
“Jaffa?” Latona whispered. “Acastus?”
Hesitantly, Acastus lifted his hands to her shoulders. The Huntress was trembling like a frightened rabbit; he doubted if he was any steadier. “I will not hurt you,” he promised.
“I know,” she assured him, “but I have little knowledge of men.”
“And I know little of women,” he replied. He did not doubt that his encounter with Moera had done nothing to prepare him for this. “Although…I can see that you are not like any other woman.”
He gently brushed her hair away from her face and bent to kiss her lips. She moved towards him and their faces bumped awkwardly against one another. She blushed angrily and turned her face away from him, but Acastus leaned close to her ear. “It is many hours to moonset,” he murmured. “There is no need for hurry.”
Acastus rose with painstaking care. Latona had fallen asleep in his arms, but he fought the urge to close his eyes and drowse beside her. The moon was sinking in the sky and he did not want to be caught sleeping by her side when it fell below the horizon and she became a Huntress once more.
He dressed quickly and then carefully drew the pale sheets over Latona’s sleeping form; he felt sure that she would wish to be covered when she woke. Finally, he bent and kissed the tattoo on her brow. She murmured in her sleep; she could have been saying “thank you.”
His heart was light, as though a burden had been lifted. He felt a great outpouring of warmth and tenderness towards Latona; affection the like of which he had not felt in years. “Thank you,” he returned and then he left.
He could feel the eyes of Artemis on him as he backed from the bower and, sure enough, she stood facing him when he turned from the door. He bowed low. “My Lady.”
“There is a question that presses on your mind,” she said. “You may ask it.”
Acastus inclined his head further in acknowledgement of this favour. “My lady, you said that this was your gift to reward my service to you. For my own peace, I must know: was this done at Latona’s request?”
He risked looking up and he saw her eyes widen in apparent surprise. It might only have been the last rays of moonlight, but her face seemed to soften very slightly. “It was her most particular request,” she said at last. She studied Acastus intently until the last of the moonlight was gone. “Why did you aid her?”
“Because she was in need,” he replied at once, “and no state of war lies between us.”
“But you surrendered a victory.”
“This is not a victory to be purchased at the cost of honour, nor the life of a Jaffa.”
“Not even for the glory of your god?” Artemis demanded, her eyes glittering dangerously.
Acastus straightened himself and lifted his gaze to hers. “Not even for the glory of my god,” he answered in a clear voice.
Artemis smiled. “You are fearless indeed, and honest. Follow me.”
She led him from the outer chamber again, this time into an office. She signalled him to wait, standing, while she wrote and sealed a short missive. She slid a silver ring over the papyrus scroll and handed it to Acastus. “Give this to your Lady Mentor,” she instructed him. “After that, rest well. Latona’s ankle was badly injured. She will recover completely, but only because I assisted the healing. As a result of my aid, she is forbidden to compete in the remaining events, but this is a small price to pay for her continued good service. As you say, this is not a victory that is worth the loss of her life. Wherever she would have enjoyed my blessings in this tournament, I now pass them to you.” She drew his head down and kissed his tattoo in benediction.
“You honour me once more, my lady.”
“You honour your captain and your teacher,” she assured him. “You shall speak of what passed this night with no man.” She made it neither a question nor a command, but a statement of fact
“My lady.” He bowed low, understanding that he had been honoured again. She did not feel it necessary to order his silence, but trusted in his discretion.
She dismissed him with a gesture and he left, feeling relieved to escape from her searching gaze. He made his way through the temples and shrines with the scroll in his hand and his head full of unasked questions until he reached the shrine of Poseidon, where the Lady Mentor had her quarters. The Taurus Guards delayed him at the door and he was admitted to the lady’s presence only once her express permission had been sought.
Acastus entered Lady Mentor’s presence with some trepidation. Her single eye lacked the raptor’s intensity of Artemis’ gaze, but her regard was nonetheless so forceful as to be almost tangible.
She took the scroll, but spoke to him before she opened it. “Tell me what you think of your captain, Acastus of Halicarnasus,” she instructed. “Is she skilled?”
“Yes, Lady Mentor.”
“How is she to serve?”
“She inspires her servants, my lady. She has our absolute respect…and love,” he added, certain that it would be unwise to try to hide his feelings from Mentor.
“Is she faithful, Acastus? Is she obedient?”
“Unswerving,” Acastus replied, carefully. “Her Jaffa have never known her to be other than the model of fidelity.” That at least was true, even if she showed more loyalty to her servants than she did obedience to her masters.
“She certainly inspires devotion in her warriors. Clearly she bears yet closer attention.” Lady Mentor’s lips quirked into a secretive smile and she tapped the scroll against her palm. “I will speak with you further, Acastus of Halicarnasus. Be seated in the atrium. I shall have Iphigenia bring you refreshment and shall send for you presently.”
With his heart in his mouth, Acastus returned to the atrium. After a few minutes, Iphigenia brought him a klah’c and a plate of honeyed oat cakes, but he had little appetite. He was Medusa’s loyal servant, and would never knowingly betray his captain, but Mentor was a cunning and perceptive woman, renowned for her ruthlessness as well as her wisdom. Acastus feared that he might be duped into revealing some fact that would doom Medusa, and her Gorgons with her.
“Is all well, Jaffa?” Iphigenia asked. Her voice was cracked and wavering. “If the klah’c does not please…”
Hastily, Acastus lifted the cup and sipped. “It is very fine,” he assured her, although he knew that she was not upset about the klah’c. “Won’t you sit with me awhile, Jaffa?”
“I…Thank you, Jaffa.” She sat and leaned herself against his bulk. “I have not been wise,” she sighed. “In spite of my lady’s good instruction, I have been quite foolish.”
Acastus put an arm around her shoulders and said nothing. What could he have told her? He knew as well as she that it had been madness to pursue Aphrodite’s athlete, and to seek solace in the arms of a married man was as much her folly as it had been his. He wondered if she knew of the things that Xenophon had said to Atalanta, but as slight as his wisdom might be when compared to Mentor, it was sufficient for him not to speak of this to the grieving Iphigenia.
Instead he offered her his cup and she drank, soothing her own bitterness in that of the klah’c and salving both with the sweetness of the oat cakes. Before she could consume all of the latter, Acastus took two and slipped them into the folds of his robe.
“For later?” she asked.
“For Ataxis,” he replied. “She has a fondness for them and I must apologise for riding another in the races.”
Iphigenia shook
her head. “You can not visit
her tonight,” she told him. “The horses were taken
from
Acastus was shocked. “What?” he asked. “My Ataxis as well?”
The nymph
nodded. “She will be returned to
her home on Kritos soon,” she assured him, “but my
lady thought it best to
remove the horses now that their races are run. The departure from
Acastus stifled a protest; there was nothing that he could say that would bring Ataxis back to the compound and he suspected it would have been selfish to wish it done. He sighed and passed the oat cakes back to Iphigenia.
“You are sure that you do not want them?”
He shook his head. “You have them.”
“Thank you.” She ate the cakes, washing them down with the heavy dregs of the klah’c. She rose to her feet and straightened her chiton. “Jaffa,” she said, and she bowed low. She took the tray and was about to leave when she paused. “Thank you,” she repeated. “It was kind of you to show me no kindness.”
He inclined his head in acknowledgement. By the time he looked up, she was gone.
After perhaps half an hour Iphigenia appeared again. She shot a quick smile to Acastus and then passed through into her mistress’s office. She emerged some time later with a papyrus scroll in her hand. “My lady wishes to speak with you now,” she told Acastus.
He rose and they bowed to one another. Iphigenia went on her way and Acastus returned to Mentor’s lair. The single grey eye regarded him as he bowed.
“Sit,” she instructed.
“Thank you, my lady,” Acastus gulped. He accepted the proffered chair with trepidation, well aware how few Jaffa were ever permitted to sit in the presence of a Goa’uld.
“I wish you to be at your ease,” she told him, knowing that she thus ensured that he would not be. “You have made quite an impression, Acastus of Halicarnasus,” she noted. “Tell me what passed between you and the Lady Artemis.”
Acastus felt awkward. “I can not…” he began.
“I am sure that she bade you speak of it to no man, but I am clearly no man,” Mentor reminded him in an imperious tone. “Moreover,” she continued, her voice softening somewhat, “while I recognise that it would be beneath your honour to exploit such a semantic quibble, I assure you that I have no interest in what may have passed between you and the Huntress. Tell me only of what Artemis said to you and what reply you made; that is the command of your goddess.”
“Yes, my lady,” Acastus sighed. It still went against his nature, but with no other choice but direct disobedience he recounted the words that had passed between the Lady Artemis and himself. Mentor listened attentively and, when he was done, she smiled.
“Do you know what it was that she expected you to ask?”
“I do not.”
“Usually, they ask if they can possess the Huntress again, or even wed her. At the Olympiad, Artemis would simply have thrown you out of her shrine, but most die for such temerity.”
“Most?” Acastus was taken aback.
Mentor gave a soft chuckle. “I am sorry if I have hurt your pride, but be assured that such an occurrence is common only by divine standards,” she assured him. “Artemis permits a man to lie with one of the Companions only slightly more often than she takes a lover herself. It may help you to know that Latona was her favourite, and that no-one has been permitted to touch her favourite in many centuries.”
Acastus blushed and cast his eyes downwards. Mentor’s eye had never once moved from his face or even blinked and he felt as though she were staring into his soul.
“You have had a lucky escape, Acastus,” the Goa’uld told him. “You must have come close to attracting the attentions of the Lady Artemis herself and no man survives that, however he may be protected. As it is, you have sweetened a naturally sour nature, if only for a short time, and so rendered me a great service. Lady Artemis asks that you keep this,” she took the silver ring from the drawer of her desk. “Take it, and with it my blessing.”
At a gesture from the lady, he left his seat and knelt at her side to receive the ring, and a kiss of benediction.
“Take your seat again,” she instructed. “We shall take refreshments when Iphigenia returns from her errand; in the meantime, you shall tell me of Captain Medusa.”
“Are you alright?” Atalanta demanded, accosting Acastus at the door to the barracks. “What has happened?”
Acastus shook his head. “That I can never tell,” he replied. “Not even to you.”
Atalanta gazed at him in concern.
Acastus walked past her to the bathhouse. Doggedly, Atalanta followed him. She sat with him in the steam room and then bathed with him. When he was clean, she walked with him to their bunks. Through all of this, she said nothing more, but her care and presence wore him down more effectively than any speech.
“Did you know that I planned to marry once?” he asked.
She shook her head. “You never spoke of it, not even once.”
“Do you remember Deineira?” he asked.
“Of course,” Atalanta replied proudly. “I helped Primus Ilena to train her. She was a natural warrior and a born leader; her death was a terrible loss to us all. Do you mean that you and she were…? Oh, Acastus; Primus Meriope would have been so pleased.”
Tears prickled Acastus’ eyes, but he smiled nonetheless. “We had spoken of marriage and in our hearts considered ourselves betrothed, but she would not hear of announcing such a thing until I had met with her father. We never seemed to have the opportunity to travel to Knossa together and then…I never met with her parents, and I have never found another woman like her.”
“You have never spoken of this before.”
He shook his head, tears welling in his eyes. “I had never spoken of it to anyone until Moera asked. She knew only that there had been someone before; I doubt she cared much beyond that, but she brought it all back to my mind. How I felt for her; how she felt for me. How she died.”
“And you have kept all of this from us, for all this time? Never spoken to anyone?”
He shook his head. “I tried to forget, but now…I feel easier for telling you,” he admitted.
“I am glad of that,” Atalanta assured him earnestly. “Get some rest now; you will need all your strength in the morning.”
*
Day 7 - hoplitodromos, pankration; Festival of the Moirae
Acastus and Sisiphon entered the stadium for the pankration side-by-side. Acastus had made little effort in the hoplitodromos; following Lady Mentor’s advice he had saved his strength. The armoured race could sap a man’s energy very swiftly, and even at his best Acastus knew that he could not have hoped to defeat Cerberus. The Hound won easily, the heavy armour not slowing him in the slightest, and his two brothers were close at his heels. Gargittios showed little sign of debilitation from the wrist that Xenophon had broken, but then he did not run on his wrists.
The pankration was a prestigious event and over two hundred Jaffa entered the arena for the first round. Many other Jaffa had entered, but were prevented from attending by death or withdrawal, including Xenophon, Latona and Moera. Why the latter had withdrawn, Acastus still had no idea, but he was glad that there was no chance of being forced to fight her. Besides a reluctance to harm her, he knew from experience how powerfully the Dionysian could grapple.
In accordance with tradition, the contestants in the pankration gathered in a single circle, facing inwards. They were to be called in pairs into the centre of the ring, there to fight until one or both fighters were unable or unwilling to continue. All methods of fighting were permitted, save the use of any form of weapon, and no blow was forbidden. At the end of the bout, any athlete who could not continue would be removed from the ring and the victor, if any, returned to his or her place in the circle. Once all had fought, the second round would begin and this would continue until only one fighter remained. It would be a long contest – the victor would be lucky to get away with fighting only nine bouts – and the Hounds’ endurance would tell in the final rounds.
“This will be bloody,” Sisiphon growled, glowering at Cerberus.
Once the fighters were still, a figure emerged into the centre of the circle, flanked by four Jaffa with staff weapons. The figure was female, small and very beautiful. Most of the athletes had only seen her from a distance, but Acastus had sat at dinner with her two nights before; this was the Muse, Melpomene. It was said that the Muses surpassed all Goa’uld in grace and Melpomene certainly moved with exquisite elegance. She also possessed an air of command and Acastus had no doubt that she would be willing to order her Boeotian Guards to fire on any who crossed her.
“Let the athletes be ruled by their oaths!” she declared. At a gesture from her hand, her Jaffa moved to take up stations on the edge of the circle. Acastus was aware that several other members of the Muse’s guard stood outside the ring, with staff weapons held at the athletes’ backs.
“Athletes will fight in pairs as commanded, commencing on the sound of the horns,” Melpomene went on. “Each athlete will fight once only in each round. Where an odd number of contestants remain, the athlete who gained the swiftest victory in the previous round will advance without fighting.”
She paused and looked around. “Let Orthon of Iolcus and Demosthenes of Telchos enter the circle!”
The two athletes entered and approached one another. In accordance with the rules of the Olympiad, they bowed to one another and then took up their stances. The horns blared and Orthon slammed a fist into Demosthenes’ throat.
“I wonder who will not fight next round.” Sisiphon asked rhetorically, as Demosthenes collapsed in the sand.
“Such speed,” Acastus murmured. “We knew they were strong, but…”
Orthon took a step towards his fallen foe, but Melpomene came forward and fixed him with a fierce glower; one of her guards stood at her shoulder. She signalled and two servants came out to carry Demosthenes back to the shrine of Asclepius. Orthon cast a look of disdain at the Muse before turning back to the circle.
Murmurs of alarm ran around the ring to see such open disrespect for the Muse.
During the long first round, Acastus sized up the opposition. All were skilled, but a handful stood out; Euterminedes, Acastus’ first opponent, was not one of them. Onyx, one of Atlas’ giants, was almost as large as the Hounds and he did not lack for skill. Theocritus of Elysia and the Huntress Oneira also marked themselves out as opponents to be reckoned with. The three Hounds were the strongest, but thankfully Cerberus and Gargittios had neither Orthon’s speed nor his skill, they simply bulled through on might alone.
The lissom young Tithonus defeated his opponent easily, but seemingly more by luck than by any show of precocious ability; at a vital moment his opponent became distracted and Tithonus delivered a vicious coup de grace. Acastus expected to see the young Jaffa to fall quickly in the second round, but amazingly his luck held and again a simple error gave him the victory. Cerberus fared less well, and Oneira’s speed and agility felled the Hound in his second bout.
Acastus’ second fight was against Amadines, the burly Cryoguard. Ares’ athlete was a wrestler both by preference and by nature; strong, swift and blessed with long, grappling arms. At the sound of the horns, Acastus danced out of reach; Amadines took this for weakness and pushed too hard to close. Acastus dropped beneath his grasp and swept the legs from under him. As the Cryoguard struggled to recover his stance, Acastus closed with a flurry of kicks and punches, never allowing Amadines a chance to grapple. The round went to Acastus, but the tactic would have failed against Acastus’ third round opponent.
Gargittios would have shrugged off the hardest blow that Acastus could muster; a different approach was called for. He allowed the Hound to close and then used his own body as a pivot to redirect Gargittios’ attacking force. The throw would have crippled many men, and after two of them even Gargittios was shaken. The Hound finally realised that he could not defeat this opponent with his unstoppable charge. He hung back warily and that was when Acastus attacked, ducking a powerful fist and catching his opponent’s left thumb and forefinger. He used his whole body weight and most of Gargittios’ to twist the Hound’s injured wrist behind his back and with that leverage forced him to his knees.
Acastus pressed Gargittios’ arm into his back and hooked an arm around the monster’s throat. He held him pinned, leaning his body away from Gargittios’ groping arm, and squeezed until the Hound collapsed. He held on still and might have done so until the bitter end rather than risk releasing the monstrous Jaffa, but Melpomene approached and commanded him to stop. Reluctantly, he released the unconscious Hound and stepped away from him. He bowed to the Muse and then returned to the circle to gather his energies, touching kelno’reem for a few heartbeats to relieve the aches inflicted by the bout. Even without landing a blow, Gargittios had exhausted Acastus.
“You have not made yourself popular,” Sisiphon told him. “Orthon looks as though he wants to kill you even more than he wants to kill everyone else and the Muse definitely thinks you came too close to strangling that bastard.”
“I couldn’t be sure he was really unconscious. But I wish she hadn’t stopped me,” Acastus sighed.
“I am sure that many people do, the Muse not least among them. I can not believe the insolence of the Hounds.”
“At least it confirms that she is truly fair and impartial.”
In the fourth round, Oneira defeated Sisiphon. He tried to look as though he were bearing the defeat with good grace, but Acastus knew that his friend felt cheated not to have had a chance to fight against any of the Hounds. Secretly, Acastus was grateful to the Moirae for this lack, as the only Hound remaining was Orthon.
Acastus gained a difficult victory over Theocritus. Cronus’ champion was a skilled fighter, but in watching his fights Acastus had realised that he was over-reliant on a small number of moves; doubtless Theocritus had watched Acastus just as carefully, but Medusa taught her Gorgons to be unpredictable. They matched each other for several minutes, until Acastus suddenly switched his fighting style completely. He was still forced to knock the Raven down five times before he would submit, but the victory was his.
He was very weary now and the space between bouts grew shorter as the number of fighters dwindled. In the fifth round, only ten fighters remained, all of them skilled and Orthon at least barely showing a sweat.
“Let Oneira of Helicon and Acastus of Halicarnasus enter the circle!”
The two fighters came forward and Acastus reviewed what he had seen of his opponent. She was quick and well-balanced; she did not lack in strength, but she was small and preferred to rely on speed to avoid being overborne by an opponent’s superior mass. In her fight against Sisiphon she had also shown a gift for improvisation. One thing he knew for certain, she would give him a harder fight than any other opponent so far, but he also knew that she had a flaw.
Acastus began his fight defensively, blocking and circling to keep out of reach of Oneira’s serpent-swift punches. Those punches had accounted for the mighty Cerberus and Acastus knew that he would feel far too many of them if he charged in. That was how Oneira won, battering her opponents with these rapid punches, softening them up for a final, devastating blow. The strategy was undeniably effective, but it was also flawed. Oneira pushed her own endurance to its limits to wear down her opponent and that meant that she could not afford a long fight; she would, she must, strike swiftly.
It was not difficult for Acastus to feign exhaustion; he was so close to it in truth. His pretence was certainly convincing enough to lure Oneira into launching her final assault too soon; so soon in fact that he was almost caught off guard and defeated by his own deception. Fortunately, Medusa taught her warriors to fight by instinct, not by thought, and as Oneira lunged he swayed aside before he really knew that the blow was coming. He caught her outstretched arm and pushed it out of line; her own redirected strength became the force that bent the limb so violently that a sharp push beneath her shoulder was all it took to crack the long bone.
Acastus released Oneira and stepped back. The Huntress stumbled away, trying to put distance between herself and Acastus. She drew her broken arm close to her chest and tried to guard herself. Acastus did not attack.
Warily, she inclined her head towards him. He returned the gesture.
“I yield,” she said, and the louder called: “I yield!”
Acastus bowed to her in grave respect, pleased that he would not have to cause her greater harm; he had no wish to kill for this victory. The injury he had inflicted was minor by Jaffa standards and would heal in a day or less; she might even be able to compete in the panoplation.
Acastus returned to the circle; Oneira walked away from the ring.
In the next bout, Tithonus’ opponent showed less sense. He kept trying to win, despite a broken leg; it seemed that he was unable to believe that he had been defeated and Tithonus was forced to batter him into unconsciousness. Onyx and even Orthon had to struggle to defeat their opponents, but the most epic contest of the round was that between the swimmer, Metrocles, and Mestas, champion of the Titaness Phoebe. These two came at each other with such determination and violence that, by the end of the bout, neither man was able to return to the circle. The Muse dismissed both athletes; only four remained.
The atmosphere in the circle – or what remained of it – was tense. Each Jaffa sized up the other three, but at least there would be no passes. No one athlete would gain the benefit of the extra rest.
“Let Orthon of Iolchus and Onyx of Hesperidas enter the circle!”
The two huge warriors circled one another. At the sound of the horn, they charged. The battle was a simple clash of might. They locked their arms around one another and squeezed, pushing against one another with all of their strength; Acastus had hoped that Onyx might have known better. The giant was strong, but no match for Orthon. The end was inevitable and, to judge by the horrid crack that signalled it, terminal.
Acastus watched in disgust as the body of Onyx was dragged away. He had seen what the Muse could not: that Onyx had been beyond continuing long before his back broke. Moreover, he was sure that Orthon had known this. The killing was pointless, but the Hound revelled in it; he was a killer in a way that none of the Gorgons could be. He enjoyed death.
“Let Acastus of Halicarnasus and Tithonus of Kyprios enter the circle!” As she spoke, the Muse was watching Orthon. She did not seem to enjoy the slaughter, but Acastus was sure that many of the audience must be.
Tithonus was not a great fighter, but Acastus was concerned nonetheless. The boy he had displayed incredible good fortune and a gift for capitalising on his opponents’ errors that had carried him this far in the contest. Acastus was determined not to present the youth with any such opportunity.
Acastus opened hard and knocked Tithonus down easily enough. He moved to finish the boy quickly with a sharp blow of his foot, but he missed. Tithonus did not move, Acastus simply missed. His foot landed beside Tithonus’ abdomen instead of on it and Tithonus slammed his hand into the side of Acastus’ knee. As Acastus stumbled, Tithonus kicked out and felled his opponent.
“I yield!” Acastus called. Tithonus came forward, but Melpomene moved to stop him. One of her servants came to help Acastus away; there seemed to be a look of disappointment in her eye as Acastus left the stadium, but it could just have been a reflection of Acastus’ own feelings.
Sisiphon was waiting behind the Gate of the Erinyes when Acastus stumbled in. The horns sounded behind him for the start of the final bout.
“How could that pretty boy have defeated you?” Sisiphon demanded.
Acastus shook his head in confusion and disbelief. “I must be more tired that I thought,” he said. “I was sure that I had him.”
From the arena came a roar of bloodlust from the crowd.
“It sounds as though Orthon is less weary,” Sisiphon noted.
The horns blared, not once but three times. “What in the name of the Furies?” Acastus wondered. “There are no ending horns in the pankration.”
“Stand back!” one of the guards called.
Sisiphon and the two Gorgons stepped back to the wall as Melpomene’s Jaffa carried a twisted, bloody thing in from the stadium.
“What was that?” Sisiphon asked.
“Tithonus,” Acastus gasped.
*
Atalanta had watched the entire event from the platform behind the Furies. “Orthon stumbled,” she explained.
“Orthon as well?” Acastus asked. “That is more than luck.”
“But not enough,” Atalanta noted. “Tithonus struck Orthon as he did you, but all it achieved was to make Orthon angry. He knocked the boy down and fell upon him, punching and…” She looked sickened by the memory. “Melpomene ordered the horns sounded to try and call him off; he would not heed her.”
“She is said to be in conference with the other Muses,” Sisiphon noted. “Her guards imply that she hopes to have Orthon disqualified, even though he technically broke no rules. I will try to find out more.”
Once Sisiphon was gone, Atalanta turned to her friend. She knew him well enough to recognise that he was in a black mood.
“This is none of your doing,” she told him.
“I made a fool’s error and set that child against a monster,” Acastus replied. “He should never have faced Orthon.”
“He should never have faced you. Some strange fate conspired to place him there, Acastus; many Jaffa stumbled to let him past.”
“Perhaps.” Acastus rose from his bunk, putting his weight gingerly on his injured knee.
“Where are you going?”
“To the shrine of Asclepius,” Acastus replied.
“Shall I…?”
“No,” Acastus replied. “I shall go on my own. I shall not be long.”
Tithonus was no longer beautiful; his face and body had been twisted and destroyed by Orthon’s brutal attack. What disturbed Acastus the most was the realisation that Orthon’s unbridled strength could have crushed Tithonus’ head with a single blow. This was the result, not of a frenzied assault, but of a deliberate act of mutilation aimed at shattering that handsome form. Orthon was not only an exultant killer, he was a cold-blooded vandal.
The boy turned his head to look at Acastus. He had to turn because one eye had been destroyed; the other was still perfect. “Acastus,” he said, his voice emerging in a breathless hiss; Acastus was not sure if the hiss was due to the crushed throat or the collapsed lung.
“Jaffa,” Acastus replied.
“Have you come to gloat?” Tithonus asked. “I suppose that I have received my just reward.”
“I do not know what you mean,” Acastus assured him. “I came to apologise to you. My mistake has cost you more than I.”
Tithonus gave a short laugh, which broke off in a fit of painful coughing. “Your mistake was my doing, Jaffa,” he explained. “I possess an ability to cause such errors; a small gift from the Fates perhaps. I can do so only once for any person, but it was enough to gain me an advantage…and the favour of my lady.”
Acastus felt a surge of anger. “But not enough to give you the advantage over Orthon,” he growled, fighting to control his temper.
“And so I am paid for my pride and dishonour,” Tithonus agreed. “What the Fates give, they may also take away. What I did was wrong, without honour, but to prove myself to my Goddess…” The boy’s good eye brimmed with tears.
“You have served well,” Acastus assured the youth, suddenly feeling sorry for him. “Your mistress will be pleased with you.”
This prompted another bout of laughter and choking. “My Goddess favoured me for my beauty. With my gift I hoped that she might notice me above her other favourites, but now I am shamed, defeated and I have no beauty. She has not come to visit me and she will not do so. I shall be fortunate if she even takes me back to Kyprios with her.”
Acastus stayed half-an-hour with Tithonus and emerged feeling utterly drained. The boy’s despair was heart-rending and Acastus found it impossible to remain angry at the young fighter when he had so clearly lost everything. His treachery troubled Acastus, but it also helped him to understand the nature of the tournament around him. The Gorgons loved their captain, but to love a goddess as a woman was a burden that few men would wish to bear. Even for those few whose passion was requited no human or Jaffa ever claimed all of a Goa’uld’s heart and eventual rejection was inevitable. It was small wonder that Tithonus had sacrificed his honour in his efforts to keep Aphrodite’s favour; her love was his obsession.
It was the same for the other Jaffa who sought to find some advantage in the games, in spite of honour. For them, it was the only way to win the love and respect of their patron. Of course it was all-but impossible for the Gorgons to understand this; they already enjoyed the trust, respect and recognition of Captain Medusa.
He left the shrine of Asclepius in a distracted mood, but he was nonetheless immediately aware of the presence of another person. It was partly a nameless sense of eyes, watching him, but mostly the overwhelming scent of pomegranates that filled the air.
“The fall of my champion leaves a space aboard my yacht and in my service.” The voice that spoke to him was low and rich and filled with promise. The very sweetness of it filled his mind and made him feel torpid and sleepy. “Your skill is great; I am moved to offer you that place, Jaffa.”
Acastus dug his nails into the palms of his hands and felt a horrid crawling sensation along his spine. This was the kind of offer that could get a Jaffa killed. “My lady Aphrodite is too kind,” he gasped. He did not turn; Tithonus had told him that to look on Aphrodite was to be lost and he dared not disbelieve. Even without sight of her, with just scent and the sound, the temptation to accept her offer overwhelmed him. His disgust at her treatment of Tithonus seemed as nothing and it was only his devotion to his duty that enabled him to resist her siren song. His voice was a low groan as he said: “However, I am sworn to service already, and no Jaffa can serve two mistresses.”
“You would refuse me?” The low voice became deadly, all the sweetness turning to venom. “You would dare…” Aphrodite fell silent as a slender figure emerged from the shadows ahead of Acastus.
“Return to your barracks, Jaffa,” Lady Mentor ordered. Even then it was a struggle for him to leave Aphrodite’s presence, but Mentor added: “Your captain would expect you to be rested.”
“Yes, Lady Mentor,” he acknowledged. Feelings of gratitude and resentment warred within him and he departed swiftly, before the wrong emotion could win out.
“Stay away from him,” Mentor said coolly.
“Do you have an eye on the pup yourself?” Aphrodite gave a mocking laugh as she swayed from the shadows. In the fading light of sunset her dark skin glistened and lights sparkled like stars in her raven hair. Mentor knew that the light was caught and reflected not by common sweat, but by the organic pheromone compound that seeped constantly from Aphrodite’s pores. At times such as this, when she was set on conquest, her skin was slick with the noxious stuff; its range was limited, but its effects most potent and no man close enough to touch could have cared about the film of oily residue that covered her body. “I suppose it would have to be just the one eye,” she added.
“The Jaffa is spoken for by one who values his skill. Do not cross me on this, Aphrodite.”
Aphrodite gave
a seductive chuckle. “And what
will you do if I choose not to heed your warnings? I know that Poseidon
values
your counsel, but he would not cross me over one
“I know many things,” Mentor said. “I know that you have a reputation for spite and vengeance. I know that you are rash, but no fool.”
“Flatterer,”
Aphrodite laughed. She trailed
her fingers across
With a sudden movement, Mentor caught Aphrodite’s groping hand and twisted it, forcing the goddess of love and beauty to her knees in a single, smooth motion. “I know that you never travel with your bodyguards when you have seduction on your mind because they would be as overwhelmed by your foul stench as anyone else,” Mentor went on. “I know that your perfumes work on Jaffa and Goa’uld just as well as they do on humans and I know how to neutralise their power.”
“How…how dare you attack me?” Aphrodite protested.
Mentor smiled. “Because, dear one, I have never been taken in by your act. I have always known that you are neither as foolish, nor as carnal as you pretend, and that, despite your reputation, you will not let foolish vengeance override your good sense…Kythera.”
Aphrodite’s perfect, almond eyes widened in incredulity. “None call me by that name,” she whispered.
“None?”
Aphrodite opened her mouth, a name on the tip of her tongue, but Mentor laid a finger on her lips.
“Now is not the time,” she said. Mentor released Aphrodite’s wrist and allowed her to stand. “You will leave the boy alone?”
“Of course,” Aphrodite agreed almost diffidently. “Although it stings to be refused, I will not be driven insensibly by vengeance, as well you know.”
“Fear not for your reputation; none shall know of this,” Mentor promised. “He is discreet and the other athletes have already gone to the ritual grounds for the Festival of the Moirae.”
“But what do you want with him?”
“Like you, I know an able warrior when I see one, but I would not have him softened by your poisonous embraces. He is champion to another, one who needs no seduction to win hearts to her cause.”
“Would you rob me of all entertainment?” Aphrodite pouted.
“I
would rid you of the need for these petty
games,” Mentor
replied. “
Aphrodite smiled. “I trust not, my lady,” she replied in a voice that was far removed from the sexual purr of moments before, “although plainly my instincts have grown weak from lack of exercise.”
“Then I shall expect you before moonrise.”
*
The Festival of the Moirae was the one night of the games that did not involve any ritual sacrifices. As Acastus had reminded Atalanta on the first day of the tournament, the Fates could not be propitiated; their work was done without fear or favour. Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis measured and Atropos cut, without caring if the thread were to be apportioned to a peasant or a god. In Halicarnasus, there was a saying: Fate is.
The Festival of the Moirae was not an appeal to the Fates for favour; it was in part a thanksgiving for the span of life that had been given to the athletes, and in part a memorial to those whose threads had been cut in the course of the tournament. In the case of the nine hundred and thirty-fourth Olympiad, rather more threads had been cut than was usual. There were dozens of psychopyres, the soul-flames lit to guide the spirits of the departed. Each fire was ringed with six circles, representing the six rivers which lay between the overworld and the underworld. Prayers were inscribed between the circles to aid and protect the wandering souls.
The squads did not mingle on this solemn occasion; each built and lit their own fires. Poseidon’s squad lit three fires, one each for Nimeus, Thessalius and Xenophon, and they banked them high; the spirits of murdered men were always more in need of guidance than those who had died at peace. More than that, the fires were a message that they had not forgotten the crimes committed against them and they had to be seen.
Not every squad raised one pyre for every athlete lost. The Dionysians raised a single, massive blaze for their many dead. For once, even their wild and vital spirit was muted. The Hounds built no fires; they had suffered no losses. One other squad, a group of five Jaffa in long, black robes, built no fires. Although they marked two circles of protection they raised no piles of wood; instead, they dug a pit in the centre of each circle and filled it with broken glass, twisted metal and ashes.
“Who are they?” Acastus asked.
“The servants of the Dark Ones,” Atalanta replied. “I think that you faced some of them in the pentathlon, but they were not hooded then. They have not attended the other festivals.”
“But…the festivals are compulsory.”
“Not to the Dark Ones and their servants. The Dark Ones may be a part of the Olympian faction, but they are older than the Greater Olympian; older than most of the Titans. They have their own, weird rites.” She nodded toward the ash pits. “They still respect the Moirae, however, and hence they do attend the Festival of the Fates.”
As the sun set, Atalanta took a burning brand and set it to each of the fires in turn. As the flames leaped up, she inscribed the name and sigil of one of the Fates by each of the pyres. Around them, the other pyres sprang into life. In the flickering light the Jaffa knelt and remembered the dead, whispering prayers of guidance. The Gorgons had little truck with superstition and so Acastus’ prayers were short. Perhaps that was why when he looked up he caught the three Hounds gazing at the psychopyres with sneers on their lips; or perhaps they simply wished to be seen.
Anger flared in Acastus’ heart and he rose to his feet. He took up the wand of olive wood that Atalanta had used to mark the signs in the sand and pointed it at each of the Hounds in turn. When he pointed at Orthon the three moved as though to fight; when he swung the wand to point at Gargittios they looked baffled; when he levelled it towards Cerberus, his expression still as blank and cold as a snowfield, they began to look nervous.
“Acastus?” Atalanta rose and took a step towards him, but he moved past her to the first of the psychopyres. This had been lit for Nimeus and Atalanta had written the name of Clotho beside it and marked the sign of the spinning wheel. Beneath this, Acastus scratched another name and another sign. The name was Alecto and the sign was a three-tongued scourge. By the fire for Thessalius, alongside the name of Lachesis and the sign of the rod, he wrote ‘Megaera’ and drew a spear. Finally he went to Xenophon’s psychopyre, where Atalanta had written the name of Atropos and drawn the sign of the shears. He added the name Tisiphone and an image of a labrys.
“What are you doing, Acastus?” Atalanta demanded. “This is madness; you can not invoke the Erinyes on a whim!”
“A whim?” Acastus demanded. He lifted the wand and pointed at the Hounds once more. They had turned their backs on him now and were laughing. “This is no whim. They are guilty of murder, treachery and cruel mutilation and they must be punished. If the gods will not act, we must appeal to a higher authority.”
He grasped the wand at both ends and broke it over his knee. He dragged the splintered end of the wand across his palm, clenched his fist until blood oozed through his fingers and then flicked the blood into Thessalius’ fire, where it hissed and spat on the red hot wood. He looked to Atalanta.
After a moment’s hesitation, she took the broken wand from him, cut her palm and sprayed her blood into Xenophon’s psychopyre. Sisiphon rose and approached them. Atalanta gave him the wand and he added his blood to Nimeus’ blaze.
“It means nothing,” Atalanta reminded them.
A gust of wind swept down at that moment and swirled the sand around them in a vortex. The names, signs, prayers and circles were erased in a moment. Grains of dust passed though the flames and flared brilliantly as they flashed into ash. The pyres flared up into great columns of fire.
“It…It means nothing,” Atalanta said again.
“It means that we remember,” Acastus corrected.
“You may not believe,” Sisiphon told them sharply, “but I do. I offer my life if it will give me the chance to drag Cerberus into Tartarus with me.”
“A dangerous oath,” Atalanta said, casting a sharp glance at Acastus.
“Something had to be done,” Acastus replied, “even if it is only a gesture.”
Atalanta moved closer to her friend. “You meddle with dangerous forces,” she whispered.
“Then you believe in the Erinyes?” he asked sceptically.
“No,” she assured him, “but I believe in vengeance and that is a power that can not easily be contained if once unleashed. I hope that this will not consume us all.”
Acastus turned from her fierce glare. He turned his head towards the dark space in the centre of the field of flames and froze. Around their ash pits, the servants of the Old Ones stood. Their faces were still hidden in the shadows of their hoods, but Acastus was certain that they were watching him. That certainty made him shiver.
*
Day 8 - skirmish shooting, archery
“Am I doomed not to rest?” Acastus demanded angrily.
“Rest this morning,” Atalanta told him, “but Lady Mentor has instructed that you should participate in the archery contest.”
Acastus groaned. “And which of our luckless comrades am I to replace this day?”
“None of ours,” Atalanta replied. “You take the place of the Huntresses Latona and Oneira. As the former has been forced to withdraw and the latter, by your hand, to forfeit the archery contests to rest herself for the panoplation tomorrow, Lady Artemis requested that you take their place.” She hung a finely-tooled quiver on the end of the bunk. “Lady Mentor has sent you a bow; I suggest you practice with it. And think yourself lucky,” she added. “I have to take Xenophon’s place and lead a squad I do not know in the skirmish shooting.” Atalanta stalked away.
Acastus lay in bed, aching all over, but the only major injury had been to his knee and that would not be overtaxed by the archery. He gave silent thanks that he was not in the skirmish combat team; crawling through obstacles and firing a staff weapon from kneeling would have done for him and he was determined to make a good showing in the panoplation. It was his performance with a blade that had won him his place here and he could not believe that there would be a fighter in the stadium to match Arachne.
Once more Atalanta had given him wise advice. He rose, washed and took the bow out to the practice grounds. He was a skilled shot, but an untried bow could make a fool of the best archer. He would not please Lady Mentor, or Lady Artemis, if he broke the weapon on the first shot.
The bow that Mentor has sent was a beautiful, graceful weapon of wood and horn, traced around with silver intaglio; five feet long and powerful, but it pulled easily once he had managed to string it. The string was of twisted hair instead of gut and made a deep, satisfied thrum when he plucked it. There were fifteen arrows, each straight and true and fletched with golden feathers of a kind that he had never seen before.
Acastus flexed his shoulders and limbered his muscles. He slid on his bracers and a pair of shooting gloves; his hands were strong and the skin tough, but this bow was more powerful than he was accustomed to and he did not want to try and shoot with bleeding fingers. He strung the bow, with some difficulty, and selected an arrow. He gripped the handle and nocked the arrow to the string.
The Jaffa style of archery, like all of their fighting arts, had developed for battlefield use and hunting and there was an emphasis on the speed of draw and release; slow and careful aim was no route to victory. Nonetheless, Acastus took his time with the first arrow, holding it to his ear until the strength of the bow began to make his arms tremble. When he released the string it made a throaty, satisfied twang and the arrow sped to its target, sinking deep into the outer edge of the target. A second shot, just as slow, landed closer to the gold. A third struck the centre of the target.
Acastus nodded in satisfaction, confident that he had the feel of the bow. He reclaimed the three arrows from the target and then released twelve arrows in quick succession, allowing barely the length of a breath to aim each shot. It was less accurate, but in the stadium he would be expected to shoot quickly; the victor would be the athlete who could land a dozen shots within the inner area of the target, an area less than an arm’s length across, in the shortest time, not the one who shot most accurately.
He retrieved the arrows and checked them for damage; despite the power of the bow, every arrow was unharmed. He returned them to the quiver and walked back to his mark to shoot again.
The archery event was contested in rounds. There were ninety-one archers competing, far too many for the judges to be able to choose between them for speed. Therefore they would be divided into ten groups, nine of nine and one of ten. From each of the groups of nine, three archers would advance to the next round, from the group of ten, four archers. The thirty-one remaining archers would then compete in three eights and a seven, with two proceeding from each group. Two fours in the third round would then send on two archers each, while the victor would be decided between the final four.
Acastus was a realist; he suspected that with good fortune he might make the third round, especially when he was drawn in the first group of nine alongside eight hulking, solid Jaffa, including Cerberus, whose bow looked more like an ox yoke. He went up with this group and planted his twelve arrows ready in the sand, taking care not to damage them. Each athlete was permitted only fifteen arrows for the duration of the contest; four damaged arrows would require an athlete to retire.
“Let the athletes be ruled by their oaths!” Melpomene commanded. “Athletes will commence shooting on the first blast of the horn. Athletes must plant twelve arrows within the inner region of the target. An athlete who lands an arrow in the outer target will be dismissed from the competition; an athlete whose arrow misses the target will be dismissed from the competition. The three fastest shooters will proceed to the next round.
“Stand ready!”
Each athlete nocked a single arrow to their string.
“Draw!”
Acastus drew the arrow to his ear; his awareness of the other athletes faded to a purely instinctive level as he focused his attention on the target. At the sound of the horn he released the arrow and reached for the next. He sent all twelve arrows winging towards the target and squinted down the range to ensure that all twelve arrows had indeed landed within the inner circles. One of them was a little closer to the edge than he would have liked, but well within the area.
“The athletes who proceed to the next round are Palamon of Theres, Aegathon of Naxos and Acastus of Halicarnasus,” the Muse announced.
Cerberus gave a roar of frustration and snapped his great bow across his knee. Acastus could see at a glance what had happened. Seven huge arrows jutted from the target, but the target itself had been knocked to the ground and split down the middle by the force of the eighth arrow.
The dismissed archers left the arena and a new target was brought to replace the broken one. The next group of nine advanced to their marks. Acastus sat down with his two fellows to observe the competition. Palamon was a small but heavyset man with the knot of Themis on his brow, while Aegathon was a burly servant of Lord Hades. As the afternoon passed, more athletes joined them, including Orthon. Although even Gargittios could not wield a bow with an injured arm, Orthon seemed set on upholding the dubious honour of the Hounds and shot an exceptional round.
It was therefore to Acastus’ dismay that he was drawn in the same group as Orthon for the second round. The two of them proceeded to the next round together, but Acastus could not say which of them had been faster. The Hound’s swiftness of hand was quite astonishing. In the third round, Acastus clashed with Palamon once more, and with the Cryoguard, Amadines. The fourth in their group, a whipcord slender Jaffa named Tamar, in the service of Phoebe, left the stadium, having broken her fourth arrow in the second round target. Acastus, somewhat to his own surprise, still had fifteen unbroken arrows in his quiver, even after the third round, when Palamon had left the arena in defeat.
And so it came down to the final four: Acastus, Amadines, Orthon and Xanthippe, a woman with hard, hooded eyes and the flame of Hestia traced in silver upon her brow.
The Muse addressed the athletes. “In this final round, the athletes will compete on terms of accuracy instead of speed,” she announced, creating quite a stir among the watching sponsors. “Each athlete will shoot a single arrow at the target; the arrow landing closest to the centre will mark the victor. If the accuracy of two or more arrows can not be distinguished between, the owners of those archers will shoot again.”
Acastus was taken aback. This was a great departure from tradition and it was one that might tell against him. He had come to know the bow well after the last few rounds, but it was still new to him, whereas Xanthippe’s weapon in particular had worn to fit her hand through long use.
“Orthon of Iolchus shall fire first.”
The Hound stepped to the mark and lifted his massive bow. He stretched the bow and released his arrow; he barely took time to aim and it was clear that he had no experience of this kind of shooting. He struck the inner circle, but not the centre, and stormed away from the mark. Amadines’ arrow found the gold, but Acastus fancied that his shot was closer to the centre. Xanthippe’s shot made a third gold.
The Muse declared that three archers had attained equal accuracy and ordered the target moved back ten paces.
“Mine was the victory,” Xanthippe muttered. “Can not my Queen claim any prize?”
Secretly, Acastus agreed that Xanthippe had had the edge, but he could not believe that Melpomene was prejudiced against the woman. His own suspicion was that she wanted to be sure that Orthon’s failure was clearly marked. Still, it was not surprising that Hestia’s athlete should suspect treachery; the once-great Queen’s followers still bore a grudge for their mistress’s demotion in the Olympian ranks.
The three archers shot again. This time, Amadines missed the gold, but Acastus and Xanthippe struck the centre of the target. Again, Acastus was sure that Xanthippe’s was the better shot, but the Muse declared a tie and had the target moved back. Two more golds followed, but Acastus noticed that, in addition to her growing impatience and frustration, Xanthippe was forced to angle her bow further upwards. She had chosen a bow with an easy pull, that would allow her to fire swiftly and surely, but now the target was approaching the edge of the weapon’s range, while his arrows still flew true.
Acastus gazed down at the magnificent bow in his hands and rage blossomed in his heart. As the servants carried the target back another ten paces, Acastus walked over to Hestia’s archer. She was tightening her bowstring, clearly aware of the limitations of her weapon.
“Mistress Xanthippe,” he said.
“Master Acastus,” she replied. She did not meet his gaze and her fingers twisted the bowstring as though she wanted to wrap it around his neck.
“You and I both know that you are the superior archer,” he told her.
She looked up with a savage glower. “Then why tell me?”
“So that you know that I know,” he told her. “So that you will know why I do what I do.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Will you denounce me as a cheat?” she demanded. “Have me removed for…for serving a mistress without favour?”
Acastus did not bother to reply. He turned away from her anger and bitterness and walked back to the mark. The target was ready and he drew and released quickly, planting his arrow in the outer circle. As he left the mark he passed Xanthippe. Her eyes blazed, but he hissed out: “We both know.” She stopped and nodded, then moved up to the mark.
“Lady Artemis is most unhappy with you,” Lady Mentor announced. “After your comrade performed so magnificently in the skirmish, I must confess that I had expected better of you. Does your captain teach you to throw a contest because your opponent has a pretty face?”
Acastus stood in front of the lady’s desk; he was not so favoured now as to be offered a seat. “No, my lady,” he assured her. For many reasons he chose not to offer in his defence that Xanthippe was not especially pretty.
“You have given me cause to think you a warrior of great skill and integrity, Acastus,” Lady Mentor noted. “I therefore offer you one chance to explain yourself. Why did you allow Mistress Xanthippe to claim victory in the archery contest?”
“Because she was the better archer.”
“If that were so, why did she need your charity?”
Acastus paused for a moment.
“Jaffa?”
“Because there was a conspiracy to secure the victory for me,” he said. “You ensured that I was armed with a weapon suited to shoot accurately at distance, as well as swiftly close to, and the Muse repeatedly declared that no victor could be determined when Xanthippe’s arrow was quite clearly closer to the centre of the gold.”
Lady Mentor’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You believed that I conspired somehow with an incorruptible Muse to assure you a victory and yet you rejected that?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Then I must ask again that you explain yourself. The victory was yours, why throw it away?”
“Because it would not have been my victory,” he explained. “Xanthippe was the better archer; had I been awarded the victory, it would have been a testament to nothing more than the power of my sponsor.”
“And is that not the purpose of the Olympiad?” Mentor bellowed, rising to her feet in anger.
“To you, perhaps,” Acastus admitted, “but we were reminded on the first day of the tournament that the Olympiad is the only opportunity that we have to attain personal glory through our skill and we were exhorted to act with honour.”
Slowly, Mentor’s anger faded and her lips curled into a calculating smile. “Seldom have I been addressed with such courteous insolence. You serve me well for my shortness with you and I say again that you are a credit to your mistress. But tell me, Acastus, are you so ruled by absolute honour in battle?”
“In battle, the objective is victory…and survival,” Acastus answered. “But this is not battle, my lady, these are games, and there is no purpose to a game unless it is played according to the rules.”
“You show great wisdom for such a young man,” Mentor noted. “It might serve you well, however, to recall that there is a greater game here, the rules of which may yet be obscure to you.”
“I swear,” Acastus told Atalanta, “I was being tested.”
“Every interview with Lady Mentor is a test,” Atalanta assured him. “When I attended on her this morning after the skirmish she pressed me to explain and justify every aspect of my strategy and tactics. In the end I had no choice but to tell her that many of my decisions were based on experienced guesswork and swift judgements. I thought that she would be angry with me, but…”
“She smiled?”
“Indeed.”
Acastus nodded. “As with me, but I believe that the entire matter of the archery contest was arranged as a test. Lady Mentor cares little for our successes or failures; she wished only to see what I would do.”
“Perhaps,” Atalanta agreed. “She has a deep mind; deep, and perhaps treacherous.”
“Do you not trust her?”
Atalanta looked him in the eye. “I trust only my comrades, my kin and my captain. Besides, she has now pressed me to engage in the panoplation in Xenophon’s place.”
Acastus smiled. “I can hardly see that presenting you with much difficulty. You have a great deal of skill with the sword.”
“I have skill enough to improve my chance of survival on the battlefield,” she replied, “but I am not at your level.”
“I am in no way your superior,” Acastus protested.
Atalanta scoffed. “I can lead a section better than you lead a squad,” she agreed, “and I can hit a bird at a range where you might miss the flock, but hand-to-hand I can not touch you. You are the only Gorgon to have defeated Arachne in personal combat since…before I took the helm, certainly. I doubt if I will pass the first round.”
“We shall see. Gather your weapons, old woman.”
“Acastus?”
“You have not practised hand-to-hand combat in some days; we must rectify that if you are to stand any chance.”
“I have not sparred with you in years,” she noted.
“Not since you were teaching me,” he agreed. “Perhaps I can return the favour now.”
Atalanta laughed. “You think you can teach this old bitch some new tricks?”
He smiled. “We shall see.”
*
The next day, they rose and washed in silence. The armed combat event was one of the more prestigious in the tournament and there would be many combatants, but something more than this hung over them. As Atalanta inspected Acastus’ injured knee and declared him fit to fight, she finally put it into words.
“Something is coming,” she said. “Something to make the rest of this bloody awful tournament seem like a few drops of rain before the storm. I can feel it in the air,” she went on. “You may mock an old woman’s fancies, but…”
“No,” Acastus assured her. “I feel it too. Last night I dreamed about…”
“The Erinyes?”
Acastus nodded. “I saw Megaera’s face looming over me; I felt her wrath and her cold, righteous fury fill me. It felt as though I were not myself.”
“I also dreamed.” For a moment, Acastus thought that Atalanta would describe her dream, but she shook her head and changed the subject. “You will be careful, will you not? Will you swear to me that you will not take any risks in the arena, even if it means surrendering victory.”
“I have sworn already to give my all to the tournament,” he reminded her.
“This is no game anymore, Acastus. Murder is being done and I do not wish to bury a friend.”
“I shall do my best not to die,” he assured her. “Let us arm ourselves.”
Atalanta nodded.
The combatants in this event were to fight in light armour and carry their own selection of weapons, to a certain limit. The two Gorgons donned their padded tunics, breeches and boots, and then turned to their armour. Atalanta strapped Acastus into his armour first and then he did the same for her. They began with the coat of scales which hung to the knee, then the greaves to protect their lower legs and vambraces on the forearms. Their upper arms were left exposed and all of the armour was weak in the rear. Finally, they took up their helmets, plain things, crested and tailed but with only the trident mark of Poseidon to distinguish them from any other fighter.
“Wait,” Acastus said. He took his knife and scratched the surface of Atalanta’s helmet, just above the trident sign. He rubbed charcoal from the fire into the scratches until the mark stood out dark against the smooth metal in the shape of a winged circle.
“Thank you,” Atalanta said. She took his helmet in turn and marked it with Medusa’s emblem. Within the circle she scratched the letter mu. “For Medusa, and for Megaera,” she explained. “She seems to have watched over you so far.”
Acastus bowed in acknowledgement, and to allow Atalanta to slip the helmet onto his head. Thus armoured, they turned to the weapon racks.
Each warrior was permitted to carry a knife, two weapons in scabbards about their body and whatever they could hold in their hands. Atalanta hung two short swords on a belt about her waist and placed a dagger in her boot. Acastus slung a heavy labrys across his back, a short sword at his right hip and a dagger at his left. Atalanta lifted a round shield from the racks and took a long, hook-bladed makhaira in her right hand. Acastus reached for a shield, but stopped and took a long spear instead.
“No shield?”
He shook his head. “Against the Hounds, the reach may serve me better,” he replied. “Besides, it is the weapon of Megaera.”
Atalanta nodded in understanding. She regarded her makhaira for a long moment and glanced at a labrys on the rack, but she did not make the exchange. “Take this one,” she suggested, setting her sword to one side in order to pass him a different spear. “This was Xenophon’s, but he has no use for it now.”
The weapon was heavier than the one that Acastus had selected, but the balance was perfect and the spearhead shone with a fierce light. “Thank you, Atalanta,” Acastus said. “This will do very well indeed.”
More athletes had entered the panoplation than the pankration, but the circle at the beginning of the event was smaller, so great was the number of athletes had not recovered sufficiently from the unarmed combat. Once more, Moera was absent from the lists. Acastus stood between Sisiphon and Atalanta, and struggled to suppress his fear that they would not all be returning to the barracks.
Melpomene entered the ring. Today, eight of her guards stood with the fighters as part of the circle and twice as many behind the athletes; it did not escape notice that they wore full battledress armour. The Muse herself had also donned a ceremonial suit of bronzed plate, but its form was intended more to flatter than to protect. She raised her arms for silence.
“The athletes will be ruled by their oaths,” she declared, with an emphasis that seemed targeted at the three Hounds.
“How much do you think their armour weighs?”
Acastus turned his head at the whispered question and saw Amadines standing on the far side of Atalanta.
“The same as ours,” Atalanta assured him. “The armour for the panoplation may not exceed a certain weight; in this we do have an advantage over those brutes, for their armour must cover twice as much ground with the same mass of metal.”
“That advantage will belong to Mandracles,” Amadines declared. “The forges of Hephaestus create the finest armour in the galaxy.”
“We all have exposed flesh,” Acastus reminded him, “but listen; the Muse is taking no chances.”
“This is a contest of hand-to-hand combat,” Melpomene continued. “It is not a contest of pharmacology; three athletes have already been removed for attempting to use poisoned weapons. Neither is it a contest of any other manner of combat. Your throwing skills have already been tested, therefore if any weapon, object or other matter should be deemed to have been thrown as a form of attack or diversion, the offending athlete will be slain.” She paused and looked around the circle, allowing her words to sink in.
“Athletes will fight in pairs as commanded, commencing on the sound of the horns,” she continued, going back to the ritual script. “Each athlete will fight once only in each round. Where an odd number of contestants remain, the athlete who gained the swiftest victory in the previous round will advance without fighting. As one hundred and forty-seven athletes form the original circle, the victor in the pankration, Orthon of Iolchus, shall not complete.”
A number of the athletes groaned; the Hounds had an advantage in terms of endurance already, without Orthon passing the first round unopposed.
Melpomene looked around the circle. “Let Acastus of Halicarnasus and Nerios of Samos enter the circle.”
The first round held few surprises. The contest was arranged so that the first few clashes were between the most skilled fighters and the least, in order to keep the more ‘entertaining’ fights would be reserved for the closing rounds. The only serious upset came when Oneira clashed with Gargittios. Her arm appeared to give her no difficulty at all as she weaved around the Hound’s great flail to land cut after cut to the back of his legs and arms. His blood had stained the sand in a great pool by the time he collapsed and was dragged away.
Despite her fears, Atalanta faced her first round opponent – Aegathon of Naxos – with courage and skill, felling the larger Jaffa with a powerful cut to the leg. Acastus grinned at the look of shock on her face as she returned to the circle. “Well fought, old bitch,” he whispered.
“Watch your tongue, young pup.”
The second round was tougher and Atalanta was called to face Mandracles. True to Amadines’ prediction, Mandracles armour proved resistant to any blow that she could muster and he was a skilled fighter. Atalanta summoned up all of her resources and managed to land a good strike on Mandracles’ right arm, but he drove his shield forward and battered her to the ground. She fell hard with her shield arm trapped and twisted beneath her. She fended off two strikes from Mandracles’ short spear, but she was unable to rise.
“I yield!” she called. “I yield.”
Mandracles thrust again; Atalanta barely blocked the strike. Around the circle, staff weapons hissed and snapped.
“Stand down, Mandracles of Aetna!” Melpomene commanded. “Your opponent has yielded. If you strike again, you shall be shot down.”
Mandracles stepped back. At a gesture from the Muse, one of her guards came forward and helped Atalanta to her feet. Acastus was pleased to see that his friend was not seriously injured.
Melpomene waited for the circle to be cleared and then she called the next pair forward: “Let Orthon of Iolchus and Sisiphon of Melles enter the circle.”
Acastus’ heart sank, but Sisiphon looked pleased to have a chance to fight one of the Hounds. The fight went more according to Acastus’ fears than to Sisiphon’s hopes. Orthon was the War Hound, stronger and quicker than his brothers; Sisiphon was outclassed on every level and only his burning rage kept him going beyond the first exchange.
They clashed hard; Sisiphon’s axe rebounded from Orthon’s shield, while the Hound’s mace bent Sisiphon’s shield almost in half. Acastus was certain that the Taurus Guard’s arm was broken. Sisiphon bellowed in anger and pain; he hammered at Orthon with such ferocity that the Hound was actually driven back. To an untrained eye it might have looked as though he had an advantage, but Orthon was just biding his time.
When he saw his opening, Orthon struck like lightning. His sword cut halfway through Sisiphon’s right arm. The Taurus Guard staggered back and fell to his knees, his fight gone. Orthon looked down at him and swung his mace in a lazy, backhand blow that ripped Sisiphon’s throat open and sprayed his blood across the sand.
“No!” Acastus found his horrified cry echoed by easily half of the remaining athletes and the Muse herself.
“Orthon of Iolchus is…!” Melpomene began, but a voice boomed out from her box to interrupt her.
“Victorious!”
All eyes turned
towards the gallery. A
powerful figure stood there, flanked by
Melpomene’s eyes flared angrily. “Yes, Mighty Zeus,” she snarled. She was livid with rage: Her judgement had been overridden, her position at the games usurped and the Eirene Olympus broken by the presence of Zeus’ armed Aquilans. “As you say, Mighty Lord.”
Acastus was stunned. The murderous excesses of the hounds had been appalling enough when they were isolated and half-concealed acts of atrocity, but this was an open flouting of the Muses’ authority. Lord Zeus must be feeling very confident; he was practically declaring war on the combined forces of the Olympians and the Titans and using the Hounds to do it.
And Sisiphon was dead, and nothing could be done about it.
Acastus barely registered the rest of the round. He only came back to himself when he was called for his third round bout against Tamar of Selendris and even then it was only a stinging across his brow that alerted him to the fact that his opponent fought with a whip and a small, spiked shield. He felt a flash of anger at his own apathy and that galvanised him into action. Even so, Tamar gave him a hard fight; the whip was an unusual weapon, difficult to use, but difficult to fight against.
He fended off blow after blow by stabbing with Xenophon’s spear at full extension until he could muster a strategy. He backed off and slid his hands apart on the spear’s haft. The next strike of the whip coiled around the wooden staff. Tamar tried to jerk the spear out of his hands, but he shifted his grip again so that he could grasp the thongs. He pulled back and, with his greater weight and strength, it was Tamar who stumbled forward.
Acastus brought the butt of his spear around with terrifying speed, slamming it into Tamar’s jaw. She reeled back; Acastus released her whip and reversed the swing so that the spear blade slashed through the flesh of her arm. Tamar dropped the whip and back pedalled; with a roar of fury, Acastus thrust out and stabbed her in the side. Still running hard on adrenaline, he followed as she fell and pulled back the spear for a killing blow.
Tamar lifted a hand to ward off the spear thrust; she still held the spiked shield, but in distraction and desperation, she tried to defend herself with her empty right hand. It was a futile gesture, but it saved her life. The very futility of it touched something inside Acastus and brought him back to himself. He could still have completed the thrust, driven the spear home and ended Tamar of Selendris’ life there and then, but he did not.
“Yield!” he commanded.
She looked at him in astonishment. A bout could end with submission, but it was almost unheard of for a Jaffa to offer the opportunity for surrender to a fallen opponent.
“Yield,” he said again. His arms trembled with the effort of holding the spear aloft. He would have to complete the thrust soon, or leave himself open to a counterattack.
Perhaps Tamar also realised this. “I yield,” she gasped. “I yield.”
With more relief than he might have expected, Acastus lowered the spear. The stadium rang with the boos and catcalls of the sponsors, who felt cheated of their blood, but Acastus did not care. Victory in these games was not worth the life of another Jaffa; if he let himself think that, he would become like the Hounds.
Holding the spear in his left hand, he offered the right to Tamar and helped her to her feet.
“My thanks, Jaffa,” she said. “You need not have done that and I shall not soon forget.”
He inclined his head in acknowledgement and then allowed one of the Muse’s guards to help her away. As he returned to the circle, Melpomene called out: “Oneira of Helicon and Cerberus of Iolchus will enter the circle.”
The two warriors walked out; Oneira with a shield and short spear, Cerberus with a long-handled axe. Acastus felt sorry for the woman; it was an unhappy fate that brought her to fight a second Hound. She had defeated one, but Cerberus was stronger than Gargittios and Oneira was now tired. Moreover, the arm which Acastus had broken was clearly still in pain and Cerberus had no such wound of his own. It was close-fought, for all that, and Cerberus was clearly frustrated by his inability to crush the impudent woman who had defeated his brother Hound and taken him out of the pankration.
At last, that frustration told against him. Cerberus overreached himself and Oneira whipped the point of her spear across his throat. The wound was shallow, but it was enough to panic and enrage the Hound. He stumbled back and, when Oneira pressed him, he snatched the dagger from his belt and hurled it at the Huntress, hard enough to punch through the armour of her belly.
Oneira fell, but as Cerberus leaped to the attack the Muse snapped her fingers and a volley of staff blasts brought his advance to a sudden halt. He turned, axe raised as though seeking his attackers. Zeus bellowed in fury, but the Muse snapped her fingers again and her guards burned the Hound down.
Melpomene turned and glowered up at the gallery, as though daring Zeus to rebuke her. Acastus knew that Zeus could do it. He had the force of arms to take complete control of the Olympiad, enforce any rule he wanted and punish anyone who questioned him. The Muse was gambling that he was not yet willing to openly defy her sisters.
The gamble paid off; Zeus said nothing, he merely sat there and fumed, so incensed that he even laid off his assault on the virtue of Melpomene’s nymph, who had for some time looked as though she would rather be facing Orthon in the ring than sitting in the gallery with the Mighty Lord.
The Muse stepped forward and lifted Oneira’s armour. Purple symbiote blood leaked from her pouch. With another glower towards the gallery, Melpomene pulled the dead symbiote from the warrior woman’s body and then crossed to do the same with the squirming symbiote in the ruin of Cerberus’ flesh. To the astonishment of the watching Jaffa, she took the living prim’ta and placed it in the body of Oneira.
“Take her to the shrine,” she ordered her guards. Too soft for anyone beyond the circle to hear, she added: “Watch her closely. My will shall not be flouted.” She lifted her head and called out for all to hear: “Throw the dishonoured one to the dogs!” Again, her eyes cast a challenge to Zeus that he would not, or could not, answer.
Acastus looked around. By his reckoning, there should have been eighteen warriors in the fourth round; there were eight. The rest were dead or incapacitated, victors and the defeated alike taken off to the shrines of Asclepius or Thanatos, leaving only the red stains where their blood had coloured the sands. Ever since his arrival at the Olympiad, the romantic air of the tournament had been dissolving; the pride he had felt at being put forward and selected now turned sour in his soul. He turned and looked into the blazing eyes of Zeus and saw there the architect of this slaughter. Zeus had created the games to humiliate his enemies and that was all it had ever been. The honour, the glory, the chance for the Jaffa to show their own skill was and always had been a lie.
In the fourth round, Amadines faced Orthon. The Muse kept a tight rein on the Hound, but it was still a tribute to Amadines’ resilience and good fortune that the Cryoguard was not killed. Acastus watched closely, seeking to learn all that he could of the Hound’s fighting style. The sword in his right hand was deadly enough, but Acastus realised that it was just a decoy. His style concealed it, but Orthon was left-handed, and it was in the terrible mace that the true danger lay.
Acastus’ own fourth round bout against Mandracles tested his resolve to the limit. He had told himself that he would not kill to gain victory, but the heavily armoured Jaffa refused to yield and Acastus was driven by his anger at Mandracles’ attempt to kill Atalanta. Hephaestus’ warrior kept fighting until Acastus slashed his hamstrings; it would have been easy enough to follow this up with a thrust through the back of his armour, but Acastus resisted the temptation and returned to the circle, nursing a bruised rib.
Only four fighters remained now: Acastus, Orthon, Theocritus and Lachaesis of Acheron, a representative of the ancient Queen Echidnae; one of the servants of the Dark Ones. Melpomene called a halt to the proceedings and ordered her nymphs to bring water for the athletes. Orthon and Lachaesis sat alone to drink, but Acastus and Theocritus sat together.
“This is brutal,” Theocritus noted.
“It seems that this is what the Hounds were bred for,” Acastus replied. “Orthon is monstrous indeed.”
“What do you make of Lachaesis?”
Acastus regarded Echidnae’s fighter critically. “Strong,” he replied, “and still very fresh. I do not think that any of her opponents has managed to strike a blow against her yet. I hope that one of us takes her out this round.”
“Why so?”
“Because she will die the way that Onyx did if she comes against Orthon. She will hammer at him as she has done before, but he will not be driven back until he falls.”
“Perhaps,” Theocritus agreed, “but I don’t know that either of us could stand up to that…termagant. Mind you, that is your problem,” he declared, glancing over Acastus’ shoulder.
Acastus followed his gaze and saw a slender, handsome youth cross the sands to lay a proprietorial arm across Melpomene’s shoulder. The Muse bridled at his familiarity, but she did not resist as he drew her away from the athletes.
“Ganymede,” Theocritus told Acastus.
“A Goa’uld? That…child?”
“Zeus’ page-boy, lickspittle and catamite,” Cronus’ Jaffa sneered. “Do not be fooled by that fresh face, he is as ruthless and vicious as a serpent. I fear that this bodes ill for me.”
“Why so?” Acastus asked.
“Zeus has been at war with my master,” Theocritus explained. “If he has found the time to come here, then my Lord Cronus must have been defeated for the time being. No doubt he hopes to rub my lord’s nose in his defeat by humiliating his champions here. I will be Orthon’s next victim; mark my words.”
“You still have a chance.”
Theocritus shook his head. “Before I came here I thought I was strong, I never had to be quick. You showed me that my strength was not enough and against him…My death is coming; I smell it in the air.”
“He is not invincible; his right arm is slow.”
“Not as slow as I.” He clapped a hand on Acastus’ shoulder. “Good luck, Halicarnasan. I shall endeavour to make a good show of myself; perhaps that will make your life easier.”
Acastus was taken aback. “Good luck to you,” he said. “And beware of that mace; that is his killing weapon.”
Theocritus looked startled, but he nodded. “Thank you, Acastus.”
Melpomene returned from her conference with Ganymede and he face was dark with rage. Behind her, the page boy sneered lecherously.
“Athletes take your positions,” she commanded. “Let Acastus of Halicarnasus and Lachaesis of Acheron enter the circle.”
As Acastus had noted, Lachaesis’ strategy depended on pure, unrelenting attack. She never guarded herself, she simply charged in, swinging a labrys in each hand with astounding strength, pounding at her opponents until their shields splintered and the flashing blades drew blood. Few warriors had managed to muster the wit for a return attack and none had launched their counterstrike swiftly enough to avoid the windmilling axe blades. Acastus saw only one chance. His spear gave him the advantage of reach; she would close fast, but he could beat her if he broke her rhythm.
At the sound of the horn, Lachaesis charged, axes whirling. Acastus dropped into a crouch and swung his spear at full extension, in a low arc that slashed the blade across the tops of Lachaesis’ greaves. The tip of the spear slashed a long, bloody welt across Lachaesis’ right knee, just as her weight came down on it. She stumbled and half fell; her right hand axe struck the sand and stopped dead, the left flailed wildly and Acastus’ spear stabbed cleanly through her right bicep.
Lachaesis cried out and dropped her axe. She rose awkwardly, groping for her sword with her injured arm. Acastus pressed her hard, driving the spear point through her right thigh. She fell down again and he sliced the blade across the inside of her right elbow; the second axe fell. Still Lachaesis tried to rise and still she fumbled for her scabbarded weapons. Acastus laid the spear’s blade against her throat and she thrust it away with her hand.
With a flick of his wrist, Acastus sliced the blade through the chinstrap of her helmet. A second cut and her swordbelt fell to the floor.
“Yield!” he demanded.
“Never!” she responded, forcing herself up to one knee and drawing her dagger.
Acastus whipped the butt of his spear around, aiming for the side of Lachaesis’ head. At that moment she made another attempt to stand. Even if struck against her skull, the blow might have killed her, but as she rose it hammered into her neck instead of her head. He felt the crack along the shaft of his spear, even though he could not hear it over the pounding of blood in his head.
Lachaesis dropped to the sand. Acastus stumbled towards her, but her head lay at completely the wrong angle and there was no way that he could have convinced himself that she was anything but dead.
“Damn you,” he muttered, angry at her, angry at himself. “Damn you.” He turned and stumbled back to the edge of the circle.
Theocritus caught his arm. “It was her choice to die,” he whispered, “not yours to kill her.”
“I could have…”
“I doubt it,” the Raven Guard assured him. “Now rouse yourself, Acastus of Halicarnasus. You will either be my avenger or you will follow us to the grave.” He released Acastus and walked into the ring, in obedience to Lady Melpomene’s instructions.
Mindful of Acastus’ warnings, Theocritus approached Orthon warily. He struck out at the Hound’s right-hand blade with his own sword, taunting Orthon until he drew him into a reckless lunge with the mace. Even forewarned he barely evaded the blow, which caught the edge of his shield and buckled it outwards, but he was able to lean in and slash his blade across Orthon’s left bicep. The backswing of the mace was greatly weakened, but still knocked Theocritus to the ground.
Dropping his twisted, broken shield, Theocritus rolled to his feet and drew a second sword from his hip. He attacked hard from Orthon’s left, trying to penetrate the weakened defence, but Orthon was more cautious now; he led with his right and, as Theocritus had predicted, the Hound’s speed was far superior. A sudden feint to the right did catch the Hound unawares and left him with a long cut on his throat, but Orthon leaned back to escape the killing cut and the blow carried Theocritus too far around. Orthon’s answering blow sliced through armour and spine.
Theocritus half-raised his sword in salute to Acastus. Orthon drove his mace against the Raven Guard’s face with all the strength left in his wounded arm. The big Jaffa was lifted from the ground by the force of the blow; mercifully, he landed face down.
Acastus dropped to his knees and bowed his head in prayer. He let himself touch the edge of kelno’reem, summoning up what little energy was left to find in contact with his symbiote, and then brushed his fingers against the circle on his helmet for good luck. He considered his strategy as he waited for the Muse to call him: Orthon had killed two Jaffa and maimed a third in this contest; strength would not be enough, but this Hound was also swift. Acastus knew that he had no hope of wearing down Orthon; the Hound had more energy now than Acastus had possessed when he rose in the morning, but if he went all out against the brute – as his heart yearned to do – he would die the way that Sisiphon had done.
Orthon had every advantage: strength, speed and stamina. Acastus could think of no way to beat him unless…
Think , he thought, and he realised that he did have one advantage over Orthon. He had his wits; his intelligence and his training and his experience. He could not match the Hound for muscle or reflexes, but he could defeat him with cunning.
“Let Acastus of Halicarnasus and Orthon of Iolchus enter the circle,” Melpomene said. She sounded almost reluctant to call this final bout.
Acastus advanced and stood facing Orthon. The Hound swung his weapons from side to side. Not all warriors could cope with controlling two weapons at once, but Orthon did so with consummate skill. Acastus has also seen that he knew how to use his chosen weapons to fight an enemy with a long spear or long axe. Before the horn sounded, therefore, Acastus let his spear fall to the sand. He drew his sword with his left hand and the double-headed labrys with his right.
“Taking a lesson from your betters, boy?” Orthon growled.
“I am never ashamed to learn from a master,” Acastus assured him, “but I see no master here.”
Orthon snarled, the horn sounded and the Hound attacked. Acastus stepped right, avoiding the first rush, but Orthon was too swift to be caught out by his counter. Acastus pursued his foe, but Orthon parried his attack with such force that the labrys was almost jarred from his hands. He backed off to gain space and Orthon pressed him hard, attacking with great scything blows of his sword as he attempted to manoeuvre Acastus into line for a devastating attack from the mace.
In the stands, the sponsors watched in great anticipation as the Hound toyed with his prey. Every so often, Acastus would attempt a counterattack, but each time he was beaten off again. They circled and wheeled, kicking up the sand, and every few passes there was a bright flash and a little more of Acastus’ blood was spilled.
Lady Artemis sat forward in her seat, one hand clenched into a tight fist. Queen Aphrodite chewed her lip anxiously, yet charmingly. In the galleries, Lord Hades and Queen Persephone fixed their gazes on the clash, unwilling to miss the moment of truth. Lord Zeus even left off his molestation of Melpomene’s nymph as he waited for his Hound to make his kill. All who watched, whether they wished to see Acastus triumph or to see him slain, saw Orthon dominating the combat. Only one of the watching eyes – one single, grey eye – saw that while he seemed barely to be delaying the inevitable, Acastus’ periodic counterattacks achieved one important goal: they allowed him to control the movement of the battle.
Tiring of the game, Orthon spotted an opening and lunged. His sword struck Acastus’ blade and battered it from the Gorgon’s hand. Acastus blocked a swipe of the mace, but the impact numbed his hand and jarred the labrys from his grip. He backed away and stumbled to the sand.
Orthon dropped his sword and took his mace in a two-handed grip. He lifted the gore-stained weapon over his head and hurled himself forward for the coup de grace. As he struck, Acastus dug his hands into the sand that had been turned over and over by their combat and seized the half-buried shaft of his spear. He lifted and the spear head came up into the Hound’s path so that Orthon’s own weight and strength drove him hard onto the point.
Incredibly, Orthon still pressed on. Acastus pushed the butt of the spear down into the sand so that it braced; the Hound slid about a foot further along the spear, flailing with his mace, but Acastus rolled clear. He snatched up his labrys and stepped back. Orthon ripped the spear free from his stomach in a gout of blood and turned towards Acastus. Blood bubbled out of his mouth, but he lifted the mace once more.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Acastus slammed the labrys into the side of Orthon’s neck. The blade sliced into the Hound’s neck, but did not sever his head.
Acastus tugged the axe free and swung again, taking the head from the Hound’s shoulders.
Zeus leaped to his feet in a rage, but Melpomene had already signalled for the horns to sound and their blare drowned out his shouts. Letting actions speak louder than words, the Muse seized Acastus by the wrist and held his hand aloft.
“Acastus of Halicarnasus is the victor!” she cried as the horns died away. “Acastus of Halicarnasus has attained victory in the panoplation!” Only Acastus heard her mutter: “And let that bastard’s Hounds deny me my due respect again.”
As Acastus stepped out of the arena, Atalanta caught him in a fierce, desperate embrace. “Are you alright, dear friend?”
“The cuts are not deep, but my arms ache so,” he groaned.
“Come on,” Atalanta said. “Let’s get you back to the barracks and see what we can do about that.”
“Sisiphon…?” Acastus began, but there was no hope that their friend had lived. The sad shake of Atalanta’s head was only confirmation. “And Lachaesis?”
Atalanta shook her head again.
“I promised myself that I would not kill another Jaffa for this title.”
Atalanta took his hand. “Come,” she said again. “It is almost done, but we had better keep you out of the way in case Zeus seeks for revenge.”
*
Day 10 - stadion; Festival of the Muses
Every athlete in the tournament was automatically entered into the stadion, the most prestigious of all the events, but the field was sadly depleted. More than one hundred and eighty of the athletes did not even begin the two-hundred pace sprint which would decide the name that this Olympiad would bear forever after.
“And so this is it,” Polydeuces said.
“Somehow, I do not feel so excited as I should,” Acastus replied.
“Too much blood,” Atalanta agreed. “And for what?”
“For the glory of the gods,” Polydeuces reminded them.
“For the glory of the gods,” the two Gorgons echoed, listlessly.
“Forget the gods,” Acastus told Atalanta. “Gargittios is still here and still strong. If you can not beat him, this will be remembered as his Olympiad.”
“I?”
“You are the runner, old friend. This is your moment.”
She shook her head. “You have always been faster over a short distance.”
“One hundred, perhaps,” he agreed, “but even at two hundred your strength will tell.”
“It shall fall out as the gods will it,” Leucasius interjected.
Acastus gave Atalanta a grim look and glanced back up at the gallery where Lord Zeus sat alongside his hosts in their box. It seemed that Melpomene had managed to eject him from her gallery. “I hope not,” he said, “as I am sure that Mighty Zeus wills me to die in bleeding agony.”
“Let the athletes be ruled by their oaths!” Melpomene commanded. “The athletes will stand at their marks.”
“Fates be with you,” Acastus whispered.
“May the Furies pass you by,” Atalanta replied.
“Let the athletes take their stance!”
The horns blared.
The atmosphere in the barracks was celebrant as the squad prepared for the Festival of the Muses, although several of Poseidon’s runners bore some feelings of resentment.
“Four!” Acastus declared, hugging Atalanta tightly. “Four olive branches at the Olympiad of Atalanta! And the skirmish prize.”
Atalanta blushed. “You have done well, yourself,” she said.
“One wreath,” he demurred. “Moera won two and she did not compete in half of her events.”
“You forget the ippokotion; that makes three. And anyway the Hounds barely managed one each and that with a treachery that they have paid for in blood.”
“They are not the only ones who have paid that price,” Acastus reminded her. His mood sobered swiftly.
Atalanta nodded sadly. “We must remember them, but be proud of what you have achieved, my friend.”
Leucasius called from the doorway: “Lady Mentor comes!”
Hastily the surviving athletes stood to attention as their sponsor’s representative entered the barracks. “Congratulations,” she said. “You have all done well and brought honour and glory to your masters. Acastus of Halicarnasus, your performance has been exemplary.” She placed her hands on Acastus’ shoulders and placed a kiss of benediction on his brow. “And of course Atalanta of Stymphalia.” She repeated the gesture with Atalanta. “This has been a fine Olympiad for warrior-women,” she noted.
She cast her grey eyed gaze across the squad. “My blessings, and those of Poseidon, upon all of you,” she said. “Acastus, you are summoned.”
Acastus swallowed hard. “Summoned?”
“Yes, Jaffa. It is traditional that one champion be summoned on behalf of all to receive the congratulation of each Muse officiating. The Lady Melpomene has asked that you attend her.”
“But…”
“Come.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Acastus followed Lady Mentor from the barracks. After a moment she beckoned him to her side and took his arm; a thin, amused smile played across her lips. “Ask,” she said.
“I do not understand, Lady Mentor,” Acastus admitted. “I knew of this tradition, but surely Atalanta is the champion of this Olympiad.”
“Indeed,” Mentor agreed, “and if the officiator of the Olympiad were the Lady Polyhymnia, I have no doubt that your friend would have been summoned. However, the choice belongs to the Muse and Lady Melpomene has chosen you.”
“I do not understand why.”
Mentor sighed. “If the admiration of a Dionysian brood-bearer, a Huntress of Artemis and no fewer than two of my Olympian sisters – not to mention my own dear nymph – have not made this clear to you, I am not sure that there can be any hope for you at all.”
“You mean…?”
Mentor squeezed his arm in a gesture that was almost comforting.
“Lady Mentor?”
“Yes, Jaffa.”
“What is a brood-bearer?”
Mentor ’s smile deepened. “There is wit in you, Acastus, even when you would be justified in distraction. It is a trait more impressive to me than your looks or your skill and yet another fine reflection on your captain.”
Acastus blushed.
“A brood-bearer is both a tool and a result of Dionysus’ breeding programmes,” she explained. “Your Moera possesses not one, but seven wombs, capable of simultaneous pregnancy, although not of carrying any foetus to term.”
“What?”
“The brood-bearers collect genetic material by allowing men with promising traits to impregnate them. To this end they are – as I am sure you are aware – highly trained in a certain, rather primal style of seduction. The foetuses are removed from the brood-bearer at three months and implanted within another woman who will act as surrogate mother, carrying and birthing the child.
“Moera was withdrawn from the final days of the Olympiad because her wombs were filled and Dionysus did not wish to risk damage to his prize: the code of life for some of the finest warriors and athletes in the Olympic and Titanic domains. In a few months, her offspring will be transferred to surrogates; she will return to her duties and Dionysus will possess the most basic components of a great swimmer like Metrocles, a runner like Ephialtes, a giant such as Onyx, a warrior such as Iason…”
“Iason as well?” Acastus was dismayed. He had known that Moera had her eye on Tithonus, but that she had lain with so many was still a shock to him.
Mentor stopped walking and drew him to a halt. “I have heard from my agents that Lord Dionysus is somewhat displeased with her your Moera,” she noted.
“Will she be harmed?” he asked concernedly.
“Fear not for her,” Mentor assured him. “Moera is nothing if not a survivor. However, she was sent to acquire seven very specific samples and she failed in one part of her mission: to obtain a sample from one of the Hounds.” That, if nothing else, was pleasing to Acastus. “It seems that she rather foolishly filled her seventh womb with a seed acquired in a purely personal endeavour. She was not ordered to bed you,” she clarified. “Indeed, she disobeyed her god in order to do so.”
Acastus swallowed hard. “Then…she will bear me a child?”
“No. Some other woman shall bear the child, but it shall be yours. I might have feared for its future, but you defeated Orthon; I think that Dionysus will think your offspring worth keeping. Put it from your mind,” she advised. “For now, think only of the Muse. She will make that easy for you, but will not easily forgive distractions. Show her patience and treat her gently,” she advised. “My blessings go with you, Acastus of Halicarnasus. I know that you shall continue to do honour to your captain. Now go, and if we do not meet again say this to your captain: ‘All things shall pass, and all shall come again’.”
“My lady?”
“She shall understand,” Mentor promised. “Go forth to the shrine of the Muses, Jaffa. You are summoned.”
Acastus was admitted to the shrine by Melpomene’s nymph; she moved awkwardly, probably thanks to Zeus’ gentle attentions. Two guards watched the outside of the doors; four waited within and a further six lined the corridors. The nymph led Acastus past these Jaffa and he sized them up as they regarded him. He had seen that they could shoot, but they were ceremonial warriors and not – if Acastus were any judge, and he was – accustomed to actual combat. He would not try to take them here, even if he wanted to, but he did not really doubt that he could have taken them.
“Jaffa,” the nymph called softly. She stood by the door to the sanctum of the shrine. As he approached, she opened the door for him. Acastus inclined his head in acknowledgement and passed through the portal into a shadow-filled chamber.
Some shrines were places of light and air, but this one clearly represented the Muses’ paranoia. It was close and dark, with small, high windows; a place of sanctuary, rather than of celebration, to which the Muse could retreat and feel safe.
It seemed that such a feeling would have been false however. For as he entered, Acastus saw a figure in a pale chiton slumped beside the altar.
“Kree Jaffa!” he called. “Assassins, kree!”
The nymph pushed into the shrine behind him. She saw the motionless figure and drew breath to scream; as she did so, one of the shadows moved. Acastus thrust the nymph to the right and threw himself to the left; a crossbow bolt slammed into the door between them.
Now the nymph did scream. Acastus just charged for the altar and ducked behind it. Another bolt rattled against the altar stone. A magnetic crossbow took between two and five beats to cycle and reload, leaving Acastus no time to hesitate. He sprang up and over the altar and hurled himself at the assassin; he pushed the crossbow up and a third bolt flew into the rafters. They grappled furiously and tumbled across the floor, fighting for control of the bow.
The assassin ended the roll on top of Acastus. He released the bow and struck at Acastus’ face, but Acastus had beaten all-comers in the panoplation and been defeated only by a trick in the pankration. He snapped his head aside so that the fist only clipped his ear and responded by cracking the butt of the crossbow against the side of the assassin’s hooded head. The assassin caught his wrist and twisted, and clasped his other hand tight around the Gorgon’s throat; his strength was incredible. Acastus clawed at the killer’s shoulder and face, but the grip on his throat was immovable.
Acastus’ eyes closed and his body went limp. The assassin touched his throat. He found no sign of a pulse and, as the Muse’s guards were at the door, he gave the Gorgon not another thought. He picked up the crossbow and shot the first of the Boeotian Guards as he entered.
The nymph screamed again and the assassin turned the weapon on her. At that moment, powerful hands seized his head from behind and twisted. The Muse’s guards flooded into the room, staff weapons ready, as the assassin fell to the floor in a limp, black-clad heap.
“Kree-ta, Jaffa!” the guards commanded. “Jaffa, kree-ta!”
Acastus lifted his hands.
“Jaffa, kree!” the nymph called. “Not him; he killed the assassin. Look to our lady.”
The guards suddenly saw the body of their mistress. Four of them ran over to her, while one stooped by his fallen comrade. Acastus stood back and the nymph approached him.
“Thank you, Jaffa,” she said.
“I only hope I was not too late,” Acastus replied, his voice was hoarse.
“I did think that you must be dead,” she noted.
Acastus rubbed his throat ruefully. “It was close,” he admitted. “Not many Jaffa realise that their prim’ta can breathe for them; it is a piece of ignorance that can prove useful.”
One of the guards looked up from Melpomene. “Jaffa!” he called. “Come here.”
Acastus nodded to the nymph and walked over. He felt a surge of relief when the Jaffa said: “She will speak to you.”
“Thank you,” Acastus said. “But you should go back to the door. There may be another attack.”
The Boeotian looked for a moment as though he were about to protest, but then he saw the wisdom in Acastus’ words. “Maira, Telos, stay here; Kreion, rouse the others. The rest of you to the doors; kree!”
They swept out, leaving the nymph and one guard with Acastus and the lady. Acastus knelt beside the fallen Muse. Melpomene gazed up at him, a thin, dark bruise around her neck told of the assault made on her by the assassin. He had used a garrotte on her; not the most efficient means of killing a Goa’uld, but it would have kept her from crying out.
“I owe you my very life, Jaffa,” she croaked, “but I must impose on you further. Help me to stand and show me my killer.”
With some trepidation, Acastus lifted the Muse and put an arm beneath her shoulder to support her. She was still shaky on her legs, but he knew that she would recover very quickly. The Goa’uld could be killed, but if the job were not finished it rarely had lasting effects. Lady Melpomene was affecting a pose of vulnerability, but Acastus felt the steely strength in her slim frame as he led her to the body of her would-be assassin.
“Maira!” the Muse called. “Turn the body and remove his mask.”
“Yes, my lady.” The nymph hurried over. The assassin’s head flopped loosely as she rolled the body onto its back. The girl tucked her fingers under the edge of the mask and pulled it up.
“Well,” Melpomene said. “Here is some strange treachery, Master Acastus.”
Anger flared in Acastus’ heart as he looked down at the assassin. The man’s face was unknown to him, but the tattoo on his brow, the winged circle, was all too familiar. “That is no Gorgon,” he growled.
“You are sure?” Melpomene asked.
“I know every member of the company,” he assured her. “Besides, if my captain had, for some reason that I could not fathom, ordered your death, you would have died.”
“Indeed?”
“A Gorgon would not have attacked you in an unlocked room at precisely the time when all tradition demands that you must receive the visit of a warrior, least of all by strangulation, which can not kill a Goa’uld swiftly or efficiently. Neither would a Gorgon have tried to throttle me; he would have known, as I did, how I would be able both to survive the attempt and to feign death. If he had been forced to rely on such a method, he would at least have been sure to finish me before turning to your guards.”
Melpomene nodded. “Then, as I suspected, this is a crude attempt to frame you.”
“It was probably intended that I should be found alone with your body; the tattoo was simply to be seen if the assassin failed to kill you.”
“Do you know who would make this attempt?”
“It would not be my place to speculate,” he assured her, knowing that no good could come of his naming Lord Zeus.
“Wise man,” the Muse noted. She sighed and turned in his supporting grasp to put her arms around his neck. She pressed her lips hungrily against his. Acastus suppressed an involuntary revulsion that rose up in him. Lady Melpomene was more beautiful even than Latona, but there was a coldness in her passion that repelled him. It was only because he was mindful of Mentor’s warnings that he did not pull away from her and even so he was sure that his response would be unacceptably reluctant.
Nonetheless, Melpomene seemed satisfied. “Ah, if only I had the time to enjoy you,” she murmured. She pulled away from him and Acastus was glad of it. She stood securely now, and when she spoke the hoarseness was almost gone from her voice. “Alas that I have been robbed of that. Maira; make arrangements for my immediate departure.”
“Yes, my lady,” Maira replied, surprised but obedient.
Melpomene shook her head. “He will pay for this, I swear it,” she said. “I suspect that Lord Zeus will soon come to find out what has become of me – to find my body and raise the alarm. He will come when I do not emerge for my Festival; he will declare the Olympiad void and award his own prizes.”
Acastus’ blood ran cold. “The Olympiad?” he asked. “But if the Olympiad is void then the Eirene Olympus…He plans a massacre!” he realised.
“Perhaps so.” The Muse thought for a moment and then strode to her altar and opened a concealed compartment in the side of the stone. “Well, so be it. He is unlikely to change his plans now, but he shall pay for his impudence.” She withdrew from the altar a wooden box and a scabbarded sword. “The sponsors shall be warned, but I think that the athletes shall of needs look to themselves.” She pressed the box into his hand. “These are the golden leaves that are to be inserted into the champions’ olive branches. I give them to you, to do with as you will, in memory of the Olympiad of Atalanta, which may fade from other thoughts.”
“But…”
“Take also my sword, and my poor guard’s staff, and wield them against that rapacious butcher’s troops. Go to your barracks and rouse your comrades; thwart his murderous intent as completely as you can.”
Acastus accepted the sword with a gracious bow, although his immediate impulse was to race to the barracks at once. “Thank you, my lady,” he said.
“Go with my most profound blessings,” she told him, “and let the brute know what comes of trying to force the hand of the Muses.”
Acastus bowed in acknowledgment, but his desires included nothing of service to any deity. He would thwart and hinder Zeus if it lay within his power, but not for the Muses. His actions would be for himself, for Atalanta and the other champions, and for all of the athletes murdered by the Hounds.
The games were over; this was war. Blood must be answered with blood.