Periphas threw him a startled glance.
Hylas risked a guess. ‘Was it something to do with Havoc?’
Akastos’ lip curled. ‘I’d forgotten how clever you are. Yes. It was because of Havoc.’
‘Isn’t that the lion cub he went looking for on Keftiu?’ said Periphas.
‘She’s full-grown now,’ Hylas said proudly. ‘Oh, you should see her, Akastos – I mean, my lord – she’s beautiful, and so strong!’
With a frown, Akastos regarded the great white shield at his feet, with its gilded lion. ‘Lions, always lions,’ he murmured. He turned to Periphas: ‘On Thalakrea, this boy fetches up at my smithy with a lion cub in tow. Then on Keftiu, the same lion leads him straight to me in the middle of a blizzard! You’d have to be an idiot to ignore omens like that.’
Periphas was impressed. ‘Ah, now I understand: a lion, to bring back the Lion of Mycenae!’
Akastos nodded gravely. ‘I thought it meant that after all these years, the time had come for me to return. I thought that at last, I could lead my people to victory against the Crows –’
‘And you can!’ urged Periphas. ‘You must!’
‘How?’ Akastos flung back. Then to Hylas, ‘Do you know why I’m skulking in this cave, instead of fighting the Crows?’
‘Um …’
‘Because caves,’ he went on bitterly, ‘are the one place where the Angry Ones can’t go! They’re spirits of the air, Hylas, They can’t get me down here under the earth – and that means my people can sleep in peace!’
He took another pull at his wine and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘Not long ago, I mustered what remains of our forces here in Messenia. They’d lost the battle for the north before I got here, but I thought that with me to lead them, we might still beat the Crows.’ He scowled. ‘We never even got within arrowshot. The night before, the Angry Ones came. You’ve been close to Them, Hylas, you can imagine what it was like: the chaos, the panic. Our beasts ran wild with terror, we lost a week’s supplies when several stampeded over a cliff. How could I lead our men into battle when that would be the result?’
‘But we’ll take that chance!’ cried Periphas. ‘Without you, we have none!’
‘You don’t know what They can do, Periphas,’ Akastos retorted. ‘You’ve never smelt Their charred flesh, or heard the crack of Their wings as They drop to the ground and come after you – snuffing you out in the dark, freezing your heart with dread …’ His hand shook as he reached for his wine cup.
Silence in the cave. The fire crackled and spat.
Akastos squared his shoulders and skewered Hylas with his gaze. ‘All of which,’ he said drily, ‘has nothing to do with the question: what do I do with you?’
‘Let me go,’ Hylas said promptly. ‘I’ll find a way to get into Lapithos –’
‘Oh, no, you’ve made enough trouble for me already, I’m not stupid enough to let you do it again!’
‘So what are you going to do?’
Akastos regarded him with pity and regret, and Hylas’ stomach disappeared. ‘I’m sorry, Flea. But you’re bad luck. You’ve run out of chances.’
Hylas opened his mouth to reply – but at that moment, there was a noise outside the cave and a guard ran in.
‘A scout’s just arrived, my lord,’ he said, dropping to one knee. ‘From Lykonia! He says it’s urgent!’
The scout had been running for days. He was grey with dust and his feet were bleeding, the guards had to help him to the fire. He collapsed before Akastos, who wouldn’t let him speak till he’d had a cup of wine mixed with barley and goats’ cheese, and made a start on a steaming bowl of gruel.
The man’s story came in bursts between ravenous mouthfuls. Pharax was moving west across the Lykonian plains, burning villages and driving the remaining rebels before him. His army was large and disciplined, the rebels badly outnumbered. Meanwhile, on the other side of the mountains, Telamon’s forces were heading east, making for Lykonia through the pass on the south slope of Mount Lykas.
‘A pincer movement.’ Akastos nodded slowly. ‘Pharax will attack the Lykonian rebels from one side, Telamon from the other.’ He ground his palms together. ‘They’ll be caught in the middle and crushed.’
‘They might have a chance if we could reach them in time,’ said Periphas.
‘Yes but how?’ growled Akastos. ‘We’re in Messenia, on the other side of the mountains – and we can’t take the pass because Telamon’s forces are already there, or will be soon. And before you suggest that we ambush him, Periphas, we’d never reach them in time.’
‘My lord, that’s not all,’ panted the scout. ‘It’s said that Pharax bears the dagger of Koronos openly in battle!’
‘But that can’t be!’ Hylas burst out. ‘Surely it’s in Lapithos?’
The man noticed him for the first time and blinked.
‘Go on,’ Akastos commanded.
‘The dagger was in Lapithos,’ said the man, ‘but from what we hear, we think Koronos may have sent it to Pharax, to rally his men. If that’s true …’ He shuddered. ‘No one could stand against him! With the dagger, he’ll be invincible!’
‘How do you know for sure that it really is the dagger?’ said Akastos.
‘I – I don’t, my lord,’ admitted the scout. ‘No one knows for sure.’
‘Which is exactly what Koronos wants,’ murmured Akastos. ‘He sows doubts and fears, it all helps Pharax. The rebels in Lykonia won’t stand a chance.’
‘Unless we reach them first!’ exploded Periphas. ‘If we get to them before Pharax, we can make a stand together! Dagger or no dagger, with you to lead us, we could defeat them!’
‘But there’s no time!’ spat Akastos. ‘We can’t go by the pass to the south, because of Telamon – and it’d take at least five days to get through the mountains any other way!’
‘No it won’t,’ said Hylas.
All heads turned towards him.
‘Who is this?’ said the scout.
Akastos’ eyes bored into Hylas’. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I know a way to get your men through the mountains in time,’ said Hylas. ‘And I know how to keep the Angry Ones away, so that you can lead us into battle.’
‘How could you possibly achieve all that?’ said Akastos with terrifying quietness.
Hylas hesitated. ‘If I tell you, will you let me go?’
‘This is no time for bargaining!’
Hylas took a deep breath. ‘All right. First, the Angry Ones. Pirra’s gone to a peak shrine, somewhere called Dentra, there’s a wisewoman –’
‘I already know about the wisewoman,’ snarled Akastos.
‘But do you know that it’s Hekabi?’
The High Chieftain went still.
‘Who’s Hekabi?’ said Periphas.
‘A wisewoman from Thalakrea,’ said Hylas. ‘Very powerful. Last summer, she gave Akastos a charm to mask him from the Angry Ones – and it worked, Akastos, you know it did! I was with you in Kreon’s stronghold when he summoned Them, and They never sensed that you were there! Hekabi could do it again!’
‘If we can find her in time,’ muttered Akastos, rubbing his beard. ‘Dentra’s not all that far, so maybe we could, but even if it worked – even if – we couldn’t get through the mountains in time to join forces with the others against the Crows.’
‘Yes we could!’ insisted Hylas. ‘The pass Telamon’s taking isn’t the only one! I know another.’ He glanced at the scout, then back to Akastos. ‘You said it’d take five days to cross the mountains into Lykonia. I can get us there in two.’
‘Not far now,’ panted Pirra as she scrambled up the slope.
Above her, Havoc glanced back and waited for her to catch up. It was two days since the lioness had saved Pirra’s life by fighting off the lion, but although the gash in her shoulder remained oozing and smelly, she seemed much happier. She’d stopped pining for Hylas, and had been staying close to Pirra: as if she felt it her duty to protect h
er.
It was Echo who occupied Pirra’s every waking thought. The Marsh Dwellers’ medicine clearly didn’t work on falcons. Echo was desperately ill, and couldn’t last much longer. To keep her warm, Pirra had tucked her inside her tunic, where she made a bulky yet pathetically light bulge and lay frighteningly still, her only sign of life an occasional feeble scratch of talons.
Now and then, Pirra was assailed by a wave of dizziness; she knew that she was feeling what the falcon felt. Sounds fell away, and the bright air darkened to a pinpoint as her spirit drifted with Echo’s in a blaze of fever.
‘Nearly there, Echo,’ she mumbled. ‘We’ll find Hekabi, she’ll make you better, I promise!’
Olive trees shone silver in the last of the Sun, and the wind stirred thistles and dry yellow grass: they were nearing the top of Dentra Mountain. The river they’d been following upstream had dwindled to a gurgling trickle, and only a belt of tall pines separated them from the peak.
Pirra could feel that the shrine was very close. The air was filled with a strange, low buzzing, just beyond the edge of hearing. What if Hekabi was gone? Or if it wasn’t Hekabi at all, but some stranger who refused to help?
And even if it was Hekabi, would she help? When Pirra had known her on Thalakrea, she’d been ruthless and secretive. Sometimes her spells had been real, sometimes fake; it had been hard to tell the difference. The one thing that had never altered was Hekabi’s all-consuming love for her fiery island home – which the Crows, in their greed for bronze, had destroyed.
Havoc trotted down to her and gently nosed the falcon-shaped bulge in Pirra’s tunic. Echo didn’t stir. Pirra quickened her pace.
The buzzing grew louder. Havoc, once more waiting for Pirra at the edge of the pines, didn’t seem scared, only wary.
The slopes below had been shrill with swallows, but up here there were no birds. Pine needles muffled Pirra’s footsteps as she entered the cool, sharp-scented shade. The buzzing was eerie and unsettling, it seemed to be everywhere and nowhere. With a jolt, Pirra saw that it was coming from the trees themselves. They were alive with bees: thousands of them going about their mysterious lives in their realm among the branches, between earth and sky.
The Sun sank behind the western peaks, and the buzzing turned slightly threatening. Wind chilled the sweat on Pirra’s skin as she left the trees and stepped out on to naked rock. Dentra’s jagged grey peak reared above her.
Keftian peak shrines had altars and bulls’ horns, but Dentra had only the black mouth of a small cave at the base of the peak, half-hidden by a fig tree hung with ragged offerings. The stream trickled from the cave; the shrine must lie within.
‘Hekabi?’ Pirra called softly.
Behind her, the buzzing rose angrily: the bees didn’t like her speaking out loud.
‘Hekabi!’ she whispered. ‘It’s me! Pirra!’
No answer: only the bees and the wind soughing in the pines, and the echoing gurgle of the unseen spring. Pirra touched the bulge in her tunic where Echo drifted in fever. If she couldn’t find Hekabi, the falcon would die.
Beside her, Havoc caught some scent and bounded off downhill. Pirra didn’t call her back, she knew the lioness would stay within earshot; besides, calling would anger the bees.
She glimpsed a wisp of smoke drifting from the cave. Her heart quickened. There was someone in there.
‘Hold on, Echo,’ she panted. ‘If she’s in there, I’ll make her cure you!’
But at the cave mouth, she faltered. One of the offerings on the fig tree was a dead crow, dangling by its wing. The bird had been ripped messily open, as if in fury; its eye sockets were seething with maggots. Stepping sideways to avoid it, Pirra nearly trod in an earthenware basin on the ground. It was brimful with blood, gone sludgy, and swarming with flies.
After the heat of the mountainside, the inside of the cave struck chill. It was dark, except for three dim points of light a few paces in, and it rang with the voice of the spring. Smoke stung Pirra’s eyes: not the heady scent of incense, but foul fumes that made her gorge rise.
‘Hekabi?’ she whispered.
Hekabi, Hekabi, whispered the cave.
Bent double and groping blindly, Pirra stumbled past a small black pool; that must be the spring. She touched wet rocks. Her palms came away dark. It smelt like blood.
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw that the cave was high enough for her to stand upright. All around, in every crack and crevice, someone had placed little clay creatures: bulls, foxes, pine martens, snakes, frogs – all facing inwards, their painted eyes gazing past her to a small three-legged offering-table of grey plaster, set at the shrine’s stony heart.
Pirra caught her breath. Everything about this offering was wrong. The table was upside-down, its three legs pointing at the roof, and to each of these had been tied a smouldering stick tipped not with incense, but reeking dung. The offerings themselves were on spikes stuck in the table’s underbelly. One was a scrap of blood-crusted bandage wound around the shrivelled corpse of a viper. The second was a fragment of a fine drinking cup, cradled in the ragged wing of a bat. The third was a narrow braid of dark hair with a small clay disc at one end, twisted around a dead scorpion.
Pirra’s skin crawled. A curse, she thought. This is a curse.
At that moment, she became aware of a low muttering beneath the voice of the spring: hissing, spitting, filling the air with venom.
In the shadows at the back of the cave, something moved. Pirra took in a shock of matted grey hair and a malevolent grey face rushing towards her. ‘Get out!’ it screeched in a blast of foetid breath. ‘Get out get out get out!’
Pirra ducked. Grey fingers clawed the air by her throat. ‘It’s me, Pirra!’ she cried.
The creature froze. Its wild gaze fixed on the crescent-moon scar on Pirra’s cheek.
‘You!’ rasped Hekabi.
‘The spirits have abandoned me,’ muttered Hekabi, pacing up and down outside the cave. ‘Nothing works, nothing, and now this girl … What does it mean?’
‘Echo’s sick,’ said Pirra. ‘You have to save her!’
Hekabi flung her a distracted look and went on pacing.
Pirra was appalled. The wisewoman was unrecognizable. She’d been almost handsome before, with strong, ageless features. Now she was ragged, skeletally thin, and caked from head to foot in grey clay. The ritual burn scars on her forearms which all Islanders bore had become fresh scabs, clawed open in mourning for her vanished home. Her dark eyes darted feverishly, and she gave off rage like heat from a fire.
Pirra was horrified. If grief for her lost homeland had sent the wisewoman mad, then Echo was doomed.
‘Nothing works,’ muttered Hekabi, twisting her hands till the knuckles cracked. ‘Something’s missing, but what?’
‘Hekabi, listen! Echo’s dying, you’ve got to save her!’
‘What do I care?’ snarled the wisewoman. ‘Nothing matters but destroying the Crows – and it can’t be done by weapons alone!’
‘You used to care,’ said Pirra. ‘You were kind to Havoc on Thalakrea!’
The wisewoman flinched as if the memory hurt. ‘Darkness and pain, nothing left … Hekabi lives only to crush the Crows.’
Pirra thought of the upside-down offering in the cave. She remembered the little clay disc at the end of the braid. Suddenly, she knew. That hair was Telamon’s.
‘You’re trying to curse the Crows,’ she said. ‘That potsherd – it belonged to Koronos, didn’t it? He only ever uses a vessel once, then it’s smashed. And that bloody bandage, it must have belonged to Pharax –’
‘But why won’t it take?’ shouted Hekabi. ‘Hekabi’s tried everything but nothing works! Something’s missing, but what?’
‘I know a bit about curses,’ Pirra said reluctantly. ‘I did one in Egypt. It drew the crocodiles that killed Alekto.’
Hekabi swung round. ‘That was you?’
Pirra nodded. ‘I’ll help you. But first you must help Echo.’
&
nbsp; Hekabi hesitated. ‘Show,’ she commanded.
Gently, Pirra drew the falcon from inside her tunic. Echo felt terrifyingly light. Her head drooped, and through her yellow eyelids, only a dark slit showed. Her beautiful slate-grey wings were dull, and her pale flecked breast felt emaciated. With a clutch of terror, Pirra wondered if even Hekabi could save her.
The wisewoman ran one filthy clay-caked finger down the falcon’s breast, and frowned. ‘This bird has power. Where’s she from?’
‘Keftiu.’
‘But where?’
‘Taka Zimi. That’s a peak sanctuary on Mount –’
‘I know where it is.’ Hekabi was pacing again, and her eyes had a hectic glitter. ‘That’s it,’ she muttered. ‘Yes, to make it work, I must have help from many lands, wherever the Crows have defiled! This sacred bird from Keftiu –’
‘No!’ cried Pirra. ‘You can’t have Echo!’
‘Not for sacrifice,’ spat Hekabi. ‘A feather will do!’
‘Not even that, the shock might kill her!’
Hekabi went on pacing as if she hadn’t heard. ‘Many lands, yes, that’s it!’ She halted. ‘But what about Thalakrea? I have nothing from my own land!’
‘What about those obsidian beads you used to wear,’ said Pirra, cradling Echo protectively. ‘Or your seeing-stone, or sulphur from the Mountain of Fire –’
‘All gone,’ moaned the wisewoman, her face twisted in anguish. ‘Lost in the scramble to escape, nothing left! The curse will fail!’
‘No it won’t,’ said Pirra in an altered voice. Wrenching open her pouch, she pulled out her little ivory comb and flung it at Hekabi’s feet. ‘There, that’s from Egypt. And here …’ She threw down her last gold poppy-head. ‘That’s from Keftiu, from the House of the Goddess itself, it’s far more powerful than a feather!’
Hekabi pounced on the things and snatched them to her breast. ‘What about Thalakrea?’
Pirra’s thoughts darted. ‘If I give you something from there, then in return, you must swear to help Echo.’