by Glyn Iliffe
He threw his cloak about his shoulders and retrieved his bow and quiver from the table. On its rough, grainy surface was a hunting knife in a leather sheath. Molorchus had offered it to him the night before, suggesting that the lion’s hide might yet be vulnerable to weapons – perhaps in its stomach or throat – and that it might have other uses. Heracles had doubted the value of such an old and neglected heirloom, which Molorchus had only remembered in his desperation, and would barely be sharp enough to skin a rabbit. But he took it anyway and slid it into his belt, before carefully picking his way through the debris to the broken door.
Ducking beneath the drooping remains of the porch roof, he stepped out and breathed the fresh air. The sky was still black, but the first hint of dawn had stolen away its depth and the stars were already fading. After a last glance at the farmhouse, he walked through the gate and down to the stream. Here he tore off a limb from an olive tree and stripped away the leaves and branches. Cutting a piece of rope from the coil in his bag, he wound it several times around the base of the club and secured the end, then tied a looser knot around his belt so that it hung ready at his hip.
Picking up the path, he followed it into the eaves of the forest. As the trees closed behind him, so the shadows deepened and he became enveloped by darkness. He fumbled his way along the narrow but well-worn trail, his bow drawn and an arrow fitted, relying on the sound of water to his right for a guide. Occasionally he stumbled on a rock or was surprised by the sudden appearance of tree before him. If the lion was stalking him now – its black hide invisible in the inky murk – it would be able to strike him down as easily as if he were a child. But a creature of such size could not move without making some noise, and as yet he could hear nothing beyond the gentle bubbling of the stream.
The atmosphere grew gloomier and more oppressive the further into the forest he went. Somewhere above the many-layered canopy of leaves, the air was beginning to lighten with the approach of dawn. A few birds sang out in greeting, though the sound was far away – like an echo from a forgotten world – and lacked cheer. Slowly, as the sun rose, a dull glow filtered into the cool, earthy air of the woods, transforming the thick shadows into a green gloom. The path became a grey, indistinct ribbon before his feet, rising steadily as it wound its way higher up into the foothills. The stream climbed with it, its previously black, opaque waters gleaming in the subdued light as they flowed over stones and boulders, sometimes tumbling headlong over modest waterfalls as they fled the dark mountain for the sunlight of the plain.
After a while, Heracles knelt by the water and scooped up a few handfuls. He scanned the slopes, dense with ferns and the roots and trunks of ancient trees, wondering whether he was being watched. He speculated where the path was leading to, and at which point he should abandon it and go looking for signs of the monster. He had seen one print on the approach to Molorchus’s farm, and may already have passed several more in the darkness of the forest. But somehow he knew that – even if he failed to find its tracks – the lion would make its presence known to him.
He had not yet considered how he might defeat the creature, but he felt no fear of the pending encounter. Indeed, the prospect of facing such a foe excited him. Only now did he realize how much he had missed the thrill of mortal danger. The weeks of drudgery at Tiryns had been soul destroying. Even the years of marriage and fatherhood in Thebes had starved his nature of something it desperately craved. He had loved his family wholeheartedly, but home life had made him feel like a caged animal. Giving orders to slaves or supervising the planting of crops was not what he had been created for. He missed the thrill of the battles he had fought to liberate Thebes, when the nearness of death had made the awareness of life so real, and when the challenge of defeating a more powerful foe had given that life purpose. However much he had loved playing with the boys or making love to his wife, he had too much of his father in him to be satisfied with domesticity.
Before long, the air grew light and began to warm up, becoming closer and more humid and obliging him to remove his cloak. The flow of the stream quickened and he heard the crash of water coming from the forest ahead of him. The ground began to rise more steeply, climbing to a high ridge on the opposite bank of the stream, formed by a shoulder of the mountain. The trees were thinner at the foot of the cliff, allowing the morning sun to break through the canopy. Eventually he reached a circular pool, where the stream tumbled down in a thin white curtain from the top of the ridge.
Heracles sat on a boulder at the edge of the pool and ate a piece of flatbread and a slice of cold meat from the provisions Molorchus had given him, enjoying the feel of the cooling spray from the waterfall on his skin. But as he swallowed the last mouthful, he felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck. He was no longer alone. Without moving his head, he scanned the trees at the top of the ridge. There was nothing there, as he knew there would not be, for his senses were telling him that the presence was behind him. Slowly, he reached back for his bow, which was propped against a boulder. As he took hold of it, his other hand eased the cap off his quiver and he gripped the base of an arrow between his finger and thumb.
With a sudden movement, he pulled it free and turned, fitting the arrow to the string and drawing it back to his cheekbone. For a moment he saw nothing, shifting his aim from tree to tree as he tried to penetrate the shadows. Then a movement caught his eye. He pulled the bow to the right, just as a deer leaped from the undergrowth and ran back down the path. He kept the tip of his arrow aiming at the animal’s hindquarters, tempted by the thought of fresh roast venison instead of the tough scraps of goat meat and dry bread that filled his satchel. But the idea of lighting a fire and attracting the lion changed his mind. He lowered the bow.
The deer pulled to a halt and raised its head in alarm. An instant later, it sprang to its right, dashing for the cover of the undergrowth. Something huge and black leaped after it. Heracles’s heart quickened. He watched the deer bound out from between a dense clump of ferns, its eyes wide with fear as it ran back up the path towards him. But the lion was quicker. It pounced from the shadows – an immense figure, as black as deepest night – and lunged with an outstretched claw. It took the deer across the chest, tearing it with such violence that the animal was thrown sideways. Its right foreleg was severed from its body and sent arcing through the air to disappear among the trees. The deer crashed into the ferns, kicking out briefly with its back legs as the lion placed one heavy paw on its chest, and with its other tore out its throat.
Heracles blinked, shocked at the size and power of the beast. But he did not forget the bow in his hand. He raised it and pulled the arrow back to his cheek. The lion was still some way off, its black fur a difficult target in the murk of the forest. He aligned the point of his arrow with its broad flank, waiting for the monster to bury its jaws in the flesh of its prey. Instead, it raised its black-maned head and turned to face him. Its chest heaved with the exertion of its kill, and its eyes gleamed green from out of the gloom. Heracles met its stare, sensing the malice in its heart and the hard intelligence that was undimmed by animal stupidity or human morals. Its black snout was drawn back in a mocking sneer, so that its white whiskers stood out like wires and saliva could be seen dripping from its double rows of curved fangs.
Heracles felt a rush of anger. He thought of Molorchus’s daughter, taken by the monster to lure more victims to its lair. He thought of the other farmers, their homes and families destroyed by the abomination before him. With a sneer, he tensed the bow a fraction more and released the string. The arrow flew with a looping motion, moving out of focus as it span towards its target. It hit the monster square in the ribs, snapping on impact – the head dropping to the ground and the shaft wheeling upwards and over into the bed of ferns.
The lion roared, its voice echoing back from the nearby cliffs and filling the forest with the sound of its rage. Heracles plucked another arrow from his quiver, notching it quickly and dragging the string back. But the beast was al
ready leaping through the trees, its powerful limbs bounding away at a great pace. Giving no mind to the fact his arrow had broken against the monster’s hide – having had no more effect than if he had fired it at the walls of Tiryns – Heracles ran after it, determined not to let it escape.
He followed it up the slope, away from the path and into the dense undergrowth. The ferns gave way to brambles higher up, which tore at his legs and the hem of his tunic. He paid them little mind. The beast was still in sight, a shadowy form on which no light would settle, tearing a path between the trees with their outflung roots and the mossy boulders that had tumbled down long ago from the heights of the mountain above. Though the slope was steep and the ground treacherous, Heracles pressed on, the thrill of the pursuit coursing through his limbs. He thought nothing of what he would do if the lion turned to fight. He only knew that his bow and arrows were ready and his club was at his side – and he had the strength and courage to use them.
But the lion did not turn. It rushed on, tearing holes in the dense foliage, springing onto rocks and fallen trees and leaping forward again, heading ever upwards and to the north-west. It led Heracles into parts of the forest where there were no paths and few men had dared to venture, even before the lion had come to the mountain. Here the trees were taller and of thicker girth, growing closer together so that the canopy of overlapping branches above smothered all but a dusky haze. The ground, too, became more uneven. Short, rocky cliffs rose up unexpectedly and had to be climbed or outflanked, while twisting streams meandered down from the higher reaches of Mount Tretus, making the going soft and boggy in places. Often he would fall, catching his foot on some root or in an unseen hole beneath a covering of leaves, or he would cut himself on the rocks as he clambered over them, lacking the agility of the monster that went before him. But always he would regain his footing and push on, determined not to let his quarry escape him.
Where the lion was taking him, he could not guess. But he sensed from the moment the chase had begun that it was not running away. It was leading him to its lair, the place where, eventually, it would stop running and turn to face him. Perhaps he was a fool to follow so openly. But he did not have the patience of a woodsman or a hunter, stalking their prey until the time to strike was right. He wanted to drive away the horror of his dream – the dream he had endured almost every night since his madness, of waking in his house to find his children murdered. And rescuing Molorchus’s daughter would help him do that. By saving an innocent life, he would pay for one of the innocent lives he had taken. Or that was what he hoped.
After a while, he no longer saw the shadow of the monster ahead of him. Its path was clear enough to read and he followed as quickly as caution would allow him, but without sight of the lion he grew more wary. He had assumed it was luring him to its lair, but he had already passed several places where, with a little less care, he could have blundered into an ambush and been torn to pieces. He could no longer hear it either. The sound of its progress had been distinct up to that point – almost the only sound in the forest – but now all was silence except for the distant rush of water, and the snapping of twigs and the crunching of leaves beneath his sandalled feet. After a while, he saw a thinning of the gloom in the trees ahead.
Readying an arrow, he approached the light and found himself standing on one side of a deep chasm. A few small trees grew along the shadowy floor of the gorge, where he could see a narrow ribbon of fast-flowing water tumbling over a stony bed dotted with boulders. The sound of the water was loud from where he stood – amplified by the steep, rocky sides of the ravine – and he turned to reassure himself that the lion was not approaching him unheard from behind. But there was no sign of the creature.
Deciding to follow the edge of the gorge northwards, he soon picked up its trail again. The sun was overhead by the time he next saw it. The sound of the water had been growing in volume, and now reached a dull roar as the gorge bent round to the north-east and ended in a horseshoe of jagged rock and tall trees. A cascade of water rushed out from the northern lip of the horseshoe and fell in a long curtain to a dark pool at the bottom, from which sprang the river Heracles had been following. He looked down into the clouds of fine spray that floated up from the base of the waterfall – forming circular rainbows where the rays of the noon sun caught it – then lifted his eyes to the tops of the cliffs. It was there that he saw the lion.
It stood on a shelf of flat rock beside the top of the waterfall, eyeing him menacingly. In an instant, he raised his bow and took aim. Hastily judging the strength and direction of the wind, he loosed the arrow. The bronze tip found its mark in the thick fur beneath the lion’s jaw. The beast let out a furious roar that echoed back from the walls of the gorge. Heracles responded with a shout of triumph, only to see the lion swipe the air with its great claw, dislodging the pieces of the broken arrow that had merely snagged in its mane. Heracles fitted a second arrow and aimed at the monster’s eye, but before he could release it, the lion had turned and disappeared into the trees.
Heracles ran through the forest, keeping the gorge to his left until he reached the top of the waterfall. He found the two halves of his arrow on the shelf of rock, but there was no sign of blood on the bronze tip, confirming that even the soft flesh of the lion’s throat was impenetrable to weapons. He looked up and saw the hump of the mountain’s peak rising over the tops of the trees. Somewhere between the gorge and the steep sides of Mount Tretus was the monster’s lair. And, he hoped, Molorchus’s daughter.
He tossed the pieces of the arrow into the gorge and ran into the forest. Broken branches and trampled ferns showed the route the lion had taken, and as he followed its trail deeper into the shadows, he untied the club from his belt and held it ready. The thunder of the waterfall faded away behind him and, once again, the woods became silent. He was in the heart of the forest now, where the birds did not sing and the thick ceiling of leaves allowed only a dim green radiance to seep through from above. The trees here were thicker and taller than any he had seen so far, their black trunks stretching up like the columns of some mythical hall. It had a supernatural aura, as if the gods themselves still walked here. Not Artemis, Dionysius or any of the Olympians. The ancient gods, who had wandered the earth in the first days.
He stared about at the dense undergrowth, his eyes straining to discern that deeper blackness among the shadows – a crouching figure that might leap out and attack him at any moment. The monster’s lair was close now. He could feel it in the slowing of his blood. And he could smell it. A faint odour of corruption. The bittersweet and sickening stench of dead flesh in a state of decay. It was distant still, he guessed; barely discernable above the smells of damp soil and vegetation. But now that he had recognized it, his nostrils seemed not to notice anything else.
The signs of the lion’s progress remained clear. A trail of needless destruction, meant to draw him deeper into the creature’s net; or maybe it was simply the overflow of its rage. He recalled the sight of the lion beside the crest of the waterfall, standing in full daylight and yet like a patch of night against the blue sky behind, its green eyes blazing with fury and hatred. More like an ox in size than any lion he had ever seen or heard of. Indeed, he could not think of it as a lion, only as a monster, an unnatural entity, a living nightmare of loathing and terror.
He remembered the double rows of teeth and the oversized jaws that held them. If they were to close on an arm or a leg, no thickness of muscle or density of bone would prevent it from being torn off. He recalled also the sight of its claws, slashing the air in its fury after he had shot an arrow at it. Long and sharp, they would slice a man’s flesh from his bones with ease, just as they had ripped open the chest of the deer and severed its foreleg with a single swipe. How could any man – even a son of Zeus – hope to defeat such a creature?
He looked around at the dark forest and wondered what he was doing there. Did he truly believe he would find the answer to why he had murdered his children? Was there re
ally any way of being delivered from the terrible guilt that tortured him day and night? Would it not be easier to return the way he had come and start a new life from the ruins of the old? Surely to live was better than to perish in the monster’s lair and be forgotten?
His heart sank in the face of his doubts, which lingered about him like phantoms in the shadows of the forest. A pointless death seemed inevitable if he went on. Yet he had no choice. There was no turning back, no escape from what he had done. His only hope of a new life was to complete the task before him and go on to the next. For that was the path he had been told would lead to redemption, and unless he could be absolved from the murder of his children then he could not live with himself. Death was infinitely better than such hopeless misery.
And then there was Molorchus’s daughter. He could not bear to see a child suffer, not if there was anything he could do to prevent it. Even if nothing else depended on it, he had to face the lion for her sake.
A muffled scream broke the stillness of the forest. All thought of danger, all consideration of how he might defeat the monster, fell from his mind. He ran towards the sound of the scream, no longer afraid of being ambushed by the lion. It was in its lair now, terrorizing its captive in order to make him abandon his caution, using her fear to draw him into its trap. Yet her voice had sounded far away, as if coming from the ground below his feet. What was it Molorchus had said? That his neighbours had followed the beast into a cave and that it had appeared behind them again, blocking their escape.
