by Glyn Iliffe
Heracles pulled an arrow from his quiver, fitted it in an instant and fired it into the centaur’s chest. The creature fell dead, crashing into the snow beside Iolaus. Another arrow whistled out from the darkness, striking Heracles on the shoulder, but turned once more by the hide of the Nemean Lion that he wore. This time, he saw the archer at the edge of the clearing, fitting another arrow as he cantered beneath the eaves of the trees. Heracles readied his bow. As he took aim, he saw the centaur staring back at him along the shaft of his own arrow.
Heracles adjusted for the strength of the wind and released his hold on the string. He saw his opponent fall, just as he felt the rush of his arrow fly little more than a hand’s breadth over his head. But there was no time to exult over his victory. A boulder came whirling out of the blizzard towards him. He threw himself aside and it crashed into the cliff behind, sending splinters of rock flying through the air. He felt one thwack against his cloak, and at the same time sensed a burning sensation across his arm as a small shard cut through the skin.
Two centaurs dashed towards him. One waved a cleaver high above his head; the other wielded a club. The first fell with an arrow through his eye, crying out in anguish as his legs collapsed beneath him. The second galloped on, swinging his club at his opponent’s head. Heracles shot an arrow through his throat.
‘Oreus!’ Pholus wailed, standing in the mouth of the cave as he watched the centaur fall. ‘And Hylaeus, too! Heracles, stop this murder. Please don’t kill any more.’
An arrow passed over Pholus’s back and shattered against the wall of the cave.
‘Get inside,’ Heracles shouted.
But the centaur ignored him. He trotted forward, looking aghast at the body of the kinsman who had attacked Iolaus. He glanced in horror at Heracles’s nephew as he sheltered just inside the mouth of the cave, thinking he had slain the giant centaur.
‘I said get back inside!’ Heracles insisted. ‘You can’t talk them into backing down now; they’re too angry. I have to drive them off, and then perhaps we can escape before they fetch more of their kind.’
‘Of my kind, you mean,’ Pholus said.
An arrow thumped into his cloak, flicking it out across his hindquarters. Fortunately, the snow was blinding the aim of the centaurs, or their arrows would have claimed a victim before now. Shocked, Pholus staggered back to the mouth of the cave, but he did not go in.
Heracles fitted another arrow and searched the snow for the archer. Indistinct figures moved around the edge of the clearing, calling out threats in their deep, menacing voices, yet too wary of the bow in Heracles’s hand to come any closer. With a leader and the discipline to work together, they might have launched a coordinated attack and ended the battle in moments. Then he saw one of the blurred figures raise his arm. An instant later, an arrow bounced off the edge of the cave, close to where Iolaus was staring out into the darkness. As his nephew pulled back into the shadows, Heracles raised his bow and fired. The centaur cried out briefly and fell.
‘How do your arrows kill so quickly?’ Pholus asked. ‘I’ve treated centaurs who have been stuck with three or four arrows, yet survived. We are a strong people – powerfully built and not easy to kill. But before your arrows, we fall like deer under the claws of a lion. I don’t understand.’
The wind howled furiously and the snow was blowing hard into the side of Heracles’s face. The remaining centaurs were shouting to each other and pointed at the cave, the air in the clearing charged with their rage. They started to gather about the body of Heracles’s most recent victim, and he knew an attack was imminent.
‘Heracles dipped the points of his arrows in the blood of the Hydra,’ Iolaus told Pholus. ‘It paralyses in an instant, with death following moments later.’
Pholus looked appalled. Stooping to the nearest body, he dragged it back to the mouth of the cave.
‘I would rather be executed under the laws of my people than see any more of them die like this,’ he said. ‘Let me go to them. I can buy time for you to escape into the trees.’
‘I’ll not let you sacrifice yourself for my sake,’ Heracles replied. ‘Iolaus, come to me. They’re going to rush us. If we attack them first, we may be able to drive them off before they can surround us.’
Iolaus joined his uncle, gripping his sword nervously in both hands, while Heracles looped the strap of his club over his wrist. The knot of centaurs dispersed and spread out in a line – eight shadowy figures in the semi-darkness. Notching an arrow, Heracles broke into a run, loosing the dart at a centaur on the far left of their line. It buried itself in the creature’s hindquarters and he fell, dropping the uprooted tree from his hands.
Nessus trotted forward. The remains of the flint arrow protruded from his shoulder, but he still clutched the cleaver in his other hand. Raising it high over his head, he gave a loud roar and broke into a gallop. The others followed, filling the air with their cries.
Heracles glanced over his shoulder. Iolaus was only a couple of paces behind him, holding his sword in both hands. Stringing another arrow, he looked at the rapidly closing gap between himself and the leading centaurs. He raised the bow and fired, hitting one of their number in the stomach. He crashed into the snow, his hind legs twisting up into the air and bringing down the centaur behind him. There was no time for another shot. Dropping his bow, Heracles gripped his club and gave a shout that thundered through the clearing.
Nessus was overtaken in the charge by Anchius who had armed himself with a rough cudgel torn from a pine tree. He galloped at Heracles and their weapons met. There was a splintering of wood and Anchius’s cudgel broke in his hand. Heracles turned a half circle and swung his club into the centaur’s face. The blow ripped away his bottom jaw and spattered the snow with his blood. He turned instinctively and tried to gallop towards the treeline, but collapsed before he had taken more than a few steps.
Agrius leaped over the body of his kinsman and slashed at Heracles with a cleaver. Heracles twisted away from the attack and the blade caught him between the shoulders. The impact was like a hammer blow, causing him to cry out in pain and fall to his knees. But the edge of Agrius’s weapons was stopped by the lion’s hide, turning the centaur’s momentary euphoria to disbelief. Pushing himself back to his feet, Heracles swung his club into his opponent’s chest. Agrius’s ribs broke and he crumpled into the snow, his eyes wide with shock and his mouth gasping for air. Then Heracles brought his club down onto his head, crushing the skull and mashing the bone into the brain beneath.
‘Heracles!’
Turning, he saw Iolaus battling against two centaurs. One was armed with a crude spear, the other with a cleaver. They towered over Iolaus, who was struggling to fend off their simultaneous attacks. As Heracles tightened his grip on his club and prepared to go to his assistance, he saw Nessus and the other remaining centaur galloping towards the cave where Pholus was gathering the bodies of his people. His bow lay in the snow where he had abandoned it, but Heracles knew there was not enough time to save both his nephew and his friend.
He slipped the leather strap from his wrist and hurled his club at the nearest centaur. It smashed into his shoulder with a crunch. The creature bellowed with pain and staggered sideways, the cleaver dropping from his useless fingers. An instant later, Iolaus buried his sword in his chest. The centaur fell, and his comrade threw down his spear and fled into the trees.
Dashing forward, Heracles plucked his bow from the ground and notched an arrow. The blizzard was weakening, and as he peered through the swirling flakes he saw three centaurs struggling against each other. The smaller figure of Pholus cowered before the other two, covering his head with his hands. Nessus stood on his hind legs, raining blows on his cousin with his front hooves and driving him back against the foot of the cliff. The second centaur raised his arm, a cleaver gleaming dully in his hand. Heracles tensed the bowstring, took aim and released the arrow.
He did not wait to observe the accuracy of his shot, but set off at a sprint to
wards the cave. Nessus saw him coming, and after a moment’s hesitation galloped away towards the safety of the trees. The other centaur lay on his side in the snow, his chest rising and falling rapidly while jets of blood squirted up from his arm. Then Heracles saw Pholus slumped against the foot of the cliff, a black-feathered arrow protruding from his chest.
‘No!’ he cried, his voice echoing back from the high cliffs.
He ran on, reaching his friend’s side and tugging the arrow from his flesh. The wound was not deep – the head had wedged itself between two ribs and there was hardly any blood – but it was enough. Paralysis had already set in and death was close on its heels. Glancing quickly back at the other centaur – who was now lying still in the snow – he saw that the arrow had passed through the flesh of his raised arm and been deflected downward into Pholus’s chest. He felt a sting of remorse, then like a clap of thunder, he remembered the reason that had brought him to Pholoë. He looked into his old friend’s face and saw the pain and sadness in his eyes.
‘Pholus,’ he said. ‘Pholus, tell me who it was. You said you knew. The name of the one who brought the mushrooms to my house!’
But the centaur made no response. His jaw moved slightly and his eyes blinked once. Then the light left them and a final breath juddered from his lips. His spirit had departed on its journey to the Underworld.
* * *
They left the city of Thelpusa before first light and drove westward. The dirt track was hard with frost, and Iolaus felt his bones jar with every rut and hole the wheels of the chariot fell into. Yet he was glad to have left the snows of Pholoë behind and returned to the plains and valleys where his double cloak stood a chance of coping with the chill. There was still thick snow in the mountains to the north – where, ultimately, they would be returning – but for now, they would remain below the foothills.
The road took them in a south-westerly direction for a while, between empty fields and lonely farmhouses, until they heard the sound of rushing water. Passing over a low ridge, they saw a broad, fast-flowing river below them. Rainfall had raised it almost to the level of its banks, and the water was brown with the sediment it had collected on its journey down from the hills. The road led down to a stone bridge that crossed the river in two spans, broken by a long islet that temporarily split the course of the raging waters. After that, it climbed up to the other side of the valley and disappeared beneath the eaves of dense woodland. But that was not the route they were to take.
A soldier guarding the gates of Thelpusa had warned them the temple of Hephaistos was haunted, and that they should stay away. When they said they were going anyway, he told them to stay on the north bank of the river, where a track led up to a valley in the hills. They soon found the fork in the road and followed a narrow, overgrown track that veered off to the right. The land here was rocky and uncultivated, populated only by scrubby vegetation and a few solitary trees. Flocks of goats occupied the slopes to their right, the sound of their bleating heard faintly over the constant roar of the river. The sky was an unbroken ceiling of pale grey. At one point, to Iolaus’s dismay, there was a flurry of snow, but it did not last long and left no trace of itself on the ground.
Heracles had remained silent through most of their journey, still mourning the death of Pholus and mulling over the fact that it was his own arrow that had slain his friend and former teacher. Iolaus realized he must also have been regretting that Pholus had died without revealing the information he was so desperate to learn – the identity of the enemy who had drugged him and caused him to attack his own family. Then his uncle raised an arm and pointed at an opening in the ridge to their right.
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘There’s the tree and the abandoned house the guard spoke of.’
A lightning-struck plane tree was the only feature on the top of the slope where the ridge ended, while on the opposite rise were the remains of a stone cottage and a walled animal enclosure.
‘Why would anyone build a temple out here?’ Iolaus asked. ‘Who would ever find the place, for one thing?’
‘It wasn’t meant to be found,’ Heracles replied. ‘It was meant to guard a secret – the very secret we’ve come to find.’
The track turned northwards and passed through the gap in the ridge. A stream ran alongside the track, which led them between low hills to wide meadows beyond. The ground was covered in scrub and the hills on either side were wooded, with a dense thicket of oaks growing at the far end of the valley. The trees were almost bare, and Iolaus could see a large building through their thickly interlaced branches. He spurred the horses on and soon they were entering an avenue that led through the oaks to the temple of Hephaistos.
He pulled the chariot to a halt and jumped down. The building was imposing in its size – as tall as the circle of oaks that surrounded it – and was made from great blocks of stone, though these were now choked with ivy and crumbling from many years of hot summers and freezing winters. There were no windows and no adornments of any kind on the temple’s exterior, and the only visible entrance was a roofed porch with two tall, wooden doors, firmly shut against the outside world. Deep drifts of orange and brown leaves skirted the walls of the temple, with more falling at every gust of the chill wind that blew down from the mountains. A feeling of abandonment and ruin possessed the place.
Heracles shouldered his bow and mounted the steps to the porch. He brushed the piled leaves away with his foot and placed his palms against the double doors. They were not barred on the inside, and opened with a loud creak. Iolaus joined him, and together they entered the echoing temple.
The inside was lit by a torch on each wall, with two more fixed at the feet of a tall statue, the features of which were lost in the gloom. The flames created stuttering ovals of orange light that seemed only to deepen the shadows that filled the place. But they demonstrated that the temple had not been entirely abandoned. Someone had lit the torches, and somewhere in the darkness, their eyes were watching the two newcomers.
Iolaus brushed the thought aside and looked around, letting his vision adjust to the murk. The air was musty and smelled of burning animal fat. The only sound was the hissing of the torches and the tread of his and Heracles’s sandalled feet as they walked slowly to the centre of the temple. The roof was supported by four columns that were hung with lengths of rope. Looking up, he saw daylight through a small hole in the ceiling, which had once acted as a vent for the smoke from the central hearth. But he sensed the fire had not been lit in a long time, and there had been no sacrifices there for many years.
He looked up at the statue, which was twice the height of Heracles. His eyes had become more used to the darkness now, and he could see that the figure was bearded and bare-chested, being dressed only in a loincloth. A long handled hammer hung from its right fist, while the fingers of its left hand had hold of a net.
‘Heracles!’ Iolaus said, taking hold of his uncle’s arm. ‘Look!’
‘I see it,’ Heracles replied with an indifferent nod. ‘I also see all the others. Look at the walls and the columns; look at the floor, and up at the rafters.’
Iolaus walked to the nearest pillar. What he had mistaken for rope was in fact a net, strung around the wooden column on pegs. He reached out and took it in his fingers. It was old and dry, and rough to the touch. He gave it a sharp tug and one of the pegs snapped, causing part of the net to fall and hang loose.
‘Leave it alone!’ Heracles rebuked him. ‘Remember Hephaistos’s net was used as a trap. Who’s to say it isn’t still serving the same purpose?’
Iolaus released his hold on the rope and stepped away.
‘Well, he didn’t use this to catch anything,’ he commented. ‘It’s made of plain old flax, for one thing. Didn’t Pholus say Hephaistos made his from gold?’
‘Stories get embellished,’ Heracles answered, walking up to one of the other columns and testing the net there with his fingers. ‘All I know is that the mesh he made was strong enough to hold two gods wit
hout breaking. Keep looking, and be careful .’
He walked off towards one of the corners and was quickly absorbed in shadow. Iolaus moved to the opposite wall, hoping to test the nets that he could now see strung about it. His foot caught something, which rattled metallically as it wrapped about his foot. He stooped to untangle himself, feeling rather than seeing the net that had caught him. It was cold to the touch and he could feel pitting on the surface of the chain, the links of which were large and clumsy. Doubting the Smith God would make anything so crude, he tossed it aside. The clank echoed from the walls and was followed by another impatient reprimand from Heracles on the other side of the temple. Iolaus also thought he heard a short laugh, and turned to peer into the shadows, half-expecting to see the gleam of watching eyes.
‘Did you hear that?’ he called to his uncle.
‘I can’t hear anything over your clamour. Just keep looking.’
Iolaus carried on towards the part of the wall lit by the torch, feeling the cords and knots of different nets beneath his sandals. Reaching the torch, he plucked it from its bracket and examined the wall. Several nets hung from iron pegs hammered into the plaster, overlapping and often tangled up with each other. They were made from varying thicknesses of rope, woven from flax or leather strands and with different sizes of mesh. Some gleamed dully in the torchlight or rattled to the touch, and it was these that commanded his attention. Several had rusted, and though one seemed to be made of thin links of silver, there were none of gold, and certainly none strong enough to hold a rampaging boar of the size and ferocity Heracles had described.
