Achilles took notice of me for the first time, his eyes wandering down my body. ‘And who would that be? You certainly look like you’ve been trained well.’
‘The hero Atalanta,’ I replied proudly, ignoring the way my skin prickled under his stare.
Achilles stifled a laugh. ‘She’s a second-rate hero at best.Iwas trained by Chiron himself, son of Kronos and mentor to heroes for generations. What’s Atalanta done? Gone on a sailing trip and killed a pig. She never fought in a war or triumphed over the champion of an opposing army. And you know why that is,’ he continued smoothly, denying me an opening. ‘It’s because she’s only a mortal. All the greatest heroes have a god for a parent. It gives them an edge.’
I was on my feet at once. ‘Not true!’
Achilles was unmoved. ‘There’s me, for example,’ he continued. ‘My mother is the sea nymph Thetis, and you can see it in my speed. I move like sunlight on water. As for you, you look like you’ve gotsomeimmortal blood in you, but it’s not recent.’ He eyed me sceptically.
‘My father is the grandson of Zeus himself,’ I snapped. ‘Tell that to your little sea nymph mother. And I’ll win today, no matter what you say.’ With that, I stomped out of the tent, leaving Iphigenia calling after me in dismay.
Later, when the air had cooled and the shadows were growing long, I found myself poised at the starting line beside theother runners. We did not look at one another, and certainly not at the stadium seats filled with spectators. Instead, we kept our eyes focused on the white mark in the dust – the finish line. My tendons quivered like bowstrings, and Achilles’s words still rankled in my heart.
From somewhere in the crowd, I could feel Atalanta’s eyes on me. She had given me only one piece of advice before the race: ‘Don’t lose.’
The race began and we were off. The ground was hot as a cooking stone on my bare feet, but I moved so quickly that it didn’t matter. Every time my feet struck the hard-packed earth, I imagined they were landing on that idiot Achilles’s head. Another racer was gaining on me, a tall girl with hair like a raven’s wing, but my native stubbornness took hold. I put one last burst of energy into my stride, and the world telescoped to nothing but the ground and my breath.
A cry went up from the crowd. I looked back and saw the white mark of the finish line far behind me.
I panted in the burning sunlight and searched the crowd until my eyes fell upon Achilles. His disappointed frown was far sweeter to me than the victor’s crown of laurels.
When I was seventeen, Atalanta decreed that the time had come for the final test. I might be destined to kill a monster feared by the gods, but the beast hadn’t been quick to present itself. The great monsters of ancient times, prey of earlier heroes, had all but disappeared from the world. Even prides of griffins grew rarer year after year. So when Atalanta heard of a drakonis only a few miles to the south, she declared I would meet it.
A drakonis was an enormous snake, coils upon coils of fanged menace. Atalanta and I discussed strategies to face it, though some things could only be decided in the moment. We setout in the early morning through the Lion’s Gate. When I looked behind us, I saw to my surprise that a motley crew of Mycenaeans followed. They maintained a respectful distance, but their course mirrored ours unmistakably.
Atalanta did not discourage them. ‘They want to see what will become of their unusual princess. This is good; we’ll need people to tell your story. Encouraging gossip is cheaper than commissioning poetry.’
Fear flitted in my belly. If I did not succeed, they would also bring reports of my shameful failure far and wide.
My teacher and I made camp not far from the glade where the creature had been reported. By then it was late afternoon, and there was no point in going after the beast now. The hangers-on settled down some distance from Atalanta and me, close enough for us to smell their cookfires and hear their banter.
My teacher and I did not say much to each other. There was nothing to discuss; we had already made all the preparations, and now I would succeed or fail. I lay down on my bedroll as the sun slipped below the horizon. I slept poorly, my dreams haunted by images of sharp fangs and broken bones, and I woke at dawn. A pair of eyes met mine from across the tent – Atalanta was awake as well.
I knew from Atalanta that the drakonis was cold-blooded and would be sluggish in the morning. This would be my best chance to strike, when the day was still new and unformed.
My teacher helped me don my armour, a set of boiled leather. ‘Isn’t this too flimsy?’ I asked.
Atalanta was focused on tightening the lacings. ‘If the drakonis catches you,’ she said. ‘It won’t matter what kind of armour you’re wearing.’
When she was finished, she took me by the shoulders. ‘Iwon’t tell you not to be afraid,’ she said fiercely. ‘You won’t have time for it. That creature will be on you before you can blink, and you’d better not disgrace us both by forgetting everything I taught you. May Artemis Far-Shooter bless you.’ With that, she sent me out of the tent.
I went alone to the monster’s glade. The softness of the morning light was a gentle lie over the menace of this place and the ugliness of the task that lay ahead of me. My boots brushed through grass still wet with dew, and I knew I had arrived at the right place when I heard the singing of the birds lapse into silence. As Atalanta had taught me, this was the first sign of danger.
I climbed up the low hill and saw the drakonis sunning itself lazily in the first rays of morning. Gods, it was enormous! Why hadn’t anyone told me how big it was? Indeed, it looked like an ordinary snake, but each of its fat coils was as wide as the walls of Mycenae, and its wide mouth could swallow me as easily as a man eats an olive. I could see the muscles rippling under its scales and knew with sick certainty that the drakonis could move with all the lightning speed of its smaller cousins. The creature shifted its head to drink in the sunlight and revealed a set of fangs the length of my arm. Those teeth, I knew, excreted a poison that melted stone and caused death with excruciating slowness.
Dread chilled my bones. I wondered if my legend would end before it had the chance to begin, but I quickly pushed this idea from my mind.
I scaled a nearby tree. Gripping the trunk with my legs, I pulled an arrow from my quiver and took aim at one of the drakonis’s eyes, which blinked in leisurely stupefaction. I let fly, and there was a terrible scream that rattled the hills and shattered the serenity of the glade. An arrow protruding fromits eye, the drakonis thrashed about in agony and cracked fragile saplings with its tail.
I took aim and fired again, registering another scream as my arrow took out the beast’s remaining eye. I scrambled down the tree and pulled my sword free from its sheath, ready to finish what I had started. But I made a grave miscalculation: Like a snake, a drakonis doesn’t rely on sight alone to hunt.
The beast’s tongue flicked through the air and its head swung towards me, blocking the weak sunlight from the little grove. I saw those liquid muscles tense, and that was my only warning. I rolled out of the way just as the drakonis’s fangs struck the place I had been standing only moments before.
I remembered my training and was on my feet in a heartbeat. I knew from Atalanta’s lessons that when a snake strikes, it commits all it has to the blow. With no arms or legs, it must take a few moments to gather itself up. I had a few heartbeats, perhaps less, in which to make my move.
I swung my sword, cutting a gash in the soft flesh just behind the drakonis’s head. I felt the blade skim across bone before I pulled free, and the resistance made me stagger.
A gout of blood drenched me, warm as bathwater. When I leaped free, I dashed it out of my eyes with the back of my hand, ignoring the tang of copper on my tongue. Pedalling backwards, I watched the creature thrash in the dirt for a few more minutes, but slowly its movements stilled, and its eyes grew dull as old bronze. Perhaps I should have felt elated, but instead I only marvelled. It had all happened so quickly.
