Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons (12 page)

Then, without warning, he came at her fast as a viper striking from the undergrowth. His staff jabbed and poked; it swatted and swung with such energy and accuracy Hippolyta backed off as fast as she could. She kept swinging her staff from side to side, trying to protect herself. Finally, she stumbled over an exposed tree root and fell backward onto the ground.

Tithonus rushed toward her, and she waved him off, angrily.

Meanwhile the old man turned his back on her and walked over to the river. He knelt and splashed water on his face, then stood up again.

“Frankly,” he said turning around, “I’m disappointed. I thought you’d have more spirit.”

Getting up, Hippolyta said, “I’ve plenty of spirit.” She no longer addressed him as
old man.
He hadn’t seemed very old when he was attacking.

“Oh, you’ve got anger enough,” the warrior conceded. “But you don’t know what to do with it. Fire is your friend when it lights your way. It is your friend when it keeps you warm. But if it burns your house down, what use is it to you?”

“Riddles!” Hippolyta said. She spat to one side, to show her disdain, though her mouth was dry as dust.

“I know what he means—” Tithonus began, stopping when Hippolyta glared at him.

“Your riddles won’t protect you,” Hippolyta snapped. She understood without Tithonus’ help what the old man meant. She’d been reckless in her attacks, letting her anger drive her. She’d been too eager to strike him down without sizing him up first, without remembering all her fighting techniques.

She rehearsed them in her head:
Don’t let your guard down. Probe your opponent for weaknesses. Watch how he moves.
How could she have forgotten?

When she closed with the old warrior this time, she watched with care, calculating the way he used his staff. She checked his feet out of the corner of her eyes.

There!
He took a step forward, signaling an attack.

Now she could sidestep his thrust.

Whack!
She struck him a glancing blow across his bony shoulder.

He hopped away, grimacing.

“That must have hurt,” she said. “Old bones have little padding.”

He flashed her a fierce grin. “That’s better, girl. Now we’ll really test your mettle.”

He came at her faster than she expected. She blocked high, but he swept his staff low and scooped her feet out from under her. She landed hard on her bottom but leaped up again before the pain could keep her down, aiming a blow at his head, then his knee, then his belly. Not one of the blows connected, but the attack was furious enough to get him to retreat, huffing and puffing, like an old boar in a fight for its life.

“There!” he cried out. “Now your blood is flowing, like a river in spate. And you’re finally using your speed and your strength, instead of simply squandering them.”

Their staffs cracked together, again and again.

Hippolyta had risen above her anger. She was high on battle fever, using it to fuel her ferocity and drive herself on. She repeated the moves she’d practiced since she was a little girl. But now she was putting a passion into each strike that she’d never had before.

An Amazon battle cry burst from her lips.
“Aeeeeeeiiiiiii!”

And then she was whipping the staff around the old man like lightning in a summer storm. At last she cracked him across the bald skull, and he toppled like a felled tree.

At once the battle fury left her, and she stood, panting, waiting for him to rise.

Tithonus knelt over the old man.

“Is he—” Hippolyta whispered, “is he alive?”

“I don’t know,” Tithonus said, looking up at her. “But I can’t see a mark on him.”

Just then the ancient sat up and rubbed his head. “That was good,” he said, oblivious of the boy’s astonished face. “Very good.” He found his staff and used it to stand.

Tithonus stepped away, but Hippolyta held her staff ready. She had no energy left, though. She wondered if she could fight any longer.

The old man looked at her. “Took you awhile, girl.” His head nodded up and down, like some sort of addled stork. “But in the end you fought like a warrior. Take your reward, but don’t forget the lesson that comes with it.” He started off into the woodland.

“Sir,” Hippolyta called after him, “you haven’t told me your name.”

The old man turned back slowly. For a long moment he seemed to be studying Hippolyta’s face, as if memorizing it. “I’ll tell you that next time we meet,” he called. “But I will tell you this, turn east and north that way”—he pointed—“and you will get home a lot more quickly than you came to Troy.” Then he grinned broadly, walked into the trees, and disappeared.

H
IPPOLYTA DISMISSED THE OLD
man from her mind and started ripping open the pack. Inside were loaves of bread, cheeses, strips of dried meat, fruits and berries, and a skinful of wine.

“He must have quite an appetite for someone so skinny,” she mused, biting into a handful of figs.

“I don’t like it,” said Tithonus. “He gave all this up too easily.”

“Easy for you,” said Hippolyta, rubbing her bruises. “I paid quite a price.”

She tossed Tithonus a loaf of bread, and his hunger immediately overcame his curiosity. Having silenced him as she intended, Hippolyta examined the horse and discovered something tucked under the pack, a double-headed ax. She pulled it out and saw that it was identical in every way to the kind used by the Amazons.

“That’ll come in handy,” said Tithonus. “We can chop wood for a campfire tonight.”

“It’s handy for a lot more than that,” Hippolyta said.

She turned the ax over in her hand, examining it from every angle. If not for the fact that it was impossible, she could have sworn this was the very same ax she had taken with her from Themiscyra.

Once they had eaten their fill, Hippolyta vaulted onto the horse’s back and took hold of the reins. Tithonus gaped at her as if she had just turned a somersault and landed feetfirst on top of a tree.

“Come on,” she said, waving him forward. “You’re not planning to walk all the way, are you?”

“You mean, we’re going to sit up there? But we’ll just fall off.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve been riding on horseback since I was younger than you.”

“Well, that’s all very well for a barbarian, but civilized people ride in chariots.”

“I know one civilized person who’s going to be trampled under these hooves if he doesn’t get over here,” Hippolyta said.

Tithonus came forward reluctantly and took Hippolyta’s hand. She pulled him up with a grunt. It was like dragging up a sackful of vegetables.

“And this is safe?” he asked, his voice trembling slightly. She wasn’t certain if he was shaking from fear, cold, or the fact that the horse had started to prance about with an uncertain rider on its back.

“Yes, it’s safe. Just put your arms around my waist.”

Tithonus threw both arms around her and held on so tightly, she could hardly breathe.

“Try to relax a bit,” Hippolyta said. “We aren’t exactly galloping. Yet.”

Tithonus slowly loosened his hold, but every time the horse made an unexpected movement, he squeezed Hippolyta so hard she gasped out loud.

“This is going to be an awfully long trip,” Hippolyta muttered.

Behind her, his head resting on her back, Tithonus nodded.

Remembering what the old man said about going home, she turned the horse’s nose east and north. If it got her home sooner, she’d say a prayer for the old man’s safety.

It turned out that Tithonus was more trouble than baby Podarces had been.

Yes, he could feed himself.

And wash himself.

And he didn’t need to be changed.

But he wouldn’t shut up.

All day long he asked endless questions. Hippolyta gave him as many answers as she could stand, all the while avoiding the full story of why she had come to Troy.

“What does Queen Otrere look like?”

“She has copper-colored hair and large amber eyes. Like you.”

“Not like you, though.”

“No, I probably look like my father.”

“I don’t look like
my
father,” Tithonus said. “That’s why he hates me.”

“He hates you?”

“Well, he doesn’t exactly hate me. But he doesn’t like me, either. Do you think
she’ll
like me?”

“I don’t know. I expect she’ll like you as much as I do.”

He chewed on that for a while. Then he started up again.

“What are the Amazons really like?”

“Like warriors.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“Then who does the washing?”

“We have servants. We have slaves.”

“Is my mother a warrior?”

“She’s a queen. But not the warrior queen. The peace queen.”

Another one to chew over.

When he finally stopped asking questions, Hippolyta was relieved.

But only for a moment.

Then he began talking endlessly about Troy: about his father, his sisters, his old nurse, Dares, the stories he’d heard the bards sing at the palace.

Hippolyta tried to keep a rein on her temper, but when he started talking about how soft his bed was in Troy and how many servants he had, it was more than she could take.

“Tithonus,” she said through gritted teeth, “if you don’t close your mouth, a woodpecker will fly in and make its nest there.” It was something her mother often said to Antiope.

“That’s silly,” Tithonus answered. “There are no woodpeckers around here. There are no trees.”

“Then if you don’t shut up, I’ll find some other bird and stuff it in there!” Hippolyta threatened.

The boy fell silent for a full three seconds, then said, “I think we should stop and rest for a while, Hippolyta. All this riding is making you cranky. I knew we’d have been better off with a chariot. A person doesn’t get cranky in a chariot.”

“A person does who’s tied up and carted off to be a monster’s dinner,” she said in a tight voice.

That quieted him.

Hippolyta had to fight hard to stifle her desire to shove him off the horse and leave him lying in the dust.
Let him try to find his way back to Troy without being eaten by a bear,
she thought.
Let him try to get there without being taken by brigands!

But each time she felt that way she reminded herself that she needed him as much as he needed her.

“It’s getting dark,” she said finally. “We might as well stop for the night.”

She showed him how to gather kindling for the fire, and he took to the task eagerly, as if it were some sort of game. He did such a good job she even let him strike a spark from the two pieces of flint she found in the old man’s pack.

“Stay here,” she commanded. “Watch the fire and the horse.”

She was so relieved to be away from him for a little while she almost missed the trio of pigeons with the makeshift bow she’d fashioned for herself. In fact she only got two of them.

But two,
she thought,
are enough.

Once they’d eaten, Hippolyta lay back on the brown grass. It was the most relaxed she’d felt in days.

“I think food tastes even better out-of-doors,” said Tithonus. “When I get back to Troy, I think I’ll go outside to eat instead of having my meals in the banqueting halls.”

Let him dream about his banquets,
Hippolyta thought.
He’s never going to see Troy again.

“My father likes having huge banquets,” Tithonus recalled, “with six or seven courses. And music. And dancing girls.”

“Yes, I’m sure he has plenty of
dancing
girls,” Hippolyta remarked disdainfully

“You don’t like my father, do you?” Tithonus said.

“Do I have any reason to?”

“I suppose not.” He said it carefully. Then burst out with “But what about your own father? The one you look like.”

“Amazons don’t care about their fathers,” Hippolyta replied brusquely. “In fact I don’t even know who he is.”

“Then how do you know you look like him?”

“I don’t. I just know I’m the only one of Mother’s daughters who doesn’t look like her.”

“Don’t you want to find out who your father is?” Tithonus’ voice fell to a whisper, as if afraid to even ask the question.

“Well, I know it isn’t Laomedon,” Hippolyta replied tightly. “Because he said he’d met my mother only twice. That’s once for you and once for baby Podarces.”

But Tithonus wouldn’t let the matter rest there. “Do you think your father might be a king, though?”

She sighed and turned over onto her stomach. “What does it matter if he’s a king or a commoner? He’s just a man—and all of
them
are alike.”

“That’s not true,” Tithonus said thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’m anything like my father. He likes ordering people around and fighting wars. I’d rather stay home and listen to the storytellers. I don’t think I want to be king if it means fighting.”

Hippolyta thought:
I should just tell him he needn’t worry about becoming king. That would shut him up.

“It’s late, Tithonus.” She yawned. “Get some sleep. You can start talking again in the morning.” She flipped over on her back, and before he could think of an answer, she was fast asleep.

Two weeks’ travel brought them into the land of the Amazons, a lot more quickly than the trip to Troy.

“My country,” Hippolyta said, expansively waving her right arm and thinking about the old man’s promise.
Go easily and go well, old warrior,
she thought.

“What’s that?” Tithonus asked, pointing to the gleaming river winding its way north.

“We call it the River Thermodon,” Hippolyta said. But even as she spoke, something troubled her.

“This land of yours is very quiet,” Tithonus commented.

“We’re a quiet people,” she told him.

But he’d put his finger on what had been bothering her. They’d encountered no Amazon scouting parties, no Amazon hunters, no Amazon travelers for mile upon mile.

The lack of anyone’s trailing them or questioning them or greeting them bothered Hippolyta. It was like a sliver of broken nail on a finger: raw and worrying but not actually deadly. She thought about it on and off until they got closer to the city.