AS I GUIDE the Argoa into a protected cove made by a peninsula of land, the men behind me cry out with cheers and whoops of excitement. What a day of sailing! My heart is near to bursting and my face aches from smiling. Of course the sight of the kraken nearly had me pissing myself. No sailor, no living sailor that is, has ever seen the beast in his full frenzy and I thought today was the day I would join Pirro in the Chasm, but then Orpheus, the genius musician, started playing. Pirro would have laughed his head off to see that monster snoozing like an exhausted dog. And then, as if the hands of the Twelve were pushing us along, we practically flew over the Graveyard. Once the ship slides onto the sandy shore, Theseus begins to untie Orpheus.
“Leave him,” I command. I march over to Orpheus. The lanky youth trembles under my stare. “You, boy, are a good luck charm like I’ve never seen. Your playing could rival that of Hermes himself. I’m tempted to leave you there where you can be kept handy.”
“Stop tormenting him,” Odysseus says. In my elated mood even his breach of my authority can’t dispel my glee over our easy passage.
“Fine. You’re thin enough to slip through the ropes anyway,” I say as I untie him myself. When I turn, ready to drink a toast to the day, Jason drops into a seat and clutches his face in his hands. Odysseus stands in front of him.
“No need to hide that face of yours. Our spirits can’t be dampened.”
Jason looks up. A weak smile tries but fails to break through the agony on his face.
“We killed them. Our hosts.”
“They would have killed us,” Odysseus says gently. “The morning was too dark.”
“I’ve been telling myself that over and over, but it doesn’t help. We broke the laws of good conduct, whether it was by accident or intentional.”
“You think too much,” I say. “It can’t be undone and every man here can give witness to the Dol being the first ones to attack. Now, stop whining and let’s toast our good fortune of making it over the bar alive. Let us also toast the memory of our hosts.”
Jason nods, but shows no sign of accepting my good cheer. He should listen to me and his cousin and be done with his guilt. Our actions were justified even if they were distasteful. What’s done is done and there is little use in trying to decide on whose breast the blame should be placed. He stands up as if ready to address the crew when a shout bellows from beyond the trees. In the space of two heartbeats during which the crew remain frozen in silence, the sound comes again. My stomach drops as if I’m teetering on the crest of a massive wave. Whatever makes the call is approaching our beach. I don’t understand. I’ve been to this cove dozens of times. There’s no threat from man or beast anywhere near here. Why would the gods see us past the kraken only to deliver us into the hands of another monster?
Ship-rattling footfalls accompany the next bellow. The panic on Jason’s face matches the anxiety I have for my Argoa. Why didn’t I just anchor off the shore line? Why did I beach the ship? Why did I allow my cocky good mood to overwhelm sense? Pirro would never have allowed me to leave the Argoa in such a precarious position.
“Get the ship back in the water,” Jason tells me as if moving the Argoa off a sandy beach is no different than kicking a horse from a walk into a gallop.
“Don’t you think I would if I could? I intended to stay until midday. The ship won’t clear from the sand until the tide comes up.”
“Zeus’s balls!” Odysseus curses. “Whatever is making that noise does not sound like a greeting party. We need to push off.”
“You can try,” I say. “But I know my ship. It’s not going to move.”
Orpheus, who had been stretching his bowed legs by walking along the railing and peering over every few feet makes his way back to us. “If we dig as well as push, the ship will go.” I shoot him a silencing look. Despite his trembles at my feigned ferocity earlier, Orpheus, his mind clearly full of an idea, isn’t deterred. “If we rig up ropes on one side, men can pull from the opposite side as others dig. The sand is soft, the water table shallow and the tide is coming in.”
“The ship will fall over on her side if you dig out from under her,” I say.
“We wouldn’t dig from just one side. One group pulls while the other digs, then each side switches off chores to maintain the balance.”
My mouth hangs open, my tongue drying in the morning breeze as I seek to find an argument, but, as I don’t quite understand what Orpheus is talking about, I can find none. Argoa’s deck boards shudder with the rhythmic steps of the creature nearing us. “Do it,” I say, reaching behind me to grab a pile of ropes.
With the ropes fastened, half the crew scrambles over one side of the ship as the other half shimmies down the opposite side. Orpheus gives the call to tell his side to start digging when a bellow, far louder than the others, drowns out his voice. I’m impressed at how undaunted he acts in the face of the threat, at how focused he is. Rather than cower as Bellerophon and Paris do, Orpheus makes a digging motion with his hands and his side starts shifting sand like dogs burying a bone. I remain on the ship, timing the digging and keeping an eye out for whatever might burst through the woods in the distance.
“Hold digging,” I call then lean over other side of the ship. “On my count, pull hard. Keep tight hold of your rope.”
I know the ropes not only serve as leverage, but will also give the men something to climb up when the ship loosens from her sandy trap. That is if she can be freed before the bellowing monster smashes the Argoa to pieces. As Orpheus’s side pulls, the vessel budges only slightly, but I can see water coming up where Orpheus’s crew has been digging. On the opposite side, Jason gives the command to dig. After they’ve dug down an arm’s length, I order them to halt. A set of marbles the men had been playing with roll a hand’s span across the deck but then resettle to their original position. I curse Orpheus’s foolish idea. The Argoa will be turned to kindling by the monster bellowing from those woods. As the men on Orpheus’s side dig a second time, the marbles jump as pounding steps draw near.
“It’s not working,” I shout to Orpheus.
“It will,” he says with no hint of doubt. “Keep timing the digging.”
With a dose of reluctance heavier than a herd of centaurs, I make my count, order the digging to stop and start toward the other side of the ship. From the corner of my eye, I catch something move out of the trees. My body goes rigid.
“Amycus,” I mutter through my quavering jaw. As giants go, this one is small, only reaching to the height of the fir trees that edge the forest, but he is still far larger than any human. His bare chest reveals the rippled muscles of a young giant in his prime, making him about fifty years old and at the age when giants pick fights with one another to establish a social hierarchy. As a runt of a giant, Amycus had been quickly bested by the other males in his tribe. No longer qualifying for bouts, but still filled with the urge to pummel, he opted to fight humans to prove himself. Through the gossip of sailors, I heard he had settled at the edge of the giants’ realm on the south side of Colchis Bay, an outsider living on the fringes. I would doubt it is truly him, that he would have traveled so far from other giants, but I recognize Amycus for his trademark accessory: a necklace of heads from the people who have lost their fights against him. Even if Amycus cannot best his own kind, it is apparently no reason not to boast defeating creatures less than a third his size.
“You know him?” Jason asks from the shoreline.
“Yes, no, I mean, there had been news he was on the peninsula, but he normally stays further north, closer to the other giants. He’s known as Amycus.”
“We can take him,” Castor says.
“You think he wants to fight?” Jason asks.
Amycus raises his fist and swings at the air as if shadowboxing. My gut twists at the image of what this monstrosity could do to my Argoa with those boulder-sized fists.
“I’d say so,” Odysseus says from his position at the side of the boat, taking the words from my mouth before I can speak them.
“We can take him,” Pollux insists, his voice like a child begging to be released from his chores to go play.
“No, tend to the ship,” I yell. The Argoa needs all hands to get her safely away. “Get us out of here.”
“Keep working on the ship,” Castor says to the crew. He and Pollux jog side by side toward Amycus. The damned mutineers will get themselves killed and Argoa destroyed. But it’s not up to me to call them back. I stare at Jason, waiting for him to order them to return. For a prince, he certainly seems incapable of keeping his dogs on a leash.
The giant stands three times their height, but the twins scramble past him to a grass covered dune that puts them level with the monster. Despite having lost two workers, Orpheus orders his side to dig. With my attention locked on the twins and the giant, and my heart falling to my sandals, Orpheus takes it upon himself to run to the other side and tell them to pull.
Amycus sizes up his opponents, smacking his fist into his palm to make it clear to the twins what they face. The only way for Castor and Pollux to survive is to avoid being hit. One connection with the slabs the giant has for fists, and the twins will be broken to pieces. Like a ship smashing against rocks in a storm, I think with dismay as the marbles roll past my feet.
The giant takes the first swing. The speed of it makes a whooshing sound through the air. I cringe but the twins duck in unison. Everything they do, every move they make is in step as if they possess an inner choreographer shouting the steps of their dangerous dance. They make no attempt to hit the giant but instead dodge and duck on their small hillock.
“I’ve seen those two fight. They’re amazing.” Paris says from Jason’s side of the ship.
“Have you seen them fight a giant?” Jason asks with a grunt. Through my fog of worry for Argoa’s future, I forget my counting, but hear Orpheus order his men to stop pulling and start digging.
“No,” Paris continues with strain now tinging his voice. “But they’ve never lost. They’re testing him. Each match starts out the same. The Dance, so people have dubbed it. When they first started boxing, people would boo them. They wanted to see a fight, not ballet, but it’s mesmerizing.”
The giant throws swing after swing then smashes his fist into the hillock in frustration.
“He keeps that up and they’ll lose their dance floor,” I say. Anxiety for my ship still pulses through me, but Paris has the truth of it: The Dance is captivating. The marbles roll back to the other side of the deck.
Just at the point when my fascination with Castor and Pollux’s dance begins to win out over my worry, Amycus lunges for the twins. The hillock of sand crumbles away, but the twins leap to a still-intact portion of the dune. As the ship rocks under my feet, the giant lunges again, tripping over the pile of sand that has gathered in front of him. Like the world’s largest shot put landing in a sand pit, Amycus falls in a thudding heap between the twins. As the giant tries to push himself up, each of the boys connect their fists with opposite sides of the giant’s jaw just under the chin. The two spin away in opposite directions as Amycus collapses, landing face down in the sand. This time he does not try to get back up. Castor stands triumphant with one foot on the giant’s back as Pollux trots back to the ship.
The crew erupts with an explosion of cheers. At first I think it is for the twins’ victory, but as I move to call an order over the side, I realize the marbles now list back and forth. I run to the side. Orpheus’s plan has worked; the water level is up and the Argoa has been freed from her sandy trap.
“Throw us some rope,” Castor calls to me. With a heave, I toss a length of rope that Pollux catches and hurries back to his brother. Working together, they bind the giant’s feet in a series of looping knots.
“He’ll be able to untie it,” Castor says once they have swaggered back to the ship.
“But it will take him at least a day to figure it out,” Pollux continues.
The crew cheers and laughs over this, but I know the effect of the twins’ punches won’t last long against their foe and I don’t want the Argoa anywhere near Amycus’s fists when he wakes. Even a hobbled giant could eventually make its way to the shore and cause serious damage to my ship.
“Enough,” I shout. “We can’t wait around for the tide. Get to your oars.”
The tide has already risen an arm’s length. With the men’s joyful energy behind them and my renewed concentration at coordinating my orders, in little time the ship grits her way off the sandy shore. Amycus stirs but, on his first attempt to stand, he sways and plops back into the sand. With a grimace, he clutches his head as if trying to squeeze out the headache the twins will have given him.
The tide pulls the Argoa forward. The crew needs to get aboard before they are left behind with Amycus. I order the men to climb up. Orpheus makes a valiant effort, but his lanky frame isn’t strong enough to hoist his own body weight. My hands burn as I heave on the rope to drag him onto the ship. Despite the pain, I can’t help but give the skinny Portacean a hearty hug of gratitude for saving my ship twice in one day.
As we sail off with the Argoa fully intact, the giant’s glare focuses on us and he lets loose an angry bellow. My gut gives another lurch. Even though we have gotten off the beach, Amycus is tall enough to wade far out beyond the shore and could easily deal a damaging blow to the ship. Until the crew gets the sails raised and we catch the morning wind we won’t be pulled into the safety of deep water. Yet again, I miss Pirro’s speed with the duties aboard ship. Amycus climbs to his feet and tries to step forward. He promptly tumbles over his bindings giving the crew a hearty laugh at the creature’s expense.
Once the sails are up and the ship moving, Jason approaches me, his face far from amused.
“You said Amycus stayed at the north of this peninsula. Why was he here at the southernmost tip?”
“I can’t say. Maybe he wanted a change of scenery?”
“Giants don’t migrate,” Jason says, apparently remembering his coursework from vigile training. “They rarely go more than five miles from their birthplace.”
“The twins took care of him,” I say with a newfound calm now that we are back on the water and my Argoa is safe. “Why worry over his location?”
“Because his location could mean something is still working against us,” Odysseus says as he cleans sand from his nails with his dagger. “We’ve had our share of incidents in a very short amount of time. Is that normal in your experience?”
When Herc Dion had been aboard the Argoa, it had only taken a matter of hours to run into trouble. Still, that’s to be expected when sailing to the island of Amazonia. I have to admit, despite what had to have been a god’s help over the Graveyard, our recent adventures have been far more numerous and perilous than I’ve experienced in my years of sailing. But by the gods, I hate men who think a few days on the water makes them experts. I hold my tongue, refusing to answer Odysseus’s accusatory question.
“What do you suggest?” Jason asks and I hide a gloating smile that he has asked me and not his cousin. I do wonder though if the prince can even find a place to piss without consulting another person. His indecision makes him a poor leader; perhaps this is why his father sees this Odysseus as the better choice for heir. From the crew, I’ve heard rumors of why he is seeking this pelt. I don’t think it has anything to do with curing an illness; I think he’s trying to prove himself. So far, I’m not impressed, but I do have a reputation for being hard to please.
“Something doesn’t want us to make this journey but on the other hand something has kept us from harm,” Odysseus says, taking control of the conversation. “I say we sail on, but with caution filling those sails and pulling our oars.”
“So we just keep going?” Jason asks. “Play the part of pawns in the game of the gods?”
“Don’t think I’m thrilled about spending more time with you lot. Half of this crew smells like dragon farts and the other half look like a harpy’s twat.”
Even I laugh along with Jason at Odysseus’s easy ability to lighten any situation. Like midday sun burning away a morning fog I see Odysseus now for who he is, not a man who wants control, but a man who wants matters to run smoothly. Although I would have liked to stay in the cove for the day to celebrate our victory over the Graveyard and Amycus, I take to the helm and guide the ship north hugging close to the coastline for a couple days. When we reach the inlet I’ve been seeking, I drop anchor. It is still only late afternoon, but we have already had a grueling several days both physically and mentally. For now, we need rest if we are going to face tomorrow’s challenge of threading the Argoa through the Needle of Colchis.
As we watch the stars dance across the night sky, Orpheus entertains us with the rarely told tale of this harsh and reclusive kingdom.