THERE IS a certain elation that comes from knowing that the end is near. Faced with certain death, one feels a sudden grim joy, a certain lightness of the step. I used to wonder how so many of my friends could charge with such fearlessness into battle, sometimes against overwhelming odds. But now, careening through the surf with Diomedes beside me, silent and grim in the face of creation’s greatest horror, I felt . . . well . . . brave. I knew that, with all my options spent, I could only be doing the will of the gods. Proteus had disappeared, but my weapons lay on the ground where I had seen them last. Taking my bow in one hand and my heaviest arrow in the other, I let loose my war cry. “Io!” I bellowed. “Io! Io! Io!” And I charged into battle.
But the monster behind us must have been faster than we gauged. I had advanced only a few steps when something heavy caught me between the shoulders. My arms and legs went loose, and the breath was hammered from my lungs. I dropped my arrow in the sand. To my left, something caught Diomedes behind the head and he hit the ground, limp as a doll. Now I was alone.
The winged creature landed in a spray of sand farther up the beach. In its left hand, it held a silver shield and spear; with its right hand, it picked up my arrow. Enormously built, tall as Ajax himself, and fortified with glimmering wings that stretched out to either side in a broad arc, the enormous creature hurtled up the bank—away from me toward the three witches.
Beside me lay the cause of my backache: a leather pouch. Out of its mouth scattered several small loaves of bread.
“Ignotus,” I whispered. Up the beach he strode, irresistible as a cyclone, silent as a wave from the deep, sweeping aside everything in his path. I watched the three hags fall before him. Onward he charged, a roar like the rush of the four winds filled the air, and then a piercing scream rang my ears and shook the sand. I looked up in time to see the Furies scrambling away, and the giant stepped aside to reveal the Gorgon, frozen in stone from head to toe, my arrow planted firmly in her brow. Then a deep dizziness overcame me and a darkness like night swirled over my eyes.