FOR SOME TIME, we wandered amid the stillness of the woods, finding and losing our way, discovering what appeared to be paths only to lose them again in tangles of thorny undergrowth. Every now and then, Diomedes would turn to me as though he had something to say, then frown and move on. And in this way, a silence that had been merely gloomy achieved an awkwardness that was positively unbearable. What’s more, Diomedes seemed to be watching me, but whenever I’d look over at him, he’d find an interesting stone or leaf to examine. And this happened repeatedly. Still, neither of us spoke.
Finally, I’d had enough. “What’s the matter?” I said, planting myself squarely in his path.
But Diomedes leaned away and glared into the woods.
“Look here, if you—”
“Hsst!” He held up his hand, shut his eyes, and tilted his head to the side.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“Listen.”
I listened but heard nothing. “Diomedes, don’t—”
“Just listen!”
Then I heard it too—a high, wild howl from deep in the forest. Then another behind us. Diomedes drew his sword and sidled toward me. “Wolves,” he whispered.
He was almost right. One howl was answered by another, then by a patter of barks and yelps, then by a chorus of howls that seemed to come from every direction at once. The trees themselves trembled. We sprinted for a nearby clearing and set our backs to a large oak. I leaned my shield against the tree’s trunk and stabbed my two remaining arrows into the bark at eye level for quick access. Although the tree looked quite dead, the holes released a thick red sap, which ran all the way down the trunk. A peculiar characteristic, I thought to myself, especially for a tree that looked so dry and lifeless—but not a phenomenon to be long wondered at. A set of gray eyes appeared in the shadows at the edge of the clearing.
“If there’s a way to get around a fight,” I said to Diomedes, “I’d like to take it.”
“Wait for them to attack, then,” he said as another set of eyes took its place beside the first. And soon there were not only eyes but muzzles and fangs and red, dripping tongues peering out from behind every tree and bush. They appeared in twos and threes until the air was thick with their panting, and then one very large animal stepped into the clearing.
The creatures that dwelt in the forest, it seemed, were not wolves but a great variety of dogs. To give Diomedes credit, some of them were distinctly wolflike. The one that stood before us now was an enormous beast, reaching easily the height of a man’s chest. Its head was the size of a bear’s, and the skin hung from its face in great drooping folds. As it plodded forward, it sniffed the air with its head aloft, and the rest of the pack followed. Its look was not entirely unfriendly, and I wondered for a moment whether it intended to greet or eat us. That question, however, was resolved for me as I watched two long strings of drool stretch from its jowls and hang, pendulum-like, as it examined us. The hound seemed to notice my disgust and shook its head from side to side, flinging slick gobs of slobber into the bushes on either side. Its lips made a wet percussion against its face like a round of polite applause.
This seemed to encourage the others, who emerged cautiously from the woods, heads lowered and ears pressed flat to their heads. The variety of animals that crept into the clearing gave the situation an almost comic air. Some of the dogs were no bigger than rabbits. Others were as large as goats. But all seemed under the firm influence of the hound that stood before us in the clearing, licking its jowls with its long, red tongue.
“I wouldn’t kiss this one,” muttered Diomedes.
There was something vaguely familiar about the creature. I knew a well-bred Molossian when I saw one, and the dog that stood before me now licking its chops . . . well, once again, I was reminded of my own dear Argos, that loyal hound who waited twenty years while I fought at Troy and died on the day of my return. I said his name aloud now as I looked into the hound’s face. And to my surprise, it wagged its tail.
“Argos?” I said again. Now that I thought of it, the patch of gray on his muzzle looked familiar.
This time the dog actually barked and sat back on its haunches and raised a paw.
“Argos!” I cried once more, and I really would have kissed him if just then, one of the larger hounds had not made a lunge for Diomedes. I plucked an arrow from the tree, but Argos sprang forward and caught the beast by its throat. There was a high—almost human—squeal as its neck snapped, and the dog collapsed in a heap at his feet. Then Argos turned to the others and gave a low growl that sent them into a frenzy of submission. I’d never seen so many wagging tails in my life.
I had no sooner returned my arrows to my quiver than Argos was on top of me, slathering my face in a glaze of warm drool. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as I remembered from my childhood, but I didn’t have the heart or leverage to stop him. When he did pause to chew furiously at something beneath his leg, I thought I had finally been granted a reprieve, but the moment I moved, he was back at it again, applying his long tongue to every inch of exposed flesh from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers.
“All right, boy, time for me to get up,” I said, straining against his great rump like a sack of sand on my chest. But Argos wouldn’t budge, and Diomedes had to pull him off. He got a face full of tongue in the process. “You and your dogs,” he groaned, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, but there was really no arguing with our reception. All around us, the hounds circled in jubilant clusters, yapping and wrestling among the leaves.
One tiny rat of a dog took a sudden culinary interest in Diomedes’ foot. “You should call him Dionysus,” I said, plucking it from the ground by the scruff of its neck. The little creature’s tiny legs scrambled the air, and he yammered like an angry widow till I let him go. If not for the depressingly dead trees, I might have forgotten I was in Hell.
“Well, Argos,” I said, taking his muzzle in both hands and shaking his head. He leaned heavily against my thigh. I scratched behind his ear. “You never thought I was such a bad fellow, eh?” He pressed so hard, I had to brace myself against the tree. “All these years, old hound, and you still know me.” He sat down on my foot and poked his nose at my bag of bread. “Sorry, boy. Not for you. But you wouldn’t like it anyway.” He gave a grunt and lay down, pinning both my feet. Good old Argos. I suppose he and I had enjoyed a unique sort of relationship.
Greeks tend to think of dogs as utilitarian at best—good for hunting, and good for guarding your stuff, but otherwise out of place in the life of a civilized man. Dirty and ignoble. “I will leave your corpse for the dogs to eat” is not an uncommon threat on the battlefield. Likewise, “dog-face” is among our graver insults. But I never used that term of abuse, primarily because I’d never found it insulting. I had always been fond of dogs, and my own dog had a face that I felt inspired both love and loyalty. Say what you like about the species; they don’t have much in the way of hygiene or self-respect. But then, they don’t switch loyalties with anything like the regularity of their two-footed counterparts. And this, now that I think of it, must have been why I loved dear Argos so much. In a world of shifting loyalties and deceit, I knew exactly where I stood when I looked Argos in the face. For that matter, so did everyone else.
“We should find Ajax,” said Diomedes, kicking at Dionysus, who kept clamoring about his feet. Diomedes was not fond of dogs.
I looked around at the forest and threw up my hands. “Great idea, Diomedes. But where would we even begin to look for him?”
“Who cares? Just so long as we keep moving.” He wrinkled his nose and gave Dionysus another kick. “And while we’re at it, let’s find some water. I’m thirsty, and your dog smells terrible.”
I patted Argos on the head. Noble beast that he was, he had one extremely bad habit: if he found something dead, he would roll in it. And by the smell of things, he had found something very dead.
“You do need a bath,” I said to him. Even after all this time, he recognized the word. Both ears went flat, and he whimpered. “Not to worry, old boy, the tree is our priority.” I turned to Diomedes. “So, genius, how do you suggest we find Ajax?”
“Homer said to look for the tallest tree.”
“And?”
“And that was it.”
“Terrific,” I said. “But then what? Is he in it? Under it? Guarding it?”
“All he said was to look for the tallest tree.”
“Then I guess we’d better start looking. When the Harpies get over their surprise, they’ll come for us. Let’s go, Argos.”
Argos barked and bumped me with his head, which meant I was already not moving fast enough.
So off we set—Argos and me, Diomedes and Dionysus, and a whole pack of baying hounds. A mighty racket we raised, yipping and howling as we traipsed through the dismal woods. All the way, I kept my eyes peeled for some sign of Ajax—or at least an exceptionally tall tree.
We spent a long time searching those woods but without finding a single trace of human life. At one point, we heard something like a scream in the distance, and our dogs went still and silent, lifting their noses to the air. A few scampered off to investigate, but there was no further sound from the forest, so we pressed on.
“If we could just find the largest tree, surely Ajax would be nearby,” I said to Diomedes. “But how would we know that the tree we’re looking at was the largest?”
Diomedes took off his helmet and scratched his head. “Tell you what,” he said. “This tree looks tall enough. Why don’t you climb it.”
“Why would I do that?”
“While you’re up there, see if you can spot one that’s taller.”
“Then what?”
“Then we’ll find that tree, climb to the top of it, and see if there’s one that’s even taller. And when we can’t see any tree taller than the one we’re in, I guess we’ll have found the tallest tree.”
I looked at Diomedes, and a little cough of surprise escaped me. “Brilliant” was all I could think to say. He shrugged and smiled, then tripped over Dionysus.
So we carried on in this way for a while longer, hiking and climbing and hiking and climbing until at last we did locate what appeared to be the largest tree in the forest. It was certainly the largest tree I’d ever come across, even in all my earthly travels. You could have carved a small house out of its trunk. But Ajax was nowhere to be seen.
“I don’t understand,” I said to Diomedes as the dogs found places to rest among the fallen leaves. “Homer said that Ajax would be found near the largest tree in the Wood of Suicides, right?” I unrolled Chiron’s map and looked at it again. “We are in the Wood of Suicides. I’m certain of it.”
“Maybe this isn’t the largest tree.”
“It has to be. From the top, I can see all the way to the river. There’s nothing like it in any direction.”
Just then, one of the dogs nearby gave a yelp and started rooting through a pile of leaves. Diomedes and I watched him emerge with an enormous leather belt between his teeth. We pulled on it, and a breastplate emerged, followed by greaves and an enormous spear.
“There’s something else under here,” mused Diomedes. “Something big.” He drew his sword and stabbed it into the earth at his feet. There was a hollow thud, and the ground under our feet trembled. “We’re standing on a door.”
“No,” I answered, kicking aside the leaves, “we’re standing on the shield of Ajax.”