For the Immortal by Emily Hauser

Author:Emily Hauser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2018-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

Ἀδμήτη

Admete

Melanchlaeni, Scythia

The Thirteenth Day of the Month of Threshing Wheat, 1265 BC

Pine needles scraped at my legs and forearms. The air was thick with the scent of damp and moss, and overhead I could barely make out the grey sky, shielded by the webbed branches of the spruces. My eyelids were heavy, my legs rubbed raw, my hips and back aching so that it took all my strength simply to remain seated on my mount.

‘Can we not rest?’ I called to Alcides, where he led the train of Greeks pushing through the woodland. At the edge of the territory of the Skoloti the plain had given way to a dense forest of pine – spiny red-trunked trees bending over us and barring our way, brown ferns brushing the horses’ hoofs, and an interminable darkness barely parted by the sun’s rays even in the middle of the day.

Alcides did not answer, looking forwards as he rode, but I knew from the stillness of his head that he had heard me.

I let out a breath and looked about, searching for something, anything, to break the dominion of needle-bearing trees. There had been barely any plants to record since we had left the land of the Skoloti, except a few mosses and grey curling lichens. My frustration at not finding herbs for Alexander, as I had hoped, and my growing fear that we might return too late, even if we found what we sought, hardly diminished the discomfort of the ride. I had never felt so far from Tiryns, from my father and brothers, and the comforts of the herb-garden; at this time of year the figs would be ripening, dark purple on the tree in the courtyard.

My stomach rumbled. Our meals of wood-mushrooms, roots and berries were less than satisfying, and my memory wandered to the figs, the sensation of the small sharp seeds in my mouth, the sweet flesh …

The cracked cry of a buzzard seared the air, bringing me to my senses. The train ahead had halted, the horses standing nose to tail, tossing their manes and snorting. I kicked forwards to the head of the party, drawing level with Alcides, his horse drawn up side by side with Telemus’, stamping and snorting in the damp air.

I saw at once why they had halted.

The forest tumbled abruptly into water edged with grass and reeds, a wide river with slow-moving blue-grey waters that eddied in currents, ducks swimming or diving into the water for fish. On the opposite bank there was a clearing of flooded marsh, brown water dotted with wet-grass, and at the marsh’s edge a gathering of tents, sheltered by the forest, which stretched on behind them.

‘The furthest river,’ I said. I would not look at Alcides, not after he had struck me, even after all these weeks, so I turned to Timiades. ‘It is, is it not? Danu Apara – the furthest river – that’s what the leader of the Skoloti said? And beyond it …’

My voice trailed away.

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