Memnon by Scott Oden Read Free Book Online Page B

him were as cold and dead as a shark’s. The pressure at his throat vanished; Memnon felt a warm wetness spreading over his midsection as Sacadas’s body voided itself at the moment of death. Memnon thrashed and rolled, toppling the body, vomiting both at the stink filling his nostrils and at the overwhelming sense of mortality.
It could have been me.
He lay for a time, his body shaking, his face pressed to the ground as he inhaled the clean smells of soil and grass.
    Memnon heard movement. “Are you d-dead?” Brygus. Memnon had forgotten about him.
    “Greetings, Brygus,” Memnon croaked. He crawled to his knees, recovered his javelin, and used it to clamber to his feet. “Have you seen my father?”
    Brygus’s eyes narrowed. “M-Memnon? Is that you?”
    “Aye. Have you seen him, Brygus? Do you know if my father’s still safe?” Memnon took a step toward the smaller man. Brygus, though, backed away from him, edging toward the gate leading to the street. He glanced over his shoulder, licked his lips. “Brygus?”
    With a squeal of panic, Brygus turned and darted through the open gate. “He’s here!”
    “Damn you, Brygus! What are you doing?” Memnon followed him only a handful of paces before skidding to a stop. Outside the gate, he saw a throng of men turn toward the commotion. Brygus gestured at him, his voice a feminine shriek.
    “Here! He’s the son of Timocrates!”
    A dozen eyes turned on Memnon, eyes brimming with hatred and lust. Patron called them feral beasts; now Memnon knew why. They stepped toward him. A hastily loosed arrow sliced the air, striking the wooden gatepost with a loud crack. An enraged scream followed in its wake. Triumphant, Brygus capered about.
    “How much for the bastard’s son? How much—”
    With a howl of rage, Memnon’s javelin streaked from his hand to transfix the body of his betrayer. He didn’t pause to watch Brygus’s death throes. Memnon spun on the balls of his feet and sprinted back through the gate.
    Baying like the hounds of Atalanta, the mob gave chase.

     
    P ANTING, M EMNON PAUSED A MOMENT TO GET HIS BEARINGS. H IS NECK throbbed; his legs were rubbery from the exertion of running through the benighted streets of Rhodes-town. Through alley and garden the mob had followed in relentless pursuit, convinced that the son of Timocrates was a prize worth dying for. Twice, they had almost cornered him; twice, Memnon had escaped by the narrowest of margins, his sword swaying the balance to his favor. Still, his luck couldn’t hold out much longer.
    Memnon glanced back the way he had come. Farther up the hillside, the light from fires outside his father’s house smudged the heavens with angry reds and oranges. He could hear the sough and sigh of the ocean, which meant the harbor was near. Unlike the main harbor, this one was little more than a sandy strand, a perfect beachhead for smaller boats. Memnon knew the area: as a boy he had played among the ship sheds and fishing shacks lining the strand. He stared again at his father’s house, a lance of ice piercing his heart. What started as a noble endeavor had degenerated into a race against time. He—
    “There!”
    A voice split the night. The most persistent of his pursuers, torches held aloft, poured into the street. Leather whirred. Memnon ducked and ran as a sling bullet cracked on stone behind him, peppering his shoulders with fragments of lead. Down the alley and around a corner, he leapt a low retaining wall and nearly fell as sand shifted underfoot.
The strand!
He crouched, his back to the wall, and waited. Moment’s later, a body hurtled over, wheezing, a staff of fire-hardened wood clutched in his fists.
    He never knew what killed him.
    Memnon struck his head from his shoulders, turned, and impaled another man as he vaulted the wall. Wrenching his sword free, Memnon loped along, following the circuit of the wall, his body in a half-crouch. Behind him, he heard the others stumble over the corpses of