Soldier of Arete by Gene Wolfe Read Free Book Online Page A

laughing the second time. We drank more wine. I told her that I loved her while she vowed she would never leave me, each laughing at the other because both knew we lied and that our lies were without harm and without malice. A rabbit blundered into the moonlight, fixed us with one bright eye, exclaimed, "Elata!" and fled. I asked if that was her name, and she nodded while drinking deep from the skin, then kissed me again.
    Far off at first, then nearer and nearer, I heard the sound of dogs coursing deer. Vaguely I recalled that many who by some ill stroke of fortune have found themselves in the path of such a hunt have been torn to bits by the hounds. I wished then that I had put on my sword before I carried our offering to the tree. Elata was sleeping with her head in my lap, but I rose—nearly falling—with her in my arms, intending to carry her to one of the fires on the beach.
    Before I could take a step, there was a crash of splintering limbs. A stag bounded from the shelter of the shadows, saw the fires (or perhaps only winded the smoke), and sprang back, nearly knocking me down. I could hear its labored breathing, like the bellows of a forge, smell its fear.
    Elata stirred sleepily in my arms as the stag dashed away, and the baying of the hounds sounded closer than before; I set her on her feet, intending to lead her to the fires. She kissed me and pointed, announcing with drunken solemnity, " 'Nother man coming to see me from your ship."

SIX
    The Nymph
    ELATA RETURNED A MOMENT AGO, pleading with me to extinguish this fire. I would not, though the rest are only embers. I know she has lain with Hegesistratus, and after that, I believe, with one of Acetes's shieldmen. Now she has washed in the stream where we draw our water; but when I suggested that she dry herself at my fire, she seemed afraid and asked me to put it out, kissing and begging while one hand crept under my chiton.
    I am very tired; if Elata wishes to lie with a man again, she will have to choose another one. Yet before I sleep, I must write about the woman (Hegesistratus calls her a goddess) with the piebald hounds. What she said and what Hegesistratus said may be important tomorrow.
    The goddess was young, less voluptuous than Elata and more beautiful—I feel certain she has never know a man. There were others with her, beautiful women also. Them I could not see as well, because they shunned the brilliant moonlight in which the Huntress shone so boldly.
    But first I should tell of her hounds; we saw them before the Huntress and her retinue. Having no sword, I had snatched up a stick. When I saw those hounds, I understood how foolish that had been—a reed would have been of equal service. Each was as big as a calf, and there were twenty at least. Leaning heavily upon my arm (and in truth I do not think she could have stood alone) Elata saved me. The fierce hounds fawned on her, snuffling her scent and licking her fingers with their great, rough tongues when she stroked their heads. I did not venture any familiarity with them, but they did not harm me.
    Soon the Huntress appeared with her silver bow. She smiled at us, but her smile was without friendship; if her hounds had brought the stag to bay, her smile would have been the same, or so it seemed to me. Yet how delicate she was! How lovely!
    "The man who forgets." Thus she named me; her voice was a girl's, but there was the shout of a hunting horn in it, high and clear. "You will not have forgotten me." Then she touched me with her bow. At once I remembered how I had met her at the crossroads, though at first, and at the last, she had been both older and smaller, flanked by huge black dogs of another breed. I recalled, too, that she was a queen, though she looked so young; and I bowed to her as I had before.
    "I see that you've debauched my maid." Half-smiling, she pointed.
    I replied, "If you say it, Dark Mother."
    She shook her head. "Call me Huntress."
    "Yes, Huntress, if that is what you