Trapped

can probably use it either way.

I pointed the cave out to Granuaile and said we should go check it out. She merely nodded in reply and followed me in grim silence.

It’s funny how when someone is Not Talking to You their every movement speaks volumes. Granuaile had little holsters on either hip, each with three flat, leaf-bladed throwing knives nestled on top of one another. She could throw them accurately with either hand to finish off opponents or take them out to begin with; her staff was more of a defensive weapon, meant to disarm or trip rather than deliver lethal blows to someone in heavy armor. Her knives made a soft clinking sound with every step she took, though I hadn’t heard them before. Perhaps I simply hadn’t noticed. Now, however, they communicated her burning desire to draw one and toss it between my shoulder blades.

Negotiating the hill was tiresome, and the clinking of the knives soon tapped out a different message: This had better be worth it.

We were joined by Oberon, who was panting happily, his tongue lolling out. The forest was full of wonderful smells to him.

“Hi, Oberon!” Granuaile said, stopping to pet him. “Are you having a good time?”

<Tell Clever Girl I said it’s a beautiful day,> he replied, using his nickname for Granuaile. He called her that about half the time, having developed a fine appreciation for her habit of sparring with me verbally as much as physically. <And just about everything in the forest is terrified of me, so I feel like quite the apex predator right now.>

I repeated this for Granuaile’s sake and she laughed.

“You are certainly top dog,” she said to him.

<Atticus, have I told you before that I approve of your apprentice?>

Yep. Every time she strokes your ego.

That light feeling evaporated after a few minutes as Oberon wandered sideways to investigate a rustling noise. The accusatory clinking of Granuaile’s throwing knives resumed behind me, and I began to wonder when she would say something. Since we were by ourselves she couldn’t be waiting for a private moment, so I had to conclude that she was waiting for something else. I would simply have to wait along with her.

Oberon halted abruptly as we approached the mouth of the cave; he laid his ears back flat against his head and grumbled softly in his throat.

<Atticus, something about that cave doesn’t smell right.>

I stopped hiking and so did Granuaile. She didn’t have to ask what was going on; she could tell Oberon was talking to me.

What’s wrong with it?

<Well, I should be smelling a nasty bird and dead stuff, and I do. Except I also smell a human. And a bear.>

A human and a bear? That makes no sense. Unless the human is wearing a bearskin.

<It’s kind of warm for that.>

Maybe it’s a bearskin rug.

<In a cave?>

Well, let’s go check it out. Cautiously.

I drew Moralltach as silently as I could from its scabbard and knew that Granuaile would be readying a knife and her staff behind me. I crept forward, the soft noises my feet made in the gravelly hillside unnaturally loud to my ears. I heard some scratching ahead and the soft, dry rasp of a bird’s throat.

My sword crested the lip of the cave’s mouth first, and I paused to see if anything wished to attack the bare blade. When nothing did, I risked a peek.

Two black eyes glared at me over a sharp beak. Oberon’s vulture was perhaps ten yards away, standing in a pile of bones and rotting tissue and watching me. There wasn’t anything suggestive of a nest; it was more of a mess hall, with an emphasis on the mess. It wasn’t convenient to water and it reeked, but it would work if we cleaned it out. The high ceiling was kind of a bonus. We had to convince the current resident to leave first.

“It’s just the vulture,” I said. “Come on up, but watch out for the beak.”

Vultures have no strength in their talons to speak of, because their prey typically doesn’t try to run away from them. Their beaks, on the other hand, are perfect for piercing skin. Strangely, the vulture showed no signs of alarm when I advanced to the lip of the cave. Even when Granuaile hauled herself up, I didn’t see a threatening display of the wings. The bird continued to stare as if it expected us to drop dead and provide it with lunch.

It was when Oberon appeared that the vulture finally showed signs of alarm—and also showed signs of not being a vulture.

Oberon barked and growled, showing his teeth, the hair on the back of his neck raised. <Atticus, that thing is a thing!>

What?

<It’s not normal!>

As we watched, the vulture screeched, spread its wings, and grew—but not into a nastier vulture. It morphed into something else entirely. The neck thickened, the beak became a snout, and fur replaced feathers. Stubby vulture legs became stubby human legs, but what roared at us from the top half—

<Gah! It’s a great big bear!>

“Gods damn the Greeks and their unholy hybrid monsters!” I muttered, then addressed the creature in Greek. “Are you a talking bear-man or just hungry?”

The bear roared again and Oberon tried to bark louder, but then the creature spoke in a malicious rumble: “I am Agrios of Thrace, son of Polyphonte. Who are you?”

I was tempted to tell him “nobody,” but I wasn’t Odysseus and he wasn’t Polyphemus.

“I am Atticus of … Attica,” I replied. Saying anything else would be meaningless to him. His myth was coming back to me. This fellow had been turned into a vulture by Hermes and Ares long ago; his mother and brother, because they were the “kind of nice” Thracian abominations, were only turned to owls. Agrios was the loathsome one. He’d been spawned because his mother, Polyphonte, had managed to tick off Aphrodite, so the goddess of love made her couple with a bear, and rawr, Agrios and Oreios were born.

“Aren’t you supposed to stay a vulture?” I asked.

“I was taught how to transform by Thracian witches. I served them for a time, until I opened their bellies and ate them. Olympus has forgotten me. As long as I don’t hunt the puny mortals and take only that which is given me, I am left alone. It has been many years since I was sent a sacrifice. Who sent you?”

“Whoa. Hold on. We’re not sacrifices. We’re just out looking for the handsomest caves in Greece and thought this was a likely one.”

I shot some quick instructions to Oberon: When we fight, circle round behind him and bite him on the back of the hams.

<Got it.>

“You like my cave?” Agrios said, idly scratching his belly in confusion.

“Oh, yeah. Love what you’ve done with the carrion. Most people don’t think of using carrion as an accent for their décor, but I think you’ve stumbled onto something special here. It’s trendsetting.”

Granuaile whispered to me in Russian, “What are you doing?”

“Knives only. Do not engage him,” I whispered back in the same language.

The Thracian groused, “If you are so interested in décor, why do you come with a sword and a giant dog who growls at me?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes people in caves are impolite. But I can tell you are civilized.”

The bear threw back its head and laughed an ursine laugh.

“Knife to the throat now,” I told Granuaile, and she had thrown it before I finished the sentence.

Go, I told Oberon, and he charged around the creature’s side. I charged too, straight toward the outraged roar as the knife sank into his throat. I didn’t want him lumbering after Granuaile. Her staff would be of little use against such brute strength in close quarters, and her knives, however accurately thrown, were probably not enough to bring him down. Bear hide is tough, and the layers of fat serve as a sort of biological Kevlar.