Jane Yolen - Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons

“Hush!” This time Hippolyta was quite rough with him.

They watched as the old woman walked down the steps toward them. As she got closer, she became younger and younger, the years falling away from her like a series of gossamer veils.

“Artemis,” Hippolyta whispered, but not loud enough for the boy to hear.

Artemis nodded approvingly. “The time has come, Amazon. The sacrifice must be made.”

Hippolyta swallowed hard and tried to find her voice. She managed to croak out, “We’ve faced dangers and hardships together to come here and pay homage to you.”

“And it was well done.”

“The boy risked his life for me,” Hippolyta said. “Isn’t that enough?”

There was a flash of annoyance in the goddess’s dark eyes. “ Enough? There is no such thing as enough when you deal with the gods. We have a covenant between us, between the gods of Olympus and the race of Amazons, a covenant in which a queen may allow but one of her sons to grow to manhood. That covenant has been broken, so now it must be renewed.”

“What’s she talking about?” Tithonus interrupted. “Manhood and covenants broken and renewed?”

“Be quiet,” Hippolyta warned him. “You’re in the presence of the goddess.”

Tithonus squinted. “ That old woman?”

Puzzled, Hippolyta looked again at Artemis, and again she saw only the magnificent young huntress, glowing with youth and power.

The goddess laughed disdainfully. “Did you think he’d know me? How could his childish male eyes be expected to behold my glory? Take up your knife.”

“I …” Hippolyta hesitated. She looked deep into the goddess’s eyes. “I can’t lift my dagger against him. We’re of the same blood, children of the same mother—”

“There’s no need to go on and on,” the goddess said coldly. “If you can’t finish what you’ve started, others will do it for you.” She thrust her arm up and pointed.

All at once there was a great rush of wind, so strong both Hippolyta and Tithonus staggered before it. The sound of huge wings beating the air stunned their ears. The sky above them grew heavy and dark.

Looking up, they saw overhead a large vee of winged beasts, much larger than any birds. As the flight came closer, it was clear that these were no ordinary creatures, for each had the golden body and tail of a lion and the proud head, wings, and forelegs of an eagle.

“Gryphons!” Tithonus cried.

Gryphons. Now Hippolyta remembered. They were the same as the beast whose image she’d seen beneath the altar at Themiscyra. And she remembered something else: their sharp talons, their terrible beaks.

“Run!” Tithonus cried. “Gryphons are man-eaters. They’ll rip us apart. They’ll lap our blood and crack our bones. Run!”

But there was nowhere to run.

Besides, it was too late. The gryphons, a hundred of them at least, had descended upon the city and were even now perching on the rooftops and broken walls on every side of the square, staring down at the children as if waiting, waiting for some kind of awful signal.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

WINGED VENGEANCE

“THIS IS HOW IT WAS back then,” said Artemis, gazing around the square at the creatures and frowning at them. “The gryphons came while Eos, goddess of the dawn, was spreading her rosy mantle across the eastern sky. The air was filled with their warlike screeches and the beating of their awful wings.”

Tithonus shuddered, and as if catching the movement from him, Hippolyta shuddered too.

The goddess smiled grimly. “They were sent by my brother, Apollo, sent to mete out his vengeance.”

“Vengeance?” Hippolyta asked, glancing over her shoulder at one particularly large gryphon, whose sharp lion ears on the eagle head were twitching back and forth, like a cat when it was ready to pounce. She drew Tithonus closer to her.

Artemis replied, “For the theft of his gold. The gold he uses to fashion his arrows.”

“Who—who stole the gold?” Tithonus asked in a voice suddenly made small by fear.

Hippolyta knew that part of the story. “The princes of Arimaspa,” she said.

“ Amazons stole the sun-god’s gold?” Tithonus whispered.

The goddess shook her head. “They weren’t Amazons then, but the followers of exiled Scythian princes. The same avarice exists in the heart of every man .”

“I don’t want anybody’s gold,” Tithonus said more loudly.

It was a simple statement, but the goddess turned and glared at him.

Smoothly Hippolyta stepped between them. “How did they steal the gold?”

“The gryphons guarded my brother’s mines,” Artemis said. At her words the creatures around the square clapped their wings, and the sound was like a hundred swords in battle. “But an oracle informed the Arimaspans that one night in the year the gryphons abandoned their usual vigilance, the night the females laid eggs. So on that very night the princes led their men up the narrow, treacherous paths to Apollo’s treasury.”

“Ah,” Tithonus said. It was such a little sound. Hardly more than a breath. But it made the gryphons in the square clack their beaks. This sound was like the cracking of bones.

Artemis ignored them, continuing with her tale. “They made off with as much gold as they could carry and returned home to a great celebration. But when dawn rose, the gryphons came down from their mountain aerie, filling the sky like a dark storm.”

The gryphons in the square moved restlessly on their perches now, making a sound like far-off thunder.

Neither Hippolyta nor Tithonus dared move as Artemis continued. “The men of Arimaspa gathered the women and children into this very temple.” She gestured behind her. “The princes ordered them to bolt the door. Then the men drew their swords and prepared to fight. Inside, the women fell to their knees before my altar, praying for mercy and protection.”

One of the gryphons in the square cried out then, the sound of lightning after it strikes the ground and sizzles. Hippolyta felt a cold sweat break out on her back.

“The women in the temple could hear the battle raging outside,” Artemis said. “The din terrified them. But when silence finally came, it was even more ominous.”

Hippolyta nodded. The silence would have frightened her, too.

“At last Lysippe, wife of one of the princes, had the courage to unbolt the door. What a sight greeted their eyes! Everywhere lay the bodies of their men, stabbed and torn by the beaks and talons of the gryphons. The women of Arimaspa wept uncontrollably, tearing their hair and rending their garments. I watched until I could take no more of their weakness.”

“Weakness?” Hippolyta was appalled. “When is it weakness to cry for the heroic dead?”

“It’s weakness if a woman can do nothing but weep,” Artemis said dismissively. “So I found Lysippe and pulled her to her feet. I picked up her husband’s fallen sword and placed it in her hand. ‘Enough of this grief,’ I told her. ‘Enough of weakness and mourning. Rise up, woman, and take your terrible revenge.’”

“Yes,” whispered Hippolyta, her left fist clenching tight.

“Lysippe stared at the sword,” Artemis said. “There was blood on it from a gryphon her husband had killed. Green blood. I kindled in her heart the anger and the thirst for vengeance she would need.”

Artemis watched Hippolyta’s face change, grow excited, harden. She smiled, finishing the tale. “One by one, the women each took up a fallen weapon. Sending their children back into the temple, they marched behind their queen into the mountains to the cavern where the gryphons made their nests.” Artemis seemed to grow brighter as she spoke, and taller. Her hair rayed out like a great dark sun. “The women took the gryphons by surprise, stabbing and slashing with a ferocity that possessed them like madness.”