Jason and the Gorgon's Blood

CHAPTER 10

THE HAUNTED PEAKS

“ONE OF YOU STOLE my food pack while I was sleeping.” Acastus eyed each of them in turn, his face puffy from anger and sleep.

Idas was leaning on his elbow, bleary-eyed. “What are you talking about?”

“Was it you?” Acastus demanded. “You’re the biggest, so you would be the hungriest.”

Lynceus was on his feet, taking a swallow from his water skin. “I wouldn’t recommend riling Idas before he’s had breakfast.”

Acastus rounded angrily on the smaller boy. “Was it you, then? You’re always sneaking around.”

“Why do you think somebody stole your food pack?” Jason asked, trying to sound conciliatory.

“Because it’s gone, obviously!” Acastus snapped back. “It was right beside me and now it’s gone.”

“An animal could have stolen it,” Jason suggested.

Acastus waved his arm at the barren mountainside. “What animal?”

“A bird?” said Lynceus.

“Large enough to fly off with my pack? I don’t think so.”

“Well, it’s more likely than one of us stealing it,” said Idas, rising slowly to his feet and indulging in a long, satisfying stretch. “Your food pack would have nothing in it that I or Lynceus or any of the others would want.”

“Look around if you like,” said Jason. “You won’t find the pack on any of us.”

“You could have eaten the food, then hidden the pack,” Acastus insisted.

Jason suddenly noticed that Admetus had not said anything. Normally he would have been enjoying Acastus’ annoyance. “You look like there’s something on your mind, Admetus.”

Admetus shuffled his feet. “Well, I stirred in the night and thought I heard something moving around.”

“You mean someone,” Acastus corrected him.

“No, it was a scraping noise. And there was a funny, rancid smell.”

Suddenly Jason remembered the woman bending over him. Surely that had been part of his dream. But the smell … He wondered if he should say anything.

Admetus was shaking his head. “I wasn’t certain if I was just dreaming, but if something’s been stolen …” He hesitated and put a hand up to his eyes, scrubbing the sleep from them.

While chewing, Idas said, “We’ve enough between us to feed Acastus for the rest of our trek. As long as he behaves himself.”

Acastus scowled at the joke, but accepted the bread Idas passed to him. The others also contributed to the prince’s breakfast—some cheese, some olives. But their gifts did nothing to improve his mood. He was still eyeing them all suspiciously when they set out on the next stage of their journey.

Was there something prowling around our camp? Jason wondered. But it seemed unlikely, that far up the mountainside. And soon he was too busy climbing to think about it any longer.

They were clambering up a series of escarpments that formed a colossal stairway up the mountain slope. Their fingers were raw from clutching at the rough stone, and their arms and legs were scratched and bruised. The sun beating down on their unprotected heads made them dizzy with heat.

They were all too tired even to argue.

That, at least, Jason thought, is a relief.

An eerie screech echoed in the distance.

“Did you hear that?” asked Admetus. He stopped and cocked his head to one side.

“It’s just a bird,” said Jason. “A hawk of some kind.”

“It didn’t sound like any hawk I’ve ever heard,” said Lynceus.

“Then it was just the wind whistling through the rocks,” Acastus said scornfully. He climbed swiftly ahead to prove he was undaunted by the sound.

Admetus drew up beside Jason and tilted his head in the direction of the northern peaks. “Jason, in my country of Pherae, my people tell tales of these mountains. They call them the Haunted Peaks. Ghosts are supposed to live up here, and sometimes they come down to the valleys and plateaus to steal cattle, sheep, even children.”

“I know those stories,” Jason admitted. “They tell them to the east of the mountains, too, in Meliboea.”

“Do you think any are true?”

Jason laughed. “What would ghosts want with cattle?”

Admetus leaned in close. “To suck the blood out of them. It’s the only kind of food they can eat.” His voice actually trembled.

“Ghosts!” Idas had overheard and snorted his amusement. “Everybody knows the shades of the dead are in the Underworld, beneath the ground, not up in the mountaintops.”

“And we aren’t cattle,” Jason said. “Or sheep.”

“Or children,” Acastus added witheringly, “the only ones foolish enough to believe such tales.”

It was late in the day when they reached the highest point of their journey so far. The snowy cap of Mount Pelion was visible behind them, while in the sky overhead dark clouds were gathering, making the air heavy with unshed rain.

“Let’s stop here and rest a moment,” said Jason, dropping to his haunches and catching his breath.

The others all gratefully halted except for Lynceus. “I’m not going to wait around here to get rained on,” he said, scrambling on up the slope. “I’ll take a look over that next rise and see if there’s any shelter.”

Jason suddenly became aware of someone breathing at his back. He turned quickly and saw Acastus leaning on his javelin.

“Jason,” the prince said quietly, “if you took my food, tell me, and we can settle it now without involving the others.”

“I thought we were finished with that, Acastus.”

“You and I are not finished with anything.”

“Why would I take your pack?”

Acastus narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps to test me, to find out how easy it would be to steal something even more valuable from me.”

Jason felt a warning prickle run over his skin. “I don’t understand what—”

Suddenly Lynceus’ voice rang out above them. “Come and see this! You won’t believe it!”

The excitement in his voice was enough to put a fresh spring in their feet. They clambered up to join him at the top of the rise. Looking down the other side, they saw what it was that had made him cry out.

It was a bowl-shaped hollow about thirty yards across, littered with mounds of crushed branches and dry leaves. Bones—some intact, others cracked open—lay scattered on the ground.

“Look at the skulls!” Lynceus cried, pointing.

Jason was sure he recognized the bones of ox and deer and cattle, as well as skulls of sheep of various sizes. There were horns and antlers and discolored shreds of animal hide.

They descended into the hollow, and Lynceus picked up a broken thighbone. “This has been snapped in two and the marrow sucked out.”

“I don’t like this …” Admetus said.

Jason crouched and picked up the top of a small skull. Broken as it was, it still looked disturbingly human.

“What is this place?” Idas wondered. “It looks like a beast’s lair, but no bears or wildcats live this high up.”

“Or make this big a mess,” said Lynceus.

“Or eat this much,” added Jason.

“Then it’s something else,” said Admetus. “Something a lot more dangerous.”

“Don’t be such a coward,” Acastus drawled. “There’s nothing to threaten us up here.”

“I suppose some kind of bird might nest in the peaks,” Jason suggested. “Something very …”

“Large?” suggested Idas.

“In that case, why are there no feathers around?” Lynceus objected.

Acastus bent and picked up a length of silver chain that he let dangle from his fingers. Attached to it was a pendant. “It looks like this is the lair of a thief,” he declared, “not a bird.”

“I don’t think so,” said Admetus with a nervous shake of his head. “I think this creature, whatever it is, cares only about food. That was probably hanging from the neck of one of its victims.”

There was a heartbeat’s silence, while they took in the horror of what this implied. Then Lynceus said, “Well, at least one mystery is solved.” He was holding up the remains of Acastus’ pack. It had been savagely ripped apart but was still recognizable.

“I think Acastus owes us all an apology,” said Idas.

Acastus lowered his eyes sullenly. “My suspicions were reasonable under the circumstances,” he said stubbornly. “And we still don’t know how the pack got up here.”

Jason shook his head. It was a waste of time trying to get Acastus to admit he was wrong. They might as well try to force a stream to flow uphill. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “The sooner we’re away from this place, the better.”

Still dangling the pendant in the air, Acastus said, “There may be more treasures here, and it would be stupid to leave them behind.”

“I agree with Jason. It’s getting dark,” put in Admetus. “We should make as much distance as we can before nightfall.”

“There’s plenty of time,” said Acastus coolly. “What is it you’re so afraid of? Do you still think there are ghosts up here?”

A shadow flitted across the hollow, accompanied by a strange rustling sound, and a sudden breeze fluttered through Jason’s hair. He turned to see what had caused it.

A woman stood on the edge of the hollow. A huge pair of batlike wings was just folding up behind her back. Long yellow hair hung lankly about her shoulders and her gaunt face. She was dressed in a tunic of animal skin tied at the waist with a length of cord.

Jason’s recognized her immediately—the woman from his dream. His first impression was of a proud, elemental creature, perhaps a mountain nymph, or even a goddess. Then he saw how thin her arms and legs were, how her tunic was torn and stained and her limbs streaked with dirt. Her feet were broad with thick, curved nails that made them more like claws. Her yellow hair was matted and filthy, and the eyes that glared through the strands flashed with the feral hunger of a wild beast. What faced them was neither woman nor goddess but some sort of monster. And a hungry monster at that.