He spent the last second of his life screaming, as the force of Bortan's leap pulped him against the ground, before his head was snatched from his shoulders.
My hellhound had arrived.
The Kouretes screamed, for his eyes are glowing coals and his teeth are buzzsaws. His head is as high above the ground as a tall man's. Although they seized their blades and struck at him, his sides are as the sides of an armadillo. A quarter ton of dog, my Bortan… he is not exactly the kind Albert Payson Terhune wrote about.
He worked for the better part of a minute, and when he was finished they were all in pieces and none of them alive.
"What is it?" asked Hasan.
"A puppy I found in a sack, washed up on the beach, too tough to drown-my dog," said I, "Bortan."
There was a small gash in the softer part of his shoulder. He had not gotten it in the fight.
"He sought us first in the village," I said, "and they tried to stop him. Many Kouretes have died this day."
He trotted up and licked my face. He wagged his tail, made dog-noises, wriggled like a puppy, and ran in small circles. He sprang toward me and licked my face again. Then he was off cavorting once more, treading on pieces of Kouretes.
"It is good for a man to have a dog," said Hasan. "I have always been fond of dogs."
Bortan was sniffing him as he said it.
"You've come back, you dirty old hound," I told him. "Don't you know that dogs are extinct?"
He wagged his tail, came up to me again, licked my hand.
"I'm sorry that I can't scratch your ears. You know that I'd like to, though, don't you?"
He wagged his tail.
I opened and closed my right hand within its bonds. I turned my head that way as I did it. Bortan watched, his nostrils moist and quivering.
"Hands, Bortan. I need hands to free me. Hands to loosen my bonds. You must fetch them, Bortan, and bring them here."
He picked up an arm that was lying on the ground and he deposited it at my feet. He looked up then and wagged his tail.
"No, Bortan. Live hands. Friendly hands. Hands to untie me. You understand, don't you?"
He licked my hand.
"Go and find hands to free me. Still attached and living. The hands of friends. Now, quickly! Go!"
He turned and walked away, paused, looked back once, then mounted the trail.
"Does he understand?" asked Hasan.
"I think so," I told him. "His is not an ordinary dog brain, and he has had many many more years than even the lifetime of a man in which to learn understanding."
"Then let us hope he finds someone quickly, before we sleep."
"Yes."
We hung there and the night was cold.
We waited for a long time. Finally, we lost track of time.
Our muscles were cramped and aching. We were covered with the dried blood of countless little wounds. We were all over bruises. We were groggy from fatigue, from lack of sleep.
We hung there, the ropes cutting into us.
"Do you think they will make it to your village?"
"We gave them a good start. I think they have a decent chance."
"It is always difficult to work with you, Karagee."
"I know. I have noticed this same thing myself."
"… Like the summer we rotted in the dungeons of Corsica."
"Aye."
"… Or our march to the Chicago Station, after we had lost all our equipment in Ohio."
"Yes, that was a bad year."
"You are always in trouble, though, Karagee. 'Born to knot the tiger's tail,'" he said; "that is the saying for people such as you. They are difficult to be with. Myself, I love the quiet and the shade, a book of poems, my pipe-"
"Hush! I hear something!"
There was a clatter of hooves.
A satyr appeared beyond the cockeyed angle of the light from the fallen lantern. He moved nervously, his eyes going from me to Hasan and back again, and up, down, around, and past us.
"Help us, little horny one," said I, in Greek.
He advanced carefully. He saw the blood, the mangled Kouretes.
He turned as if to flee.
"Come back! I need you! It is I, the player of the pipes."
He stopped and turned again, his nostrils quivering, flaring and falling. His pointed ears twitched.
He came back, a pained expression on his near-human face as he passed through the place of gore.
"The blade. At my feet," I said, gesturing with my eyes. "Pick it up."
He did not seem to like the notion of touching anything man-made, especially a weapon.
I whistled the last lines of my last tune.
It's late, it's late, so late…
His eyes grew moist. He wiped at them with the backs of his shaggy wrists.
"Pick up the blade and cut my bonds. Pick it up.-Not that way, you'll cut yourself. The other end.-Yes."
He picked it up properly and looked at me. I moved my right hand.
"The ropes. Cut them."
He did. It took him fifteen minutes and left me wearing a bracelet of blood. I had to keep moving my hand to keep him from slashing an artery. But he freed it and looked at me expectantly.
"Now give me the knife and I'll take care of the rest."
He placed the blade in my extended hand.
I took it. Seconds later I was free. Then I freed Hasan.
When I turned again the satyr was gone. I heard the sound of frantic hoofbeats in the distance.
"The Devil has forgiven me," said Hasan.
We went far away from the Hot Spot as fast as we could, skirting the Kourete village and continuing northward until we came upon a trail that I recognized as the road to Volos. Whether Bortan had found the satyr and had somehow conned him into coming to us, or whether the creature had spotted us himself and remembered me, was something of which I couldn't be sure. Bortan had not returned, though, so I had a feeling it was the latter case.
The closest friendly town was Volos, a probable twenty-five kilometers to the east. If Bortan had gone there, where he would be recognized by many of my relatives, it would still be a long while before his return. My sending him after help had been a last-ditch sort of thing. If he'd tried elsewhere than Volos, then I'd no idea when he'd be back. He'd find my trail though, and he'd follow it again. We pushed on, putting as much road as possible behind us.
After about ten kilo we were staggering. We knew that we couldn't make it much further without rest, so we kept our eyes open for a possible safe sleep-site.
Finally, I recognized a steep, rocky hill where I had herded sheep as a boy. The small shepherd's cave, three-quarters of the way up the slope, was dry and vacant. The wooden facade that faced it was fallen to decay, but it still functioned.
We pulled some clean grass for bedding, secured the door, and stretched out within. In a moment, Hasan was snoring. My mind spun for a second before it drifted, and in that second I knew that of all pleasures-a drink of cold water when you are thirsty, liquor when you are not, sex, a cigarette after many days without one-there is none of them can compare with sleep. Sleep is best…
I might say that if our party had taken the long way from Lamia to Volos -the coastal road-the whole thing might never have happened the way that it did, and Phil might be alive today. But I can't really judge all that occurred in this case; even now, looking back, I can't say how I'd rearrange events if it were all to be done over again. The forces of final disruption were already goose-stepping amidst the ruins, arms upraised…
We made it to Volos the following afternoon, and on up Mount Pelion to Portaria. Across a deep ravine lay Makrynitsa.
We crossed over and found the others.
Phil had guided them to Makrynitsa, asked for a bottle of wine and his copy of Prometheus Unbound, and had sat up with the two, well into the evening.
In the morning, Diane had found him smiling, and cold.
I built him a pyre amidst the cedars near the ruined Episcopi, because he did not want to be buried. I heaped it with incense, with aromatic herbs, and it was twice the height of a man. That night it would burn and I would say goodbye to another friend. It seems, looking back, that my life has mainly been a series of arrivals and departures. I say "hello." I say "goodbye." Only the Earth endures…