Bronze spearhead met bristly hide right above the breastbone, lodging there for a moment before the wooden spear shaft snapped in two. The broken stump of the weapon dropped from Odysseus’ numbed hands.
“Oooof!” he grunted.
Mentor shrieked, “Odysseus, no!”
Odysseus twisted away from the boar’s continuing charge, but a second too late. One of the tusks scored a ragged gash down his right thigh. Like lightning, pain flashed along his leg. He fell back against Mentor, biting back a scream.
The boar ran on past them, further into the brush.
“Odysseus—are you alive?” Mentor cried.
“Get … your … javelin.” Odysseus’ face was screwed in pain.
Only then did Mentor realise that he had dropped the thing. He bent to pick it up and when he stood again, he saw that the boar had broken through the other side of the thicket and was making a large circle back towards them, snorting with rage.
“One … good … throw …” said Odysseus, carefully speaking through his pain. “That’s … all … you … need.”
Mentor licked his dry lips and hefted the javelin in his right hand. He had thrown in competition with other boys, had hunted small game, but how could he hope to stop this great beast with what was really no more than a toy?
“Look … in … eye…” Odysseus said.
Mentor could hardly breathe. He kept his own eye fixed on the boar. His heart seemed to be pounding in time with the boar’s hoofbeats.
And then—as the beast came within striking range—Mentor felt his own breath stop. His arm seemed to drive forward by itself, sending the javelin flying. The javelin wobbled a bit in its flight, and the sound it made was a strange whoosh.
Then everything went dark.
Eyes closed, Mentor waited for the boar to rip him to shreds.
“You … did … it!” Odysseus was hitting him on the leg.
Mentor opened his eyes. The boar was speeding away from them, the javelin trailing from its flank.
“But I didn’t kill it,” Mentor said miserably. “All I did was make it madder.” He paused. “And lost us our only weapon.”
“Real … weapon … here,” said Odysseus, touching a finger to his head. “Help … me … up!”
“You can’t run on that leg,” Mentor said.
“Not … run,” Odysseus told him. “Roll.” He pointed behind them to the steep slope.
Glancing nervously over at the boar, which had now managed to shake the small javelin loose, Mentor whispered, “Are you crazy, Odysseus? That slope’s a hundred feet down if it’s a—”
“Take … hold.” Without waiting for an answer, Odysseus grabbed Mentor’s arm and hauled himself to his feet.
Mentor wheeled Odysseus around, and they headed back the way they had come. They ploughed through the tangled thicket towards the edge of the slope while the boar was still making up its mind whether to charge again. Mentor half carried, half dragged Odysseus, who hobbled as best he could.
“Faster …” Odysseus said, gasping with pain.
Behind them they could hear the boar bellowing as it started to charge again.
“Faster …”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” Mentor said through clenched teeth.
“Talking … to … myself,” Odysseus said. “Not … you.” He took a deep breath and said in a rush, “Better leave me. Only slowing you down.”
“Heroes together or not at all,” Mentor told him, and just then they reached the edge of the slope.
Slipping free of Mentor’s grasp, Odysseus pitched himself forward, going head over heels. Mentor slid after on his bottom, thinking that there was no hope for his tunic now.
Thorns and shards of flint tore at their clothing and flesh. Every bump and knock jarred their bodies, till Mentor began to think they would have had an easier time with the boar.
Then they landed in a heap at the bottom, fetching up against a spindly tree.
“Odysseus, are you …?”
“Keep … still,” Odysseus said.
Mentor raised his eyes warily and saw the boar standing at the top of the slope, stamping the grass in frustration. He opened his mouth to speak.
“Remember … poor … eyesight,” Odysseus said. “Small brain.”
Mentor shut his mouth.
Time seemed to drag by as the boar shook its massive head and peered down the slope. But at last, seeing nothing and hearing nothing, it gave one last grunt and snort, and disappeared back to the bushes to finish its breakfast.
When the boar didn’t return, Mentor whispered, “We need to get you back down to your grandfather’s palace so your wound can be properly tended, Odysseus. But meanwhile…” He stripped off his linen leggings and, using them as a makeshift bandage, bound up the gaping wound on Odysseus’ leg.
“Thanks,” Odysseus said. His normally ruddy face was blanched with pain.
“Being a hero,” Mentor said, “is awfully bloody work.”
“Isn’t … it …” Odysseus said, and then, unaccountably, he grinned.
CHAPTER 3: THE OLD THIEF
“HOLD STILL, MASTER ODYSSEUS,” his mother’s old nurse, Menaera, snapped impatiently as she bathed his leg with cold water. “The wind may make the tree’s branches tremble, but it cannot heal the broken limb.”
“That stings!” Odysseus cried.
Drying his leg roughly with a coarse towel, Menaera showed him no mercy. “Not even bad enough to call in the physician, my princeling.” She examined the wound closely, sniffing at it for contagion and finding none.
“You’re worse than that boar,” he complained.
A smile spread over Menaera’s wrinkled face. “Now, now! You sound like a child, not a hero. First the bile and then the honey, little man.” She spread a pale yellow paste over his wound.
“Ouch! Ouch!” he cried again, which was only half of what he really wanted to say. The paste smarted like vinegar on an open sore. He tried to yank his leg away, but Menaera seized his ankle with a strength that a Cyclops would have envied.
“Ooof. Let me go, old lady.”
“A lady, am I?” Menaera laughed.
All the while Mentor sat on a seat in a corner of the room, smirking.
The pungent smell of the yellow paste made Odysseus’ eyes water, and he turned his head away, afraid the old woman or Mentor would think he was crying.
“There, there,” Menaera soothed. “Where there’s stink, there’s cure.”
“Then,” Odysseus said, “I’m entirely cured.”
Mentor laughed, clapping his hands.
“Never you mind, young man,” Menaera said, turning to Mentor. “I’ll fix all your little scratches next. We’ll see if you bear it as well as my young princeling.” She began winding a clean bandage around Odysseus’ thigh.
“Hah!” Odysseus said. Then, “Ow! Menaera—that’s too tight.”
“Keep still, boy. The stag cries where the doe stands quiet. I swear you are twice the trouble your mother was when she was half your age.” She kept winding.
“I’m an Achaean warrior,” Odysseus said, puffing out his chest. “The gods expect me to make trouble.”
“For your enemies, perhaps,” Menaera said, coming to the end of the bandage. “But not for your old nurse.”
Odysseus made a sour face. “I don’t have any enemies.”
Menaera laughed. “Give it time, my little olive.” So saying, she gave the bandage a final yank.
“Owowowow!”
Mentor collapsed with laughter. When he recovered, he said, “She looks after you well.”
“I’d rather be lashed by the Furies than be so well attended.” Odysseus gritted his teeth while Menaera tied up the bandage.
Pursing her thin lips, Menaera regarded her work with a nod of satisfaction. “Now rest that leg until the wound has closed. A pot half-baked will surely break.” She winked at Mentor over Odysseus’ head. “No man ever won the gods’ favour without a little pain. Your turn, Master Mentor.”