The Minoan Rhapsody

The Myrmerkes

Sisyphus arrived at Poliochne. His horse panted loudly and stumbled as he dismounted it. "Where is Thoas!" he yelled towards the desolation and anyone who might listen.

"Sisyphus!" Latramis yelled back from a distance.

"Didn't Thoas prepare for the storm?!" The Captain and Latramis walked hastily towards each other. "Why didn't he beach the fleet? Did any ship survived? There is barely a handful of houses standing. Our warehouses flooded. Did Thoas do anything?"

"He had a lot on his mind."

"You know better than to tell me that!" He pointed with his finger at Latramis while scowling him. "Where is he? He summoned me."

A woman approached the horse and upon seeing it she stopped. She touched it. It's not sweating yet it's burning up. "Hey boy," she whispered. "Do you know where you are?" She pinched the skin near the horse's base of the neck. Upon releasing it, the skin stayed up in a ridge. She offered it water from a bucket she carried.

Latramis answered Sisyphus. "He didn't want to wait. He's gone,"

"Take me to the crows!" Veins popped on Sisyphus' temples. "Where- Why did he go?!"

"Foreigners. Foreign warriors seem to have invaded-"

"Ah! Nonsense!" He dejectedly waived off Latramis as he turned his back on him. Looking back at his horse, he yelled to the woman watering it. "Get me that horse back!"

The woman placed the bucket of water on the floor and looked at the horse's tightening eyes and felt with her touch its strained muscles. She guided the animal back to him.

"You better put a leash to your brother." Sisyphus told Latramis without looking at him. "He is bumping around without a clue. Take charge or I will."

Not daring to look at him in the eye, the woman handed him the reins. "It will die if you push him again," she whispered trembling.

Sisyphus slapped her. "Then it will die!" He mounted the groaning beast.

"Where are you going?" Latramis asked.

"I must get back to the Strogula before it sets sail to meet me here." Sisyphus kicked the horse who reared and squealed. He struggled to control the animal as it stumbled.

The horse's legs gave up. Upon falling to the ground, the horse trapped Sisyphus leg under its weight. The horse was dead.

Sisyphus screamed, more out of anguish than of pain.

Two men ran to help as Latramis yelled for them. All three were able to shift the horse's weight, allowing Sisyphus to pull his leg free.

Latramis tried to check on Sisyphus but he would have none of it.

The Captain stood and walked away with a slight limp.

"That may have been our only living horse, you know!" Latramis yelled. "You are not going anywhere."

Sisyphus closed his fists, took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and yelled out loud towards the sky.

#

Between salt meadows and sand dunes, grasslands were littered with flotsam brought up shore by the storm surge. The smell of dead sea was nauseating. A beachside lagoon nearly overflowed while birds fed upon insects and rotting fish. A pack of dogs curiously smelled a bloated dead cow. It was one of many carcasses the storm spit on the ground. They were mostly animals. A couple of people too.

Thoas and his twenty men, armed with javelins and whicker shields, fanned out at arm's length. They wore loincloth, arranged as a short skirt, ending in a point sticking out, like a tail. A belt, decorated with metal fastened their secondary weapons which were as unique as those who carried them: clubs, axes, swords, and knives. Their exposed torsos revealed scars from battles past, or tattoos, most of which were simple dots and crossing lines. This group shared a bloody history.