Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast by Jane Yolen

still seemed shaken by the beast’s attack, Atalanta was surprised that he wanted to be part of a journey that could prove so dangerous. Then she realized that it would be worse for him to remain behind, haunted by what had happened to them in the night forest. By coming with them, at least he had a chance to face his fears.
    They reached the next village, Phylos, that evening, a place smaller and far dirtier than Eteos. There they learned that a hunting party had already lost two of its dogs to some wild creature, and they’d been unable to find any of the remains.
    “Completely gone in an instant,” one of the men explained. “They were tracking well ahead of us, baying on the trail. Then we heard a strange yelp from one of them. From the other, only silence. But by the time we got to where their footprints ended—they were gone.”
    “ Clean gone,” added another man.
    “We know the creature that did this,” Atalanta said.
    The head huntsman stared at her for a moment with disdain, his nose wrinkling as if he smelled something bad. He was a tall, lean man, with lines as deep as craters across his brow. Turning away from Atalanta to Evenor, he said, “If you think this creature of yours is responsible, then what is it exactly?”
    “Not ours…” Atalanta began, but Evenor put a hand on her arm to silence her.
    “We only had a glimpse of it,” he told the tall huntsman. “All I can tell you is that it’s big. Very big. Body of a great lion but with wings. Moves as fast as a bird. Guard your herd animals. Take them into the houses at night. Travel only in the daylight or in large parties that can defend themselves.”
    “For Hermes’ sake, don’t go after it alone,” Phreneus added.
    Atalanta didn’t say anything more. It was clear that the hunters wouldn’t value the same information from a girl.
    They heard a similar story in every farm and village they came to: cattle and sheep killed in the fields, goats and pigs carried off by an unseen predator, hunters coming upon their prey already slaughtered and stripped to the bone.
    “This beast is unstoppable,” Phreneus said.
    “ No beast is unstoppable,” Atalanta said. “Or so my father used to say.”
    “Your father,” Phreneus pointed out, “died under this one’s claws.”
    Evenor gave him a look that shut him up. “This beast,” Evenor mused, “is eating for more than one.”
    For a moment all three of them were silent thinking about the implications of that.
    “It’s a female?” Atalanta said at last. She tried to remember what she’d glimpsed of it: head, mouth, haunch, wings, tail. She tried to put the entire picture together in her mind and see it as female. She failed. It had seemed overwhelmingly male: fierce, bloody, frightening.
    “A female?” she asked again, her uncertainty clear in those two words.
    “Or a male bringing back food to its mate,” Evenor said.
    The thought that there were two of the creatures—and maybe more—made them all shudder, and sweat suddenly sprang up on either side of Phreneus’ beaked nose.
    At last they came to the largest village in the region, Mylonas, where the great fairs were held and where people from all the surrounding villages gathered to trade with one another.
    Atalanta had been twice to Mylonas with her father and had hated every minute of it.
    There were no fairs or festivities going on now. Instead the same air of fear that they’d met in other villages hung over the houses.
    They were welcomed by the headman, Labrius, an old friend of Evenor’s. He was gray haired, and looked to be about sixty, but still had the lean strength of one who’d spent his life laboring in the fields from dawn till dusk.
    “We’ve come about a strange beast that’s been terrorizing the villages around here,” Evenor began.
    “Come, come, my friends,” said Labrius. “I make it a policy never to discuss difficult business on an empty stomach.” He led them to his cottage, a large stone