The Hounds of Actaeon

Actaeon raised his hand, palm flat, fingers trembling slightly in the dappled light. A signal: stay. We sank into the damp earth, beneath a hawthorn bush, our bellies pressing to cool mud that smelled of decaying leaves and last night's rain. Good. It soothed our summer-hot fur.

Master moved forward with the slow precision of a man stalking something sacred. My ears twitched. Whatever waited beyond must have been immense. A boar, perhaps, or one of the great stags from the high valleys. Something worthy of such silence.

Then the scent hit us. One of the younger hounds, all fire and no patience, broke first, crashing through the underbrush before the rest of us could react. He broke formation without command. For half a breath, we froze in outrage. But at last, we followed, tails churning the air, because the scent was hers. Artemis's. Hers, who ran with us through dew-heavy dawns, whose laughter shook the silent forests. There she sat waist-deep in the pool where three streams met, sunlight pouring over her shoulders like molten gold. The water glimmered around her, alive with reflected light. We knew that place well. We had drunk there a hundred times between hunts, our muzzles dripping as she scratched the velvet behind our ears. We should have been welcome. We were welcome—weren’t we?

But Actaeon stood rigid as an oak struck by lightning. Artemis' eyes, wide and unblinking, held his with an intensity that made my claws dig earth of their own accord. The air thrummed with something older than fear. I took a step back, the mud squelching between my toes. Artemis didn’t blink. Actaeon didn’t breathe.

Then instinct overrode caution. With a joyful bark, I leapt into the water, my brothers surging after me, sending up a spray of shimmering droplets. We were eager to greet her properly, with wet kisses and the press of grateful muzzles against her palms.

We were just halfway to her when the sound tore through the forest. A stag’s scream, raw and ragged, echoed in the air.

We turned as one. Land was three strokes away. A chase was seconds from beginning. We waited for the signal: for that familiar hand to slice downward, for his voice to cry "Hunt!" in that way that set our blood singing. But the riverbank held only a deer where our master should have been.

Clever, I thought, pride swelling in my chest. He’d melted into the shadows again, swift and silent as always. Some of the pack turned back toward Artemis, whining, paws slapping the shallows. I stayed. A good hound knows: the signal comes first.

Yet when I glanced toward the goddess, the scene curdled in my gut. My brothers pressed against her, dripping and eager, but her gaze slid through them like moonlight through dead leaves. No laughter. No fingers ruffling wet fur. She stared past them, past everything, at the trembling creature on the shore. The stag stumbled, legs folding, rising, folding again, like a thing newborn. Its knees struck the earth with a sound too heavy for an animal so elegant. It was probably sick. Weak and faltering. Unworthy of being our prey.

The change came like summer lightning: no warning, only the burn. One moment we were hounds, disciplined and waiting. The next, our mouths foamed with a need that wasn't ours. I felt it first in my jaw, a terrible ache, as if my teeth were trying to outgrow my skin. Then the world went red at the edges.

I didn’t understand it, but my body did. My muscles tensed before my mind could catch up, a snarl ripping from my throat without my permission. Lyssa walked among us then, though none could see her but the gods. Her fingers, long and cruel as talons, trailed through our fur. Where she touched, the madness took root. "Good dogs," she whispered.

My brothers turned first. Their eyes glassed over, their lips peeled back from teeth gone suddenly sharp. The stag’s fear-scent called to us now, thick as blood in water. The frenzy took me last. I fought it, fought until my muscles screamed and my vision blurred. But Lyssa’s gift cannot be refused. When my body finally moved, it was not mine to command.

Nothing remained. Just bloodlust, sudden and all-consuming.

The stag tried to run, but it stood no chance. Its legs were tangled, clumsy as a fawn’s, and we were already moving. Faster than thought. Faster than mercy. The forest blurred into streaks of green and brown, and all I knew was the drumming of hooves, the thrill of the chase, and the way my jaws ached to close around living flesh. Wrong, some distant part of me whimpered. We don’t hunt like this.

But the fury was a fever now, burning through my veins, and the more the stag stumbled, the louder the voice in my skull hissed: Kill it. Tear it. Make it stop moving.

I don’t remember leaping. Only the impact. The way its ribs bowed under my weight, the wet gasp it made as we crashed into the dirt. My brothers piled on, a writhing mass of teeth and hunger. The stag didn’t fight. It just… trembled. Like it knew something we didn’t.

Then the stag screamed again, and the sound was so eerily human it shattered the frenzy like glass. I staggered back, panting, my muzzle dripping. The others didn’t stop. They couldn’t. Their eyes were vacant as polished stones, their barks sharp and mindless.

Through the crimson haze, I caught a flicker of movement at the water’s edge. Artemis watched. Not horrified. Not angry. Just… still. As if she’d carved herself from marble and winter. The stag’s cries grew hoarse, then silent. Then the laughter came. At first just a whisper, a ripple across the water’s surface, barely there. But it grew, sharpening like a blade dragged along stone. It clawed at my ears, peeling back layers of the hunt’s frenzy until all that remained was the raw, wet truth of what I’d done.

Artemis laughed, and it wasn’t joy in her voice. It was a curse. The kind that settles in the marrow, the kind that makes you remember. Her laughter rang in my skull, taunting, mocking, You’ll understand, it seemed to say. And when you do, you’ll wish you’d torn out your own throat instead.

When all was done, Lyssa lifted her hand. The remaining madness drained away like water through fingers. We stood there, panting, the stag’s blood cooling on our tongues. Its body lay broken at our feet. The stag’s eyes rolled toward me, brimming with a grief too deep for any beast.

And I understood nothing at all.

We wandered. Not far, at first. Circles around the clearing, whining low, ears flat. Some of my brothers still licked their muzzles, eyes unfocused, waiting for a signal that would not come. Others paced, restless, tails thrashing. The youngest sat beside what remained of the stag, nosing it gently, waiting for it to rise.

I couldn’t look at it anymore. Couldn’t look at her either. The goddess had vanished. Only the reflection of the trees remained, their leaves trembling as though whispering secrets to the sky. Her laughter still echoed inside my skull, but the forest held only silence now. No birds. No wind. Not even the insects dared speak.

So we ran. Through brambles and streams, past familiar trails that smelled wrong, empty. We barked into the stillness, called for a hand that never lifted, a voice that never came. Each night, we curled against each other, sharing what little heat we had, and each morning we woke to the ache of remembering. I don’t know how long we wandered. Time lost meaning as we experienced true hunger for the first time. The world was heavy with a truth just beyond our grasp.

But then, a scent.

Not Actaeon’s. Not the forest’s. Something older. Smoke, stone, wet earth. Chiron. Master’s teacher.

We found the cave at dusk. The opening stretched wide between weathered sentinels of stone, half-covered in moss and hanging vines. From its depths came a cool, earthy breath, as the wind carried the reek of hooves and herbs. We didn’t bark. We didn’t growl. We simply stood there, tails low, ears pinned.

He emerged slowly, not with surprise, but with sorrow. The centaur’s face was lined with dark shadows. His eyes flicked over us.

"You came," he said, barely above a whisper.

We crept closer. One of my brothers wagged his tail, hopeful. Another lowered himself, belly scraping the dirt. I stayed still, watching.

"I had hoped," the centaur murmured, "that you wouldn’t."

He didn’t ask. He didn’t have to. Chiron knew. Not from words, but that ancient, sad wisdom. His fingers scratched the ridge of my skull, gentle and heavy all at once. "You couldn’t have known," he said.

We stayed with him. For how long, I can’t say. He gave us food, cool water and a place to sleep where the rain couldn’t reach. He didn’t speak much. When he did, his voice was soft, like it carried the hush of snowfall on forgotten graves.

One morning, he left before the first birds stirred, carrying only his tools and a large block of pale stone, the shade of old bones. We tried to follow, but he turned and shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "You’ll know when it’s time."

He was gone for days. Maybe weeks. When he returned, his fur was powdered with stone-grit, his fingers torn, his hands scraped raw, yet his eyes held something close to peace.

As dusk fell, he guided us along a slender trail carved into the hills. The air grew thinner, cooler. Ferns brushed our sides as we passed, the moon casting its silver light through the branches. At the path’s end, in a glade filled with moonflowers and quiet, stood our master. Stone, yes. But him. He stood as he used to, proud and tall, one hand forever lifted in that signal we knew best. Stay. His face wore the soft determination of a man about to speak, about to command. He was beautiful. And still.

We didn’t hesitate.

One by one, we stepped forward. Tails wagged. Whines rose like prayers. The youngest leapt, paws scraping against stone thighs, tongue lolling with joy. Another rolled onto his back at the statue’s feet, waiting for a belly rub that would never come.

I approached last.

Up close, it was wrong. There was no heartbeat. No breath stirred the still chest where we used to rest our heads after long hunts. No scent of sweat and leather. No warmth. And no laughter lived behind those eyes anymore. But still… he was here.

I pressed against his legs, the stone cold against my side. I closed my eyes. The others settled around him, resting their heads on paws, untroubled, for the first time since that day.

Something inside me said this was a lie. That this wasn’t him. That we had done something that nothing carved from stone could forgive. But I let that voice drift into the trees. Because his hand was raised. Because his eyes looked forward. Because if I believed hard enough, maybe he would move.

I curled at his feet, pressing my muzzle to rough stone. The stone was cold, but my heart no longer was. And that was enough.