MELKART AND THE MONKEY MEN

MELKART AND THE MONKEY MEN, by Mark Mellon, artwork by Miguel Santos

 

Paltibaal straightened up after milking a goat. Outside the pen, he saw a hunter. The old farmer shielded his eyes with a palm to better see him in the bright sunlight as he strode up the trail. He was big, armed with a long, composite bow, a short sword, and a dagger, a long staff in one hand for the steep paths. A tawny lion hide hung from his broad shoulders as a cloak. He raised his staff and waved to Paltibaal.

The old man cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted. “Drink some fresh milk, stranger.”

“Gladly.”

He let himself into the pen, deftly dodged the capering goats, and gratefully accepted a clay bowl full of warm goat milk from Paltibaal. The hunter drank deeply. Milk trailed down his thick, blue-black beard. He set down the bowl and wiped his mouth.

“My thanks, friend.  Fresh milk’s good on a hot day. I’m Melkart of Tyre.”

“So you’re from the city? I’m Paltibaal. I don’t have much, but I’m beholden to no lord. You’re free to share as long as you stay.”

“You’re a true host, Paltibaal, and I’m grateful, but I’m going up into the White Mountains to hunt.”

He pointed to the snow-clad range that loomed ahead, the rugged peaks startlingly white against the deep blue sky. The lower slopes were swathed with thick, ancient forests, mighty firs, oaks, junipers, and most magnificent of all, tall, wide branched cedars.

“Hunting? What do you hope to catch?”

“Mostly sleep.”

They laughed.

“Ibex, deer, possibly a wolf, even a bear if I spot one.”

“Kill a bear? Alone in the mountains? What would you do with him?”

“Skin him and roast the heart and liver.”

“My, you’re a regular Assyrian.”

Melkart laughed again. “I’ll let you work, Paltibaal. I know it never ends for a farmer.”

“Baal’s own truth with just me and my old women to work this poor place. Yet heed me, Melkart. Be wary. There are bandits, a dozen strong band led by a renegade Greek. They’ll happily kill you for that bow.”

“Thanks for the warning, Paltibaal. I’ll watch for them.”

“There’s something else. There’s bad spirits in these woods.”

Melkart frowned. “What kind of spirits?”

“Monkey men with long tails and hairy ears. Miserable, chicken stealing, kid killing scum. A nuisance to me and every farmer and shepherd on this side of the White Mountains.”

“Maybe I’ll take care of them for you. Thanks again for the milk, Paltibaal. Enjoy the fine day the gods gave us.”

“Farewell, Melkart. May Ishtar, Baal, and Enlil bless you and guide your path.”

“Farewell also, Paltibaal, my new friend.”

Paltibaal watched Melkart steadily advance up the narrow trail until he crested a high ridge and was lost from sight.

“You’ll need the gods’ help, Melkart. I pray you don’t meet those spirits. And the bandits.”

***

Tunic hem held high, Melkart forded a fast running, icy cold mountain stream. From a fir branch, a bright yellow serin resentfully chirped at him. He reached the opposite bank and stamped his feet to restore circulation. The day grew warmer. Melkart rolled up his cloak and put it in his leather bag. The air was full of birdsong. Wildlife teemed amid the lush green foliage, fallow deer, ibex, roe deer, and wild boar. A red jackal fled from him. The westward wind sighed through the trees with a vast, sibilant rustle of shaken needles and leaves.

Wearied of Tyre and the tensions that arose from a cramped, confined life on a small, walled island, the constant hustle for money and prestige, merchants’ eagerly shouted bids for newly arrived cargoes, endless banquets with their wasteful display, worst of all the murex pits’ horrible stench, a cursed reek no amount of wine could erase, the tumult only faded from Melkart’s mind when he walked alone in the White Mountains, pure air in his lungs. Melkart found himself at peace once more with the gods, the world, and his human brothers and sisters.

Toward midday, he hungered. Melkart strung his bow and hid by a tree near a small creek, motionless as the tree he sheltered behind. A roe deer came to the creek, followed by two yearlings. The doe’s head darted back and forth while her yearlings drank.

Melkart nocked an arrow, drew back the string, whirled around the tree, and fired. The deer fled, yet the long, goose fletched shaft still sailed straight and true into the rearmost yearling’s neck.

The yearling fell. She squealed for her mother, but the doe was gone with her surviving calf. She could only bawl helplessly. Melkart ran up and cut the yearling’s throat with his dagger. He held his bloody knife to the sky.

“My thanks, gods. Bless the soul of the animal who died so I might live.”

Melkart gutted the yearling and threw the offal away for jackals to scavenge. He skinned the carcass and roasted it over a fire made from dead wood.  Fanned by the wind, fresh roasted meat’s smell carried far, perking scavengers’ noses, to include two prehensile tailed scoundrels.

When the yearling was done, Melkart ate until nothing was left but clean picked bones even a vulture would scorn. Melkart washed his hands and face in the creek and settled down in the shade on his lion skin to nap. Heavy from his meal, summer heat soon made him drowsy. Melkart drifted into sleep.

***

Melkart gently snored while four larcenous eyes spied on him.

“He’s asleep now, Basalas. Let’s go.”

“Quiet, Pasalas. I’m in charge. Let’s go.”

***

Melkart awoke to find the sun well along on his journey to the western horizon. He stretched and looked around him. His bow and quiver were gone as was his sword, scabbard, and belt.

Alarmed, Melkart leaped to his feet. He closely scanned the ground for tracks. Two pairs of paw prints dappled the pale brown dirt. Melkart followed the tracks, but they abruptly stopped at the trees. The thieves had disappeared as if carried away by the gods.

Melkart was about to curse in frustration when his keen ears heard voices. High pitched, excited, raised in disputatious argument, and nearby. He gathered up his things. Quietly yet quickly, Melkart followed the voices through the forest until he reached a nearby dell. He laid on the ground and peeped through the trees.

Two creatures capered in the dell’s leafy bottom, alike as two peas, covered in dark fur that blended well with the forest, bushy tails long and curved, blob nosed, beady eyed with bulging cheeks, faces circled by thick fur. One held Melkart’s bow, the other his sword. They vigorously fenced although they rarely made contact.

“I’m the hunter. You’re the prey. That means I win.”

“No! We agreed before. I have the sword. That means I win.”

“You made that rule up.”

Melkart fought not to giggle. He mastered himself and stealthily crept down, hidden by trees. A monkey man viciously smacked the other with the bow across a shin. His companion dropped the sword, grabbed his injured leg with both hands, and nimbly hopped up and down on one foot while he wailed and complained.

“We aren’t supposed to hit. You always cheat, Basalas.”

The other one meanly laughed. While they were distracted, Melkart charged out from the trees at full speed. The monkey men’s tiny eyes went wide with fear and panic. Rat quick, they swiveled to flee in opposite directions.

Melkart leaped forward, arms outstretched. Each hand snagged a narrow ankle. They fell together in a heap. The monkey men desperately scrambled to escape. They moaned and wept, clawed at the ground, but Melkart held them tight. He rose and dangled them upside down at arms’ length. Basalas and Pasalas shrieked and flailed, swiped their arms at Melkart, but he easily held them off.

“Steal my weapons? Leave me defenseless in a forest filled with bandits? You miserable thieves!”

“It wasn’t my idea. Pasalas thought of it. It’s his fault.”

“No. Basalas is to blame, not me.”

“Enough,” Melkart bellowed.

He swung the monkey men together with superhuman force.

“NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOO,” they squealed.

With a loud crack, their heads slammed together.

Pasalas and Basalas’s eyes rolled back into their heads until only the whites showed. They went limp in Melkart’s hands. He dropped them to the ground. The dell was silent, the only sounds birdsong and the wind.

Melkart sighed deeply. “Thank the gods for some peace.”

He restored strewn arrows to his quiver, put on his sword, and inspected his bow for damage. Satisfied no real harm was done, he draped the restrung bow over a shoulder. With hempen rope from his bag, Melkart bound Pasalas and Basalas’s hands behind their backs and their feet to his staff. He hung the sack over one shoulder, picked up the staff and balanced it on the other. The unconscious, upside down monkey men swung pendulum like as Melkart briskly clambered out of the dell, back onto the path to the lowlands.

They weighed at least fifty mina apiece, but Melkart steadily tramped up one ridge and down another. Yet the hard work made Melkart sweat heavily. He paused to set his burdens aside, remove his tunic, and put it in his bag. Clad in but a scanty loincloth, Melkart reshouldered the staff and continued down the path.

 

A gray wolf gazed down on Melkart from a high, bare mountain crag. Overhead, a golden eagle circled, a flicker of bright color in a light blue sky. Sweat streamed down his broad back. As they swayed from side to side, hardy and resilient, Basalas and Pasalas slowly revived. They shook aching heads and worked at their bonds only to find them tightly tied. Pasalas spoke from in front.

“Oh, my skull. What a cruel blow you struck me. Where are you taking us, stranger?”

“To Paltibaal’s farm so he can help me skin you alive.”

The long silence after this was broken by Basalas. “Why be so cruel to us, stranger? We were just playing with your things. We meant to return them once we were done.”

“Be still. You’re a nuisance. Once your hides are nailed to Paltibaal’s barn door, things will be quieter around here.”

“Oh, no, stranger! I’m too young to die. Just punish Pasalas instead.”

“Why should I be punished alone? Punish Basalas too.”

“I said, be still.”

Melkart’s thundering, preemptory tone allowed no disobedience. The monkey men meekly kept silent. Melkart continued to steadily tramp down the path. As the day wore on, Melkart’s loincloth steadily rose upward until his meaty buttocks were fully displayed.

Basalas sniggered. “A hee hee. Oh, hee hee ho.”

“Basalas. Why do you laugh when this madman’s going to murder us?”

“I said, be still,” Melkart shouted.

“Oh, nothing,” Basalas said, ignoring Melkart. “Just this fellow has a really hairy ass.”

Pasalas shrieked with laughter. “Really? How hairy?”

“Shut up, the pair of you!”
“Like two round hills covered with black vines.”

“Then we should call him Black Ass.”

At this, Melkart halted and set the monkey men down. The bound captives quailed in fear of the brawny titan’s wrath, only to relax when he clapped both hands to his stomach and roared with good-natured laughter.

“Black Ass. Two hills covered with vines. Oh ho ho ho ho. Ha ha ha. What a pair of scamps you are.”

The monkey men laughed too. High pitched squeaks mingled with Melkart’s basso roars. He sat his hairy black ass on a rock and watched the sun retreat toward the distant sea. The monkey men looked at him, hope and entreaty plain in their small eyes.

Melkart shook his head. “As Paltibaal said, you’re nuisances, thieves and chicken killers. Yet there’s no real spite in you. You’re just mischievous. So what am I to do with you?”

“Let us go. We’ll be good. We promise,” they squealed in unison.

Melkart laughed. “As if you two could ever behave. How about this? Promise not to bother my friend Paltibaal. Don’t steal his chickens or kill his kids. Can you keep that oath?”

“Yes, of course. Paltibaal’s place is slim pickings; there are richer farms not half a league from here. We’ll do that.”

“Don’t you dare speak for me, Pasalas. I’ll do it, but don’t trust Pasalas. He’s sneaky.”

“No worse than you.”

They lunged toward each other to fight, but were restrained by their bonds. Melkart separated them.

“Concentrate, you nitwits. Swear by Baal, highest of the gods, you’ll leave Paltibaal alone and I’ll set you free.”

The monkey men eagerly nodded. “Yes. We swear. By Baal and all the gods. Please let us go.”

“All right then.”

Melkart undid their ropes. Pasalas and Basalas rubbed sore wrists and ankles. Melkart gave them water from his skin. They greedily drank, but Melkart made sure each got his equal share.

“All right, children. Run free now.”

They scampered away on all fours, dark brown blurs amid the lengthening shadows.

With one bound, they leaped into the trees. Long arms gracefully curled as they swung from branch to branch. In moments they were gone, dwindling figures in a darkening landscape.

Melkart returned up the path he’d just descended, determined to make up lost time and cover at least a half a league before darkness finally came. He needed to find a suitable place to camp, sheltered from the wind and hidden from predators, human and animal.

He was tired, more than Melkart acknowledged to himself, his iron constitution pushed beyond even its limits. The sun slowly lowered until there was only a blazing red orb just above the western horizon. Tall trees’ shadows steadily lengthened. Gullies and hollows grew pitch dark, ideal for an ambush. He reached a narrow defile between two high peaks. A creek ran down the defile. Rushing waters over rough stones drowned out other noise.

Melkart leaned on his staff as he forded the creek. He reached the opposite bank. Melkart cocked his head and intently listened, on his guard a moment too late.

A heavy stone crashed into his head from behind. Melkart fell hard onto stony ground, knocked senseless by a treacherous blow. A pack of human jackals gathered around him.

“This one was easy meat.”

“Quiet, Nikos. Carry him to the camp. We’ll deal with him there. Don’t forget his bow and quiver. The sword too.”

The bandits stripped Melkart of his weapons. It took six men to carry him to their nearby camp, cursing their heavy burden all the while.

“Mot take Aristes. Why not just slit this big bastard’s throat and leave it at that?”

“Just hold up your end, Netaniah. You know how much Aristes likes torturing folks.”

They labored up a narrow path to their camp, atop a high aerie with an eagle’s commanding view in all directions. Amid a thick motte of oak trees, hide tents were spread in a rough circle around a small fire tended by an old man. The bandits dumped Melkart before the fire.

“By the gods. You’ve caught a giant this time,” the old man said.

***

“Hey, big man. Wake up. I’m talking to you. Are you deaf? I said, wake up.”
Aristes prodded Melkart in the chest with his staff. Tall, wiry, bronze-haired, his lapis lazuli eyes were wide with delight at Melkart’s mortal predicament, with himself as his dire fate’s master. The other men sat in a half-circle, watching, grinning in anticipation at the fun to come. A seated man drank from a wineskin. Outside the small halo of light cast by the cookfire, nothing could be seen in the pitch darkness.

Melkart came to. He calmly gazed at Aristes with inscrutable black eyes.

“What do you want, Greekling?”

“Bold talk from a bound captive. I don’t like your insolent black eyes. Maybe I’ll burn them out first before I cut you into small pieces.”

“Coward. Backstabber.”

Melkart spat at Aristes. The Greek scowled. He picked up a burning brand from the fire.”Hold his head tight.”

Four bandits held Melkart down. One pressed his head into the dirt with his foot so he couldn’t move. Aristes tossed the brand from hand to hand as he slowly advanced toward Melkart.

“Too bad for you.”

Aristes bent low. He taunted Melkart with the brand, waving it in small circles. Melkart involuntarily flinched from the heat. The bandits laughed. Aristes paused, about to shove the brand into Melkart’s eye. A well-aimed, sizable rock crashed into his head. The blow sent him sprawling.

“Attack the bandits!” a high-pitched voice cried.

“Spears ready. On the march,” another shouted from another side.

The bandits fanned out in a defensive ring, swords ready, spears raised to meet attackers. Aristes groaned by the fire, hands clutched to his bleeding head, forgotten for the moment by his men. Unable to see any foes, the bandits rallied around the fire. Netaniah propped up Aristes, bound his bleeding forehead with a dirty rag, and gave him wine. The tough Greek shook his head and came to his senses.

More stones hurtled toward them. Several hit their target. One man threw his spear into the darkness. Aristes rose and cuffed him.

“Don’t throw a good spear away like that. I ought to make you get it.”

“I was just trying to fight back.”

“Fool. Idiot.”

While the bandits argued, in the darkness beyond the fire’s light, small, nimble hands deftly worked at Melkart’s bonds. His hands and feet were set free. A familiar ribbed hilt slipped into Melkart’s right hand, his sword.

“Wait for the right moment,” Basalas hissed.

He faded noiselessly back into the woods. Aristes’s blue eyes focused balefully on Melkart. He approached and stood over him, brandishing a short sword.

“How many are there? Answer me before I gut you!”

Melkart laughed. “Do your worst, Greekling.”

Aristes raised the sword high to strike. With feral speed despite his bulk, Melkart sprang to his feet. He grabbed Aristes’s wrist in an unyielding grip, then twisted it savagely to the right. The sword fell from Aristes’s hand. Melkart tore a gaping rent in the Greek’s stomach with his sharp iron blade. Aristes screamed in mortal agony as steaming gray entrails spilled forth. Melkart tossed him aside.

He threw back his head and screamed his war cry. “A LA LA LA LAI!”

The bandits fought back. One man hurled his spear. Melkart barely dodged the razor-sharp bronze spearhead. Netaniah closed with him. He parried Netaniah’s lunge and hacked off his right hand at the wrist. Netaniah screamed as he fell to his knees.

“He’s only one man,” Nikos shouted. “Swarm him; stab him to death.”

Stones rained down from the trees, well-aimed rocks that hit heads and shoulders. Despite being buffeted by stones, led by Nikos, the bandits held cowhide shields high and warily circled Melkart. One gathered his courage and charged with his spear raised high. The others followed.

Melkart grabbed the foremost man by the left shoulder. The bandit stabbed at Melkart. The spearhead dug deep into his side.

Melkart winced from the pain. He flinched involuntarily. The bandit’s eyes glinted.

“I’ve hurt him! Kill him, Niko–”

Melkart hacked the man’s head off cleanly at the neck. A geyser of arterial blood smeared everyone. Appalled by their comrade’s slaughter and the ensuing stream of gore, even the hardened bandits stood aghast, a lapse in vigilance they paid for in blood.

Despite bleeding heavily, Melkart cut down two men where they stood with great, slashing blows that clove them near in twain. They fell, slaughtered meat where brave, strong men stood a moment before. Melkart snatched up a cowhide shield. A bandit charged him, wild eyed with rage and fear. Melkart knocked the bandit to the ground with the shield and shoved his sword deep into the man’s heart. Another man ran up to stab Melkart from behind, but a rock laid him out with a cracked skull.

Melkart stood with his back to the fire, sword and shield in hand, on his guard and ready despite blood streaming down his head and side. Dark lightning flashed from his black eyes, full of menace and potent threat. He sneered with a flash of great white teeth.

“Only six to one now, poor odds for your sort. Run while you still can, before my men in the woods cut you down.”

“He doesn’t have any men,” Nikos cried. “Just those two cursed monkeys. There’s one now. This will fix him!”

Nikos threw his spear. There was a pitiful scream from the darkness.

“Oh, Basalas. He’s killed me!”

Melkart raised his sword high, more demon than human, and roared,”Hurt my friends, will you? Now I will slay you all.”

Swift as fleet-footed Akhilleous, Melkart was among them. He stabbed his sword deep into Nikos’s chest. He died without a whimper. Another man closed with Melkart and thrust his spear underhand. The spear caught Melkart in the thigh, but he batted the spearhead away with his shield and simultaneously slashed his sword across his attacker’s neck, cutting deeply. He gasped and fell to his knees, hands clutched to his bleeding throat.

The others at last lost heart. Heedless of the shame brought upon them, they fled, their only thought to leave this place of slaughter. The cook fire threw flickering light over the corpses sprawled in grotesque attitudes. Weak from loss of blood, exhausted from his mortal struggle, Melkart struggled not to pass out. He bound his wounds with strips of cloth cut from a dead man’s tunic, then fortified himself with a deep draught of red wine from a skin.

Strength somewhat restored, with no more compunction than a farmer for dead vermin, Melkart picked the bandits up one by one and pitched their bodies into the deep gorge for jackals to scavenge.

He sprinkled wine from a skin in a circle around the camp. Melkart raised his arms in supplication to the gods and prayed to them to remove the stain of murder and bloodshed from the camp and to keep the slain men’s spirits from tormenting him.

“Please don’t kill me, stranger. I’ve got a nice lamb stew all cooked.”

The old man cringed by the fire. Hung from a tripod by a chain, an iron pot’s contents burbled, meat chunks and bulgur wheat in a thick brown sauce, redolent of sage and mint. He flashed the few teeth he had in a conciliatory smile.

“Behave yourself and we’ll have no problems. I hope you’re not loyal to those thieves.”

The old man spat. “Bastards the lot of them. All they did was abuse me.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Now I must see to my comrades. Basalas, Pasalas! Where are you?”

“Coming, Melkart.”

The monkey men hobbled from the forest, Pasalas’s arm draped over Basala’s shoulder. Pasalas bled badly from his left leg.

“Oh, he hurt me so.”

“Sit down here,” Melkart said, indicating a flat rock.

Melkart rinsed out Pasalas’s wound with wine and had Basalas hold him while he stitched up the gash with a strip of gut and an iron needle from his bag.

“Oh, oh, it hurts even more, Melkart.”

“Hold still. I’m almost done.”

When Pasalas was attended to, the old man eagerly ladled stew into a crude, bevel edged clay bowl and handed it with a wooden spoon to Melkart. He was about to dig in when he remembered his comrades.

“Pasalas. Basalas. Come eat.”

“Food? Oh, good.”

The old man served them too. They tossed aside the wooden spoons and eagerly dug in with their hands.

Pasalas spat out half chewed food. “You heard, Basalas. He called me first. That means he likes me better.”

“No. He likes me better. You’re just jealous.”

Melkart held out his bowl. The old man served him more. Melkart motioned for him to give seconds to the monkey men.

“You know I like you both the best. Eat up, my dears.”

Long neglected, wild souls that they were, aching for a kind word or a comforting hand, the monkey men gentled and quieted in Melkart’s reassuring presence, certain for once they were welcome. They sat on either side of Melkart, close to him like favorite hunting dogs. The old man handed out flatbread. They ate in companionable silence, at one with the gods.

 

________________________________________

 

Mark Mellon is a novelist who writes two-fisted, hardboiled, blood and guts pulp fiction.  He has four novels and over a hundred short stories published (many as reprints) in the USA, UK, Ireland, Canada, Bulgaria, Denmark, and India.  His novel Scoundrel!  The Civil War Misadventures of an Unrepentant Rogue, is represented by Anthony Flacco and Jen Newens of Martin Literary Management. 

 

Miguel Santos is a freelance illustrator and maker of Comics living in Portugal.  His artwork has appeared in numerous issues of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, as well as in the Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Best-of Volume 2.  More of his work can be seen at his online portfolio and his instagram.