The Last King of Lydia by Tim Leach Page A

snapped as though the beast’s hide were made from stone. It had carried on its
charge at full force, and for an instant, when it was only a few spans away from him, he had seen himself reflected in the boar’s eyes. He had seen his death there. Then the sharp pain as the
tusk entered his stomach, the taste of wet dirt in his mouth as he rolled against the ground again and again until he came to rest against a tree.
    Then, he lay still and listened to his friends as they died.
    He was alone now. Distant but growing closer, he could hear the thud of the boar’s hooves against the grass, the angry snorts that escaped its nostrils. He had pulled himself upright, his
back against the tree. His skin was cold, cold enough to make him shiver in the heat of the midday sun, but he could feel a thick warmth seeping down into his groin and to the top of his thighs.
Hesitant, he reached down to touch his wound. His fingers brushed against a hot wet coil. A piece of himself exposed to the air, and he pulled his hand back as though it had been burned, and turned
his head away. He didn’t want to look at his wound.
    His eyes fell on the high mountain that loomed in the distance. He wondered if that was where the boar had come from. He had heard it said that gods lived there.
    As he lay dying, he hoped that the boar was a god. It would be a good thing, he thought, as the padding and snorting of the boar grew louder behind him, to have been killed by a god.
    Again, he smelled the stench of the boar. He felt its hot breath against his neck.
    Rumour travels faster than horses. By the time a delegation from Mysia had arrived in Sardis to plead for help, the city was already alive with stories of the boar.
    It had killed a dozen men already, it was said, and every village and town for a hundred
stades
around lived in fear of it. Crops remained unplanted, and animals wandered wild in the
fields whilst their keepers remained barricaded indoors. It was like a monster out of the old myths, and the people of Sardis argued endlessly as to whether it was merely an overgrown monstrosity
or the child of a god. Auguries were taken by priests throughout the city to try and provide some answer to the mystery, but their results were inconclusive and contradictory, and each night the
air in the city was alive with the scent of burning fat from a dozen different temples. The stray monster of a distant land had come to obsess the Lydian people. Perhaps, invincible as their empire
was, they wanted an enemy to be afraid of, a threat against which to unite. If so, they found it in the beast haunting the woods in the north.
    After the Mysians arrived at court, Croesus let them make their plea in front of a public crowd. After they had finished speaking, he threw up a hand to quiet the room.
    ‘My honourable subjects,’ he said. ‘I grieve for the sons that you have lost, and am dismayed that your people have been reduced to fear and terror. No doubt the Gods have seen
our prosperity, the great wealth and strength of our kingdom, and have chosen to test us.
    ‘You all remember the story of Heracles, do you not? He fought against the Erymanthian boar. Perhaps this boar we hunt is a descendent of that monster. Heracles captured the boar, but we
live in harsher times, and we will not be so merciful. This monster’s head will hang from the gate of the palace, and his pierced hide will become one of my greatest trophies.
    ‘I will dispatch my own hunters to kill the beast. Any man of Lydia may join them, as servant or huntsman. The man who strikes the killing blow will be awarded ten talents of gold, with
another talent for each man who proves himself valiant. We will end this terror, and our country will be at peace once again.’
    Croesus paused for a moment, looking out over the crowd to judge the impact of his speech. He could feel, in the air, the particular silence that the actor and the politician both crave.
Whatever happened next, whether