She wakes in fright. A man screaming, one of the Argonauts close to the fire, a spear driven through him. Bare chested and this wooden shaft coming out of his belly, unnatural grafting. Disbelief, his hands pulling as if the roots might be dislodged. Struggling on his knees in the dirt, oblivious to foreign men standing above. A club swung high and brought down on his shoulder, sickening thud, crushing of bone. Face rolling to the side, and he seems without air, and the club comes down again on his head and he falls.

Other screams now, all through the forest, shouts and grunts and knocking of shields.

Jason rising with his spear, attackers everywhere. Medea expects to see her father, golden mask and feathers in firelight, but these are other men. Not Colchians, not Thracians, not Hittites, but a people she’s never seen before, hidden along these shores, nameless. Wearing animal hides on their heads, as if they could invoke beasts.

Jason without his shield. She grabs it quickly, heavier than she had imagined, rough wood and hide, and runs after him, but the trees are filled with bodies, glint everywhere of fire on skin and spear point, and she’s lost him. She has no weapon other than this shield, so she slams an edge into the back of a man’s neck, where hide drapes onto his shoulders, and he staggers, turning toward her, and an Argonaut drives a spear into his side.

It’s not the man impaled who screams this time. It’s the Argonaut, his face twisted and terrified, howling for blood, ramming the shaft deeper. Every man gone mad. Medea so terrified she screams also, as high and frightening as she can, calling on Hekate. She swings her shield into the back of a man’s knee and he folds but swings a club as he falls. She catches it on the shield and is thrown by the impact.

Bodies too soft for this. Mashing sounds and spray of flesh, the air wet, raining blood.

She tries to hide, tries to find Argonauts. They seem to be gathering at the fire, backs to the flame. The bear-man swinging his war hammer, huge hunk of bronze at the end, crushing bodies. She runs in beside him, holds her shield as defense for his side, and sees Jason. He’s chopping with a short ax, chopping off a man’s arm at the shoulder, something white showing, not bone but something else. The man looking down at his shoulder and oddly calm, no longer fighting, just standing there. He’s covered in blood and seems fine. Then Jason chops at his neck and the blade catches, snags, and Jason is yanking to free it, the man shaken into a kind of dance. Eyes looking upward and mouth open, finding some new god, given over, priest and sacrificial victim, presiding at his own death.