Hercules: The Legendary Journeys Two Book Collection (Juvenile) (6 page)

Hercules examined the door with his fingertips. It felt much like the door to the pit where he had seen Dryope and the fake Slaughterius: layers of strong, polished metal, coated with slippery ooze and bonded to thick granite. Pounding through it would take an hour, if his knuckles could hold out.

And they didn't have an hour. He could hear clinks and scrapes as the soldiers back in the cavern revived each other. He pressed his ear to the crack that ran around the doorway. He could hear the soldiers on the other side gossiping, griping, passing water jugs around. There were at least four different voices out there.

“Hercules,” Salmoneus whispered in his ear, “the guards behind us are awake now. If you're going to do something, do it quick.”

Hercules waved Salmoneus, Cactus and Slaughterius back to the tunnel walls. Maybe the guards won't notice them right away, he thought.

Slaughterius, still weak from the battle in the cavern, stumbled and slipped. His head hit the rock floor and his eyes closed.

“Slaughterius!” Hercules cried.

“Hercules!” Salmoneus hissed. “What are you doing? The guards will hear you!”

“Salmoneus, I need your help. Slaughterius is in trouble.” Hercules fell silent for a moment; he could hear Slaughterius' breathing, which was laboured, slow and shallow. “I think he's dying!”

As Salmoneus and Cactus knelt next to Slaughterius, Hercules could hear the guards on the other side of the door laughing.

They can hear me, he thought. That's not good.

A hard, gruff voice came through the door. “If you think you can bluff us with that old trick, you'd better think again. “My cellmate's dying”—I tried that one when I was in jail. It didn't open the door then and it won't now.” More laughter, louder and rougher.

No! Hercules wanted to rip the door from the wall and shove it down the man's throat. I'm the only one here who's not a liar! An impostor says he's me. An impostor says he's Slaughterius. The Mercs lie about the Pastors, who lie about the Mercs. They're so used to lies, they think everyone's at it.

But I'm not lying.

Slaughterius opened his eyes. Just fainted, Hercules thought. At least that was something. He heard footsteps from the cavern drawing closer.

“Herc,” said Salmoneus, his voice barely a whisper. “Move it. Here comes those soldiers.”

Hercules was lost in thought. They think everyone's lying . . .

“You're right!” Hercules shouted at the door. “I was lying!” His voice echoed through the tunnel: “Lying . . . lying . . . lying . . . I was desperate! I can't get out of this place!” He pounded the door, which vibrated but did not bend or crack. Slippery oil dribbled from his hands and slipped down his wrists. “You see? It's a perfect trap!”

Silence.

“I admit it!” Hercules bellowed. “I'll never escape from here. Right now, your friends are coming to kill me and my friends.”

He looked over his shoulder. Waving their clubs high, five soldiers were sprinting towards Hercules, revenge burning in their eyes.

Hold on. Five? Hercules was startled. He looked at Slaughterius, who was staring in confusion at the three extra men. He didn't know, Hercules realized. They had probably been hiding in another of the crannies. Once they saw what I did to their friends, they waited until the sleepers could get up so they could attack together.

Hercules turned back to the door. “Your prison is just too perfect!” he roared.

The door was flung open. Hercules shot out his arms to push Slaughterius, Salmoneus and Cactus against the wall. Seven soldiers shot through the door and into the tunnel, led by a muscular man wearing a blue sash and wielding a club studded with gravel.

Captain Vicius, Hercules realized.

The men from beyond the door were big, thick-necked former butchers and foresters, specially selected for bad tempers and mean methods. Their clubs were sharpened, spiked, spurred, poisoned, pointed and pronged. They sprinted forward, ready and eager to kill.

And too late, they noticed that they were about to collide with five equally rough, well-armed men who were running towards them.

Vicius tried to slow down; so did the guard leading the group from the cavern. They jammed their heels into the rocky ground, braking hard. The guards behind them, caught unawares, rammed into the leaders' backs, knocked them face down on to the rocky floor and spilled over them. Guards from the cavern landed on the heads of guards from the door, who crashed into the backs of guards from the cavern.

As the guards began pulling their arms and legs out of each other's way, Hercules yanked the pedlar and the old man out from behind the door. As the guards scrambled to their feet, they saw him toss their former prisoners through the doorway and out of sight. Hercules wished his friends a soft landing and an easy escape.

Cactus stood near Hercules, guarding him as the soldiers rose. Hercules shoved the giant through the door and yelled, “Get out of here!” Cactus obeyed reluctantly.

Hercules was alone, with both teams of guards rushing at him, ready to commit murder.

His whole body ached. His skin was tender from the acid burns and the rock scrapes, rough with bruises and small cuts. His muscles and bones were weary from fighting and heaving rocks. His belly ached with hunger and his mouth was so dry that he thought his tongue might crack. But more than everything else, he was just heartily sick of people trying to kill him.

“Stay back!” Hercules shouted. “This'll hurt you more than it will me.”

“He's lying,” Vicius yelled. “Get him!”

They rushed at him at full speed, weapons held high.

Hercules stepped behind the thick, heavy door and closed it in their faces. Twelve bodies, unable to stop, ploughed into the hard, metal surface.

“Sorry, guys,” Hercules murmured as he held the door closed. “You really ought to believe it when people tell you the truth.”

Hercules looked forward. He was alone. The tunnel, lined with torches, quickly curved out of sight. No doubt Cactus had raced down the tunnel, looking for Slaughterius and Salmoneus.

If Vicius' big apes get into this tunnel, he thought, they'll find my friends. He looked around. There's got to be a lock or some other way to keep those guys from pounding this door down.

Hercules turned and examined the door. Two wide metal hinges clamped it to the wall; two rusty iron sculptures in the shape of begging hands stuck out of the door's stone surface.

He looked to the side and found a wide-open human mouth sculpted into the tunnel wall at the same level as the iron hands. An iron bar, with finger grooves carved into it for easy gripping, poked out of the mouth.

He glanced at the opposite wall, where he saw another open mouth at the height of the bar and hands. Slide the bar through the hands and into the far wall's mouth, he thought, so it pokes into both walls and the only way anyone can open the door from inside the cavern is to push the door hard enough to shove the bar through two walls' worth of solid rock. Or bend the bar in trying.

Even twelve husky guards, ramming repeatedly with all their weight and strength, might take an hour or more to do that.

Perfect, he thought. The others will be safe.

He pulled the bar towards the hands. It was stuck. He pulled harder. The bar suddenly came loose, but not all of it. Hercules found himself holding a four-foot shaft with a rough wedge of rock around one end. By trying to yank it out of the wall, he had pulled the bar apart and brought some of the wall with it. At that end, the bar was stretched out like melted cheese. At the other end, there was a strange arrangement of circular discs around the stretched bar.

A lock! He cursed silently. The stupid bar has a lock. I'd have to turn the thing in some weird combination to get the bar out safely. They probably put the lock there to keep people like me from doing things like . . . well, like trapping the guards. The lock was hidden there to keep me from seeing it.

A sudden hot flush of anger welled up in Hercules' stomach. Can't these people be open about anything? All this hiding and faking and rotten tricks . . .

A thunderous pounding hit the door from the inside, shaking it.

They're going to get through, Hercules thought.

Since the door opened inward, towards the cavern, and since the door had no handle on the inside for them to pull on, the only way they could open it would be to knock the door off its hinges. In other words, by brute force.

Hercules took the iron bar in both hands and swung it like a club, testing its weight. The lump of rock on the end looked vicious.

There was another boom from within the cavern. The door seemed to jump towards Hercules. Chunks of rock shook off it.

Another blow to the door, a harder one. The door shook.

The bar was very heavy in his hands. I don't want to kill them, Hercules thought. But I can't talk them out of killing me; they won't believe anything I say. And no matter how hard I hit them, they keep coming.

Another blow. One more and the door would be open, and the soldiers would come roaring out.

Right, thought Hercules. I know what I have to do.

The final blow hit the door like a cannonball, knocking it flat on the tunnel floor. Through the clouds of dust rising from the impact, the soldiers saw the iron bar lying on the ground and Hercules dashing down the tunnel and out of sight. “Coward!” Captain Vicius shouted as he led the soldiers in hot pursuit. “The real Hercules is a hero, but you're a phoney and a coward!”

The words echoed down the walls. Wrong, Hercules thought as he raced along. I'm just trying to keep people alive, but you won't believe that.

He rounded a corner, looking left and right, and kept running. He was out of the men's sight, but not for long. He could hear the stampeding of soldiers' feet surging louder and nearer.

Salmoneus, Slaughterius, Cactus, he thought, where in the world are you? I've got to get you to safety!

“Herc!” came a whisper from behind him.

Hercules skidded to a halt, ripping his feet on the rocky floor. He turned and carefully crept back the way he had come. He looked from side to side, floor to ceiling, but saw no one.

“Salmoneus?” he asked. The ground rumbled and vibrated. It shook with each impact of the guards' approaching boots hitting the ground. They were charging hard and closing in.

“In here!” the pedlar whispered.

A pale hand emerged from a shadowy recess in the wall and yanked on Hercules' clothes. He jumped into the darkness.

The soldiers whipped around the corner and stormed past him. The vibrating subsided.

Even as he poked out his head and watched them go, Hercules knew they would be back.

Arms grabbed him around the belly. A head bumped his back and burrowed between his shoulder blades.

“Herc, you're okay!” Salmoneus cried. He squeezed his friend tight. “We weren't sure you'd make it. We've been waiting for—”

“Quiet,” a voice whispered from out of the darkness. “Salmoneus, let him breathe.”

Salmoneus let go.

“Thanks, Slaughterius,” Hercules said quietly. “Is Cactus with you?”

A short silence, then a familiar bass rumble: ‘I'm here.”

Hercules felt tense muscles in his neck relax. He turned in the darkness to find his companions.

He appeared to be in a cave. It had no torches, but he could see the edges of a few rocks catch the yellow glow of the torches in the tunnel outside.

“Slaughterius, you know these tunnels,” Hercules called into the darkness. “Is there anywhere we can go? Those soldiers won't be fooled forever.”

“Follow me,” Slaughterius' voice replied from deep within the cave. “Watch your step; the ground's rough here. It's one of the newer tunnels that I was having built and it's not finished.”

Rougher than out there? Hercules wondered as the bottom of his foot touched the cold, rocky ground. He heard a thump and then a curse from Salmoneus. Before he could ask what was wrong, he bumped into the same thing as Salmoneus: a wall. The tunnel had turned a corner.

“Now listen, Hercules,” he heard Slaughterius say. “Walk towards my voice. I'm standing by a fork in the tunnel. Come to me and stand at the point between the forks.”

Hercules stepped forward. He felt the wall curve away from his fingers; the tunnel was turning. No, he realized, it was forking. He ran his hand through the air, feeling for the point. His little finger hit a wall. He ran his hand along it and grabbed something shaped like a sharp V.

“Got the point,” he reported.

“Good,” Slaughterius said. His voice was loud in Hercules' ear.

In the distance, Hercules could hear the sound of boots.

Slaughterius must have heard them too. “We'll have to rush,” he whispered. “Hercules, squat down.”

“What?” Hercules whispered back. He hoped that his voice showed the exasperated expression that he could feel on his face.

“Don't argue,” said the voice in the dark. “Crouch as low as you can. Don't sit all the way down, though. The rocks are sharper than knives.”

Feeling foolish, Hercules squatted down. Slaughterius, he decided, was a natural leader; giving orders changed him from an exhausted old man into a vigorous commander.

“I'm down,” Hercules whispered.

“Good,” said Slaughterius. The sound of boots was getting louder. “Hold your wrists as low as you can. Clasp your hands together, palms up, fingers laced.”

The instructions were clear enough; Hercules obeyed. “Done that.”

“Good. Lock your fingers tight. Brace yourself and tense your muscles; you're going to need them. Prepare to push up.”

What's that supposed to mean? Hercules wondered.

Before he could ask, something saggy, nearly flat and very heavy pushed his palms down, shoving his knuckles into the rocky ground. As Hercules bit his lip to keep himself from yelling, another flat object, just as heavy, crunched his hands down harder. The items shifted left and right, grinding his skin into the floor. By touch, Hercules worked out what the items were: human feet. Slaughterius', no doubt.