The Trials of Hercules (16 page)

The distraction gives Herc time to struggle to shore. He’s bleeding from the bite in his leg and from wounds on his arms as well as from his back where the gashes from the lion have reopened. The heads regain their interest in my cousin and dive forward after him.

Herc spins around. Without taking a single breath to think, he readies his sword as one of the heads careens toward him. He swings once, removes one head, then takes another one on the back swing. I grapple toward the stumps. Two fists of growth emerge from the pulsing blood of the first wound. My stomach churns at the overwhelming foul fruit stench. When a newly formed black eye opens, I cram the flaming club into it. Before the second stump can begin its growth, I sear it shut with the other club.

“Don’t cut more than two at a time,” I say. It’s only by the luck of the gods that the clubs are still burning and I fear to guess how much longer that luck will hold. I want to hurry, but I also don’t want to face more heads than already threaten us if I can’t close the gashes from Herc’s sword.

Herc cuts and I cauterize until after what seems like days, only two heads remain. Old Lerna has stopped her shrieking. Instead, the heads howl a lament to each other. Despite all, the sound tugs at me. I want to leave her. She’s done nothing to deserve this.

Without warning, Herc cuts. One head splashes into the lake and I race to cauterize the neck. In my sorrow for the creature, I’ve loosened my hold on the clubs. Newly formed necks begin their sprout-like growth as I scramble to renew my grip on my torches. I manage to dip one of the flames into the regenerating flesh. Lerna jerks her remaining head back, grazing my hand. I fumble, and the club slips out of my grasp. With a reach that nearly unseats me, I narrowly catch the torch’s end in my fingertips. It isn’t enough. Lerna’s head whips back around knocking the flaming club from my fingers.

“Don’t cut. Don’t cut,” I yell.

There is no time to grieve the loss of the torch. Left alone, the final head of the old girl is not about to give up. It lunges toward Herc. He manages to leap back leaving her jaws snapping at the swamp. With her face in the muck, Herc hits at the head with the broad edge of his sword. The blows make Lerna jerk her head out of the lake, sending water spraying in every direction. Droplets rain down on me as I struggle to protect the remaining torch. It’s no use. The final flame sputters and hisses out.

With a curse that would make a centaur blush, I jump off Lerna’s back and land hard on a flat stone hidden by the mud. A thousand pins shoot through my legs. Ignoring the pain, I race to find a heavy stick that will work as a torch.

The
whoosh
of a blade sucks all sound from the air and locks my body in place. The world turns into an endless tunnel. From outside the tunnel I hear Herc curse and something heavy hit the ground. The tunnel squeezes tight and spits me back to the Lernean Swamp.

I spin around. The creature’s final head rests at Herc’s feet. Already buds are emerging from the bleeding neck that flops at the shoreline. My mind shouts at me to use my vigile training, to ignore my frustration and kick myself into action, but I’m too stunned to curse let alone react.

From behind me I hear an approaching yell. Out of the corner of my eye, a flame races toward me like a fireball from a catapult. Faster than I would have imagined his stick legs could carry him, Altair flies past me and plunges a burning log into Lerna’s neck. All the while he manages to hold tight to the strap of his camera. Even after the wound has sizzled shut, he yells and jabs the flame into the old girl’s final stump again and again. A wave laps to the shore dousing the flame which finally silences our cameraman. Staggering back from the water, Altair sucks in deep gulps of air keeping his eyes and camera fixed on what he has done.

Old Lerna’s body collapses in a heap sending out ripples across the body of the lake. The final head’s black eye still stares up at us, watching us. The eye blinks a few more times, each time it opens a little less. My throat tightens when the lid opens no more.

In an unsteady voice Herc says, “We need to collect the blood before it won’t flow and before she sinks into the muck.”

Standing knee deep in the mud Lerna’s thrashing has churned up, we make small cuts into the side of Lerna’s lifeless body and arrange the water skins in rows. Using the hollow reeds that grow around the lake as taps, we fill skin after skin with the thick, rotten cherry-scented blood.

Altair, his hands still trembling, clicks off his camera.

“Done filming?” Herc asks.

“I think they got enough of a show.”

Herc then gathers all the arrows from our quivers and dips them in a pool of blood at the end of one of the reeds. Once he has coated them all, we work together to shove Lerna’s body into the lake where it bobs for several moments before the water swallows her whole.

As a final gesture of respect for our foe, we bury Lerna’s last head in the field beyond the lake.

“Good bye, Old Lerna,” Herc says with a shaky voice. “You were a worthy foe even if you didn’t deserve to die.”

“Hera protect Portaceae,” Altair and I mutter.

“Let’s get these skins to our Solon,” Herc says. His words boil with disgust.

We load the chariots and fit the horses back into their harnesses. Herc tosses my boots to me and I slip them over my muddy feet before climbing into my chariot. The faint orb of sun that shines through the clouds is still two hand widths above the horizon so we don’t hurry our way back. The three of us ride in silence the full distance.

With the cloud cover and our somber moods, we pay no heed to how quickly the sun dips into the horizon. Too late I realize we should have given the horses free rein. By the time we reach the gate to the city, the tender has already pulled his heavy iron bars across the city’s main entrance. We race toward him.

“Hold,” I yell. “Hold the gate.”

Two vigiles step out holding spears as the gate tender, a portly man of about fifty, continues working the crank.

“You’re late,” the left vigile says. “Gates are shut at sunset. Your business will have to wait until dawn.”

“You idiot, Odysseus,” I shout. Even in the low evening light I can’t miss his smooth Illamosian accent. “Open the gate or I’ll give orders for the centaurs to bugger you until you shit ponies.”

“Iolalus?” Odysseus asks and then starts laughing. We’d served patrol duty on Portaceae’s outskirts only three months ago and passed the time seeing which of us could come up with the most outlandish punishments. My one about the ponies left him conceding defeat and for days after, he would laugh at the oddest moments as he muttered, “Shit ponies.” 

“Tender, open the gate. It’s our new commander and—” He jerks to a rigid vigile stance and then bows low. “My apologies, Commander Dion, I should have recognized you.”

Herc shifts uncomfortably on the chariot platform and his unease passes through to his horse who begins tossing his head and tugging on the reins. "It’s fine. Just open the gates, if you will.”

With a look of annoyance etched on his face, the tender hauls the gate back open. As we ride through, the vigiles bow again to us.

Once through the gates, Altair says his goodbyes and Herc and I wind our way through the city to the road that will take us up the hill to Eury’s ridiculously large estate. As we pass through Portaceae City, the streets are strangely quiet and the metal-rimmed wheels of the chariots clatter as loud as thunder over the cobbles. Even on the cloudiest summer evening people usually mill about gossiping and sharing samples of their latest batch of fruit wine. Tonight, the streets are empty. A few faces peek out of windows and give us a cheery thumbs up, but they duck back inside as soon as they’ve caught our eye.

Once up the hill, we guide the chariots to the courtyard. Eury, who must have seen our approach, stands at the entry to the yard with two men dressed in olive green tunics and hardened leather chest plates embossed with crossed swords. Military dress for the vigiles of Ares’s polis.

“Herc, Iolalus,” Eury greets us with false warmth as we step out of the chariots. We must look like monsters ourselves. Herc is covered in his own blood, and Lerna’s scales have scraped me from chest to calf. To top off the effect, my tunic is tatters and my feet are caked in dried mud and half shod in unlaced boots.

Herc and I haul the skins from the chariots, piling them at Eury’s feet. After dropping the final one Herc says, “Your delivery, Excellency. Consider this task complete.”

Eury’s false smile transforms into a vicious grin.

“I don’t think so, cousins.”

“We destroyed the serpent and took her blood as you asked,” I protest. My arm twitches, ready to punch Eury in the face.

“You didn’t complete it. Remember, I was watching. All of Portaceae was watching. Seems the real hero of the day is that cameraman. He dealt the final blow, not you.”

I lunge toward Eury, but Herc grabs hold of me.

“So we die?” I ask struggling against Herc’s arms. “We do this, we kill that poor beast and we still die. You’re a bastard.”

“No,” Eury says, his face composed but wary. “I think our cousin still holds that title. Now, I’m busy. Go back to that house of frigidity and get cleaned up. You’re disgusting.”

“And our lives?” Herc asks.

Eury turns. He raises his eyebrows and curls his lips in a condescending sneer.

“Are still in my hands.”

12

E
URY

After watching my cousins ride away on their ridiculous chariots, the Areans test the weight of the skins and open each one to sniff at the contents as if I might be trying to pass off water as hydra’s blood. They then step aside, whispering to one another. I try to decipher the actions of their fingers and gesticulations as they go back and forth calculating what the poison might be worth. Finally they return and announce they’ve settled on a price of two million drachars. The amount staggers me, but, picturing how Baruch holds himself, I maintain a bored expression as if I use that number of drachars to wipe the soil from my ass after spending time on the chamber pot.

Once we drink a toast to seal the deal and the Areans leave, I abandon my false good mood and storm up the stairs to the Gods’ Room. My nose throbs the entire climb as if it will burst from my frustration. As I pass the second floor landing, Adneta calls to me from the bedroom and even she can’t alleviate the pounding hatred in my head for my cousins.

I wrench on the knob of the Gods’ Room door. It slips under my sweaty palm so I grip it with both hands and try to turn it.

Of course it won’t budge, you idiot. She’s not in there. Not when you need her.

Enough of waiting for her. This time she can come to me. I pound on the heavy wooden door so hard I feel the latch rattle in the lock.

“Hera!”

I pace the landing, yelling her name and driving my fist into the door with each syllable.

I’m through with this task business Hera has devised. It makes no matter that I won’t be able to use Herc any further. If I’m careful, these two million drachars can certainly keep Adneta in jewels, silks, and perfumes for years.

Who will I send under first? It should be Iolalus. Hera would like that. She’ll enjoy watching Herc suffer behind the bars of a jail cell knowing he’s killed his flame-haired protégé.

A crackling sound from beyond the door jerks me from my thoughts. A cold light emanates from underneath the door. When I try it again, the handle turns freely and I burst into the room ready to argue. The room is filled with moonlight although no moon shines through the windows. Hera stands in the center of the space in a gown that also appears to be made of moon beams.

“You could ask nicely when you want to see me,” Hera says as she slinks toward me. The sight of her hips swaying under her silvery gown stirs my raging blood.

Gods, if only she would take a mortal lover.

There is no sense in her loyalty to Zeus who seems to possess a need to bed every beautiful woman he lays eyes on. If I could take her on the floor at this moment I would have her panting my name before the second thrust.

“I’m too angry to do anything nicely.” I ease closer to her until I can feel her breath on my skin. “If that interests you in any way.”

She tweaks my nose and steps away without taking her gold-flecked eyes off me.

“We’re married. You know the laws regarding adultery. Now, I assume you have a reason to beckon me other than to seduce me.”

“I’m through with this. He’s gaining—no,
they’re
gaining popularity. Only two tasks in and Portaceae City was near to rioting this evening. And I think the vigiles might have let them.”

I will never admit it, but the scene in the arena had driven chills through me down to my calf-skin sandals.

When the cameraman closed off the final wound on the monster’s neck, the crowd became a volcano of cheers for all of the men on the screen and spewed insults toward me. The vigiles stood by as the first tier of the audience rushed onto the floor of the arena heading straight to the tunnel that would take them to my staircase, to my royal box. The vigiles did nothing to block the hoard and some dared to hand over their own short swords to arm people as they swarmed by.

Thankfully, high wages and free use of the brothel has purchased loyalty from my guards. Stationed at the tunnel’s entrance, they saw what was coming and, at the final moment, barred the door. Several people were crushed as the crowd slammed into the barrier. Only then, only when the people trampled over a line of dead and broken bodies did the vigiles act to quell the mayhem. Not to protect me, but to protect the people.

The worst part was the scene had been witnessed by my Arean visitors. During the carriage ride back to the villa, I could feel their eyes on me, judging me as they tried to suppress amused grins. I hold no doubt that I could have gotten more for the blood had they not seen me as weak thanks to the fury my cousins had ignited in the crowd.

Once safe in my villa, I ordered a curfew effective immediately. Anyone caught outside their homes or even peering out their windows when my cousins arrived would be subject to laboring in the sewers for a minimum of thirty days.