Hercules (3 page)

“Well, gentle Copreus, I thank you for the information. It’s always good to know the worst about your enemy; then you won’t have any unpleasant surprises.”

“Good hunting,” said Copreus.

“Thank you again. And my best wishes to your royal master.”

Hercules turned and loped off. Everyone stared after him in amazement.

Hercules had learned archery from the centaurs, who did it differently from ordinary men. Bowmen of the time used short bows and drew the string only to their chest. But the centaurs were so long-armed and powerful that they were able to use an enormous bow made of ash strengthened by stag horn; their arrows were as long as spears. When a centaur notched an arrow, he drew the bowstring back past his shoulder, bending the bow almost double, shooting the arrow with terrific force. And the young Hercules was soon outshooting his teachers. He was able to send his bolts through a stone wall three feet thick.

He carried that bow now as he started for Nemea to hunt the lion. But he had no spear. He knew he would have to make his own, for ordinary spears were too small for him. He searched the river shore until he found an old boat, half-covered by reeds. Its hull was smashed in, but its mast was still good. He broke the mast off; that was his spear shaft. He didn’t want to use a leaf-shaped spearhead, which made a large wound. He needed something with a needle point if he was to have any chance of piercing the lion’s armor hide. He found an old iron spike and drove it into the end of the mast. Then he sharpened the spike against a rock, flaking the rust away, until it was needle-sharp. As he went along, he practiced throwing the spear at trees and didn’t stop until he split an oak with a single cast.

But he wasn’t satisfied even then. “With my centaur bow, I can shoot an arrow through a stone wall,” he said to himself. “And split an oak tree with my new spear. But it seems I’m to meet some very terrible creatures, beginning with this lion, and, if I’m not lucky, ending with this lion. I’m quite large for a person, it’s true, but these monsters make me seem the size of a mouse. So I can’t depend on strength alone. No, I’ll need cleverness and speed.” And thinking about how swift he would have to become, he began to run. He ran as fast as he could, then faster yet. He found himself running so fast, and enjoying the speed so much, that he didn’t want to stop even when he saw the wall of a ruined temple looming up before him. He rushed at the wall, planted the butt of his huge spear on the ground, and vaulted. He hurled himself up, up. The mast bent under his weight, then sprang up. He stretched his arms and flattened his body and rode the springing shaft over the wall.

Once he discovered vaulting, he couldn’t stop. He kept running. He vaulted rivers and huts. He loved it. It was like flying. He was enjoying himself so much that he was surprised when he saw a river, and beyond the river, a mountain and knew that it must be Mount Nemea, where the lion hunted.

The sun was sinking. The mountain threw a blue shadow. “This is the right time of day,” he thought. “Lions hunt early and kill before evening. He will be heavy with food now, and perhaps a little slower. Who knows?”

He heard something roar. A savage deafening roar. “I was wrong,” thought Hercules. “He still sounds hungry.” He crouched behind a rock, waiting for the lion.

Then he saw it come. Smoothly, heavily, it came. Its hide was yellow and its mane was black; its teeth were a deadly white grin. He couldn’t believe its size. It was as big as an elephant. It roared again, and the shattering sound was like being hit by a club. It came on and on: pure yellow murder.

Hercules took an arrow from his quiver and put it to his bowstring. The huge bow bent double as he drew the arrow back past his ear, past his shoulder. He held the bow bent, waiting for the lion to come closer, then loosed the arrow. It sang through the air, struck the lion’s shoulder, and glanced off, without leaving a scratch. Fast as he could move, he snatched arrows from his quiver and shot them. One by one he saw them skid off the beast. The lion shook its great head and yawned. Hercules could see its ivory teeth glinting and between them the black hole of its gullet looking like the mouth of a cave big enough to swallow him, his bow and arrows, and the rock he was hiding behind.

He tossed his bow away, drew back his spear, and hurled it with all his might. It skidded off the lion’s head and split a tree. The lion looked after the spear, swiveled its head, and looked toward the man. It prowled closer, so close that Hercules gagged on the rotten-meat stench of its breath.

Hercules was weaponless. He leaped away and ran toward an oak tree, grasped its trunk near the base, and pulled. Up came the tree, roots and all. The lion was coming too. Hercules raised the uprooted tree like a club and smashed it down on the lion’s head. The tree broke to splinters.

The lion struck. Hercules sprang away, but not in time. One claw touched his tunic, ripped it to tatters, and ripped the flesh underneath. Unarmed, naked, bleeding, Hercules ran toward his spear. The lion sniffed at the bloody cloth, then raised its head and calmly watched as Hercules ran uphill. The man knew that as fast as he was running, the beast could catch him any time it wanted. But he kept running, for he couldn’t do anything else.

Now the lion was following. The spear grew heavier and heavier as Hercules ran, and he wanted to throw it away, but he didn’t; it was his only weapon. The lion was gaining ground at every step. Hercules dodged behind a huge rock and drove his spear deep into the earth behind. Then he planted himself and pulled back on the shaft, trying to lever the enormous boulder out of the ground. The spear bent, but the rock did not budge. And the lion was getting very close. Hercules pulled on the spear; the muscles of back and shoulders writhed like serpents under his bronze flesh. He was breathing red-hot needles; he could hardly see; the rock grew misty. The shaft tried to pull out of his hands as he bent it, but he wouldn’t let go. Down, down, he pressed. The spear was bent like a bow now; his hands almost touched the ground. Blackness swarmed in his head; he could do no more. “Zeus help me,” he gasped. He made himself draw one more breath, thrusting with his arms, pressing the end of the shaft into the earth, and finally, not quite believing it, felt the rock move.

This tiny movement was joy. The joy became strength. Strength fought with pain, and pain was winning. Now he lay on the spear, flattening it against the earth with his body, using his hands to push the rock. The huge rock leaped out of its hole like a cork out of a bottle and began to roll downhill, flattening bushes, going faster and faster, straight for the lion.

The lion saw it coming. It leaped away but not quite fast enough. The rock hit the beast, bowling it over. Hercules, seeing the lion on the ground, was filled with new energy. He became a blur of motion. He pulled the spear out of the earth and charged downhill. Holding his spear like a vaulting pole and running full speed, he planted the butt of the spear and leaped. The springy wood bent, then sprang up terrifically, flinging him into the air. This time, he didn’t let the pole drop. He held on to it and turned it at the top of his leap, then fell holding it point-first.

The lion crouched on its haunches, forepaws raised, ready to rend the falling man with its talons. Hercules struck as he fell. With all his strength, all his joy, and all his fear, he drove the spear down as he fell toward the lion’s face. And drove the spike into the only part of the beast not covered by its armorlike hide—the eye. Deep, deep, the spike pierced into the murky brain.

Writhing in agony, the beast flailed with its paws. And Hercules, dodging, felt his back being raked again by the razor claws. But he didn’t care, because he could watch the monster, snarling, frothing, dying.

He climbed to his feet and stood over the lion. He was panting. He had fallen heavily; his whole body felt like one bruise. And now he bled from many wounds. But he felt no pain, just a great singing joy.

His task, however, wasn’t quite done. He had been commanded to bring the lion’s hide to the king. But the hide was armor; it couldn’t be cut by any blade—or, perhaps, only by one. Hercules lifted one of the great paws and studied it. Then he snapped off a claw. It was as big as a hunting knife and sharper than any knife. Using it as a knife, he flayed the lion, rolled the hide into a bloody bundle, hoisted it to his shoulder, and limped downhill toward the river.

He was so tired now that he was dizzy and could hardly make it to the river. But he kept on because he had to cleanse himself before he slept, wash away his own blood and the lion’s and treat his wounds with the herbs as Chiron had taught him.

T
HE KING HAD ORDERED THAT
relays of horsemen be posted every twenty miles to the border of Nemea. “Because,” he told Copreus, “I want to know without delay how Hercules fares against the lion … so if the monster is slain, we can thank the gods for a great victory.”

But Copreus knew the king really wanted to hear that Hercules had been killed, not the lion.

And it was Copreus who got the news first. He was in the courtyard when a horseman galloped through the gate. “Good news!” he cried. “Shepherds in Nemea have found vultures feeding on the flesh of a huge carcass. Its hide is gone, and its head, but it must be the lion, for nothing else could be so big.”

“Yes,” said Copreus. “That’s very good news. You deserve a reward for riding here so fast. Why don’t you dismount and take the news to the king yourself?”

But he hadn’t finished the sentence before the messenger had wheeled his horse about and galloped out the gate again. Copreus was not surprised. Everyone feared the king and tried to keep as far away from him as possible. “I’ll have to go tell him myself,” he thought. “And I’ll be lucky if I come out with my head on my shoulders.”

But Copreus was clever. He was the only one who knew how to handle the king at all. He went into the throne room and said, “Oh, king, the people of Nemea are calling you their savior. And they are preparing rich gifts to thank you for sending someone to rid their land of that monster.”

“What monster?” cried the king. “The Nemean Lion?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“It’s dead?”

“Its flayed body was found on the mountain.”

“So it must have been Hercules who killed it.”

“No one else, your majesty, but the young man you were wise enough to choose for so dangerous a task.”

“He’ll be coming back here!” cried the king, shuddering. “He’ll insist on seeing me this time. I won’t! I won’t! I won’t see him! Copreus, listen to me carefully. I want a big hole dug right into the courtyard, deep as a well, but wider. And I want paving stones so cut that they will fit over this hole and make a lid, hiding it completely. And I want it furnished like a room, you know, very comfortably, and well provided with food and wine. For, if Hercules ever comes through the gate, I shall enter that pit and stay there until he departs. See to it, man! And if everything is not done exactly as I have described, and very quickly, you shall pay with your head.”

“I shall do as you wish, your majesty. But would it not be simpler to lock the gate against him as before and station troops outside?”

“Of course I want that done too, you idiot! Try to use your head while it’s still on your shoulders. If he can kill that monster and take its hide, what’s to stop him from tearing the gate off its hinges and strolling in as he pleases? Do as I say. Dig my pit, furnish it, then go lock the city gate and post troops outside. And be there yourself to meet him when he comes.”

“That won’t be until the day after tomorrow, at the soonest. It’s a two-day trip from Nemea.”

“Good. That will give Hera time to think of something else for him to do. I hope she can come up with something really fatal in two days …”

The next morning, the king summoned Copreus and said, “Hera appeared to me last night and brought a new task for Hercules. You are to meet him beyond the gate and transmit these instructions.”

Copreus listened silently as the king told him of the next labor facing Hercules. As he listened, he felt his bones turning to jelly. “I’m done for,” he thought. “When Hercules hears me describe this next monster, he’ll squash me like an ant. And if I refuse to take the message, the king will call his ax man, and my head will roll. Either way I’m a goner. The king will kill me today, or Hercules will do it tomorrow. Well, I might as well give myself one more day.”

So all he said when the king had finished was, “Yes, your majesty.”

But when he returned to his apartment in the castle, he knelt on the floor and wept. For he did not wish to die—either that day or the next.

“Don’t cry,” said a voice.

He scrambled to his feet. It was his niece, Iole. He hadn’t heard her come. She moved very silently, this child, and seemed to appear without approach, like a cat. In fact, she was quite a bit like a cat: slender, graceful, very quick, with black bangs and big green eyes.

“Don’t cry,” she said. “You’ll be all right. I’ll tell Hercules about the Hydra.”

“How do you know about that?” he shouted.

“I know …”

“You’ve been eavesdropping again!”

“I have to. Nobody tells me anything.”

“You silly little hellcat! Do you know what the king would do to you if he caught you hiding in his throne room listening to secret conversations?”

“He never notices anything; he’s too busy with himself. Anyway, I’m very hard to see if I don’t want to be seen. And that old throne room is full of shadows.”

“But what do you mean,
you’ll
tell Hercules?”

“Just what I said. I’ll do what the king told you to do. I’ll meet him outside the walls and tell him he has to kill that dreadful thing.”

“I can’t let you do that. He’ll be very angry when he hears what he has to do.”

“I’m not afraid of him.”

“You’ve never seen him.”

“Oh, yes I have. I saw him when he first came. I sneaked after you and was hiding behind the gate.”

“Well then, you know how big he is.”

“Yes … and how kindhearted. He won’t hurt me. He likes children.”