Timothy Boggs - Hercules Legendary Joureneys 03 (2 page)

Agatra harrumphed. "Of course he's a toad, dearie. He's a man, isn't he?"

Peyra blinked. "No."

The Harpy sighed. "I know he's your husband, child, but be honest with yourself—he's still a man."

"No." Peyra reached into the pouch. "I meant what 1 said." She held out her palm. "He's a frog!"

Agatra looked, squinted, frowned, and nodded. "Be damned, you're right. He
is
a frog. Ugly, too. Who ever heard of a yellow frog?'

Frogs, when faced with a predatorial bird the size of a Harpy, either dove instantly into whatever water happened to be around and held their breath for several days, or they froze. Men, when faced with Agatra, froze. Men who used to be men but now were frogs did the only thing they could do—they rolled onto their backs and played dead.

Agatra looked at the frog lying on its back in Peyra's hand, looked at Peyra, and said, "I think, dearie, you'd better explain."

Then her stomach rumbled, and the frog may or may not have quivered a little.

The Harpy cleared her throat. "Sorry. Haven't had lunch yet."

Sensing the possibilities, Peyra hastily slipped her husband back into the pouch, composed herself, and said, "Well, it all started with this man who said he could pull a dinar out of a little boy's ear."

Sometimes even the best of days were spoiled by the ominous, and not always coherent, muttering of signs and portents.

A gentle sun and an eye-pleasing blue sky could be marred by the dark shadow of a circling hawk, a hunting eagle, or a vulture on its way to claim carrion for its own.

A comfortable breeze that caused the leaves to whisper and the grass to stir could carry on its back the muffled cough of a thief lurking in a thicket, or the rustle of a wolf making its way toward unsuspecting prey, or the smell of a flower that had no business blossoming in that season.

The shadows under a tree could, to the ordinary man, be nothing more than shadows; but to an extraordinary man, they could be subtle signals of approaching doom.

Hercules did not consider himself to be an extraordinary man.

That he was strong and powerful could not be argued, but that was because he was a son of Zeus, not because of any weight training he had done other than tossing a few bad guys around. Neither did he think he was particularly ugly—or particularly handsome, for that matter—and he was therefore constantly surprised when women were drawn to him without even knowing his name. He didn't complain; he was just surprised.

And the gods certainly knew he wasn't the luckiest of men.

Consider the afternoon.

Originally he had intended to head up to Thrace, a place he hadn't visited in quite a while. Enjoy life without the hassles. Sleep. Eat. Hunt. Fish.

In other words, relax.

Adventures, unfortunately, kept getting in his way, and by the time he was free to return to the plan, he realized that it would be close to winter before he reached his destination. That meant tromping around a bunch of bare rocky mountains being pummeled by heavy snows, and strong winds cold enough to freeze the snakes off a gorgon.

Not even remotely his idea of proper relaxation.

His alternate plan, conceived just this morning, had been to drift south and west, visit a few friends, put his feet up and let the days slip by without once having to stop a war or unseat a dictator or save someone from someone else determined to end the first someone's life for purely selfish reasons.

All in all, it was a good notion.

Signs and portents had no place in it.

When they elbowed their way in anyway, he couldn't help but wonder if maybe it wasn't time to put the always available emergency plan into action: find a deep cave, furnish it, roll a huge rock in front of it, and sit there for a few weeks, enjoying the peace, the dark, and the distinct absence of adventure.

The problem was—aside from the fact that there wasn't a cave handy—he wasn't the kind of man who could ignore those signs. And portents.

He sighed deeply—and loudly, in case anyone was listening and wanted to give him some pity— in resignation.

At first he wasn't sure he had heard anything at all.

Strolling through the lightly wooded forest had been uneventful thus far. Birds sang, tiny critters scuttled, the breeze blew, the sun warmed him, the road was clear and well marked, and he was at peace.

Until he thought he caught the sound of clanking metal.

A slight frown while he listened, a quick shake of his head when he decided he had been mistaken, and a complete rejection of the sound as a sign were all he needed to continue on his way.

Until he heard it again.

That was the problem with lightly wooded forests: sound carried. Especially the kind he didn't particularly want to hear.

When he heard it a third time, coupled with what could only be someone yelping in pain, he broke into a swift trot that quickly brought him around a bend in the road.

Another problem with lightly wooded forests was that you could see things in the distance.

In this case, two of the large, brightly decorated covered wagons the Athenians called caravans, each drawn by a pair of decidedly unhappy horses. On the one closest to him a man stood at the opening in back, swinging a short staff at a pair of men who, unfairly, were swinging long swords back. Beyond it, a second pair of men seemed to be trying to kick at something hidden under the caravan's bed.

The four thieves were hindered by a number of things, not the least of which was the horses, who reared, shied, sidestepped, and otherwise caused the heavy caravans to lurch and jerk, thus spoiling the aims of all involved.

For the briefest of moments Hercules thought the travelers would prevail. Until the horses hitched to the second vehicle decided to bolt. They couldn't, but the abrupt forward movement was enough to pitch the man in back to the ground.

The thieves cried out in triumph.

Hercules sprinted up the road, reaching the melee just as the fallen man raised his staff to block a blow and found it sliced rather neatly in half.

"Ha!" said one of the thieves.

"Help!" the fallen man cried.

"Sure," Hercules said.

The two thieves whirled, gaped, and might well have chosen a hasty retreat had not Hercules decided not to give them a choice. He grabbed one under the chin, heaved him off his feet, and pitched him into a nearby bush which, by the sound of the landing, was somewhat thorned. The second used the interlude to stab at Hercules' stomach. The trouble was, the stomach wasn't there when he finished his lunge, and he looked up pleadingly beneath a thick mop of curly hair just before he, too, was given flight.

The fallen merchant gasped his thanks.

Hercules nodded and hurried to the front wagon, where the remaining thieves were still kicking at a bundle of clothing huddled behind one tall wheel.

The clothing yelped.

The thieves laughed.

Hercules cleared his throat.

The thieves stopped laughing, turned, and one of them snarled, "Who are you?"—even as he drew a dagger from his belt.

Hercules spread his arms to prove not only that he was not carrying a weapon, but that his arms were considerably thicker, and stronger, than the thief's.

It was a silent warning.

The thief looked at his partner and grinned as if to suggest that this had turned out to be more fun than they had planned. The grin slipped away, however, when he noticed his partner backing away. "What's the matter with you, Chicus?" he demanded.

Chicus pointed a trembling finger. "I know him, Sid, I know him."

"So introduce us, dear brother," Sid answered with a nasty laugh, and a nastier wave of his dagger.

The second thief swallowed hard. "That's He paled. "It's ..."

"Hercules," Hercules offered calmly.

Chicus nodded, blinked, and probably would have escaped into the woods had he not, in spinning around to flee, slammed into the high rear wheel and fallen flat on his back.

Sid, who was gap-toothed with a broad black mustache, then uttered a word which, in mixed company, would have probably gotten him lynched, and decided that flight was perhaps the wisest of choices after all.

It was, although probably not the kind of flight he had hoped for, as Hercules snared him by belt and scruff, hoisted him overhead, and tossed him easily into the two men near the second caravan, who had huddled together in an effort to come up with a plan to help their friends, and pluck out a few thorns.

The three went down in a symphony of grunts and moans, one that changed quickly to "Hey, knock it off!" and at least one "Yike!" when the merchant began to flail at them with his half-staff.

It wasn't long before they ran-stumbled into the woods, soon followed by their recovered partner.

Once the thieves were gone and clearly not about to return, Hercules shook his head in disappointment.

Men like that were giving thievery a bad name. And they were brothers, too.

The merchant, puffing a bit, leaned heavily against the wagon's gate. "Thanks," he managed to say.

Hercules shrugged modestly. "My pleasure. Are you all right?"

"I think so, yes. More surprised than anything. They were hiding, you see. We weren't prepared." His expression hardened. "Should have been, though. After all this, we should have known it would happen."

Hercules didn't understand, and didn't pursue it. Utterances like that, when questioned, were the kind that almost always got him into predicaments. Instead, he took a step back and stared at the wagon.

Both vehicles were of a variety he had seen only a few times before. Each bed was enclosed by thin walls and a rounded roof. The walls were aswirl with painted flowers, images of gymnasts, tongues of fire, what might have been a roaring beast, and curlicues that ran like vines around the edges.

"Here," the merchant said, beckoning.

Hercules looked in the back.

It was crammed with at least a dozen large chests, each wrapped in chains.

He whistled silently. "So what is it? Gold? Silver?"

The merchant shook his head with a laugh. "1 wish. No, friend, they're props and costumes."

"Yours?"

The man grunted. ' 'Gods, no. The wagons are the only things that belong to me."

"You're not in charge?"

"Bite your tongue, sir, bite your tongue." He held out a hand in greeting. "My name is Flovi. Flovi Zigfalius."

Hercules gripped the offered hand, noting as he did that the man was a lot stronger than he looked.

Flovi was nearly as tall as he, and obviously lean despite the flowing brown robe he wore. His face was dark and lined, like that of a man who spent a great deal of time in the sun; it was marked by large gray eyes and a thick gray mustache that drooped past the corners of his mouth.

Hercules gestured toward the caravan. "I still don't get it."

Flovi opened his mouth to answer and groaned softly instead. Hercules caught him as he sagged against the gate, and eased him to the ground.

"Sorry," the man said, wincing. "I guess they caught me, after all."

Hercules spotted the rent in the cloth first. It was under the man's left arm, and he could see the faint stain of fresh blood. Flovi hissed when Hercules separated the tear, fearing the worst and puffing out a relieved breath when he saw that the gash was shallow, more ugly than lethal.

"Nothing serious," he announced.

"Worse luck," Flovi muttered.

Under the man's direction Hercules found a cloth in the wagon, tore them into manageable strips, and dipped it into a barrel of water lashed to the wagon's side. After cleansing the wound, he bound it snugly and helped Flovi back to his feet.

Another groan made him frown. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Flovi sighed. "That wasn't me."

Which was when Hercules finally remembered the bundle that had yelped when the thieves kicked it.

Rolling his eyes in disgust for forgetting, he returned to the lead wagon, hunkered down, and looked under it. "Are you all right, friend?"

The bundle shifted, and a muffled voice said, "I'm dying. Dying, and nobody cares."

Hercules' eyes widened.

No, he thought, leaning back and shaking his head in dismay; please, gods, no.

He poked the bundle.

The bundle moaned.

Flovi came up behind him and said, "We could leave him there and nobody'd be any the wiser."

"Traitor," the bundle snapped. "After all I've done for you."

Flovi checked the area of his wound. "Oh, yeah, I forgot."

Hercules stood and nudged the bundle with his foot. "Get up. You're not hurt."

"I'm not?" the bundle exclaimed indignantly. "How can you say I'm not hurt? I could ... I could be..."