The Trials of Hercules (33 page)

“Um, no,” the cameraman says unconvincingly. “I'm here to share your deeds with Portaceae. They've missed too much for me to back down now.” The view swings around again to Altair's long face. “People of Portaceae, you owe me one.” The view changes back to Herc.

“And where is your trusty companion Iolalus? Plenty of girls want to see him on the big screen too.”

Several eyes from the audience look up at Iolalus. His cheeks turn as red as his hair, but he gives a confident wave that earns him a cheer.

On screen, Herc pauses, the wry smile creeping up again. He stares directly into the lens and I feel as if he’s looking straight into my own eyes.

“He's guarding a precious object I'm already missing.”

My eyes duck away from the screen and my face blazes as hot as Iolalus's had a moment ago. After the fluster, perturbed resolve pulses through me. Herc can't continue like this and the matter must be settled on his return.

We watch as Herc enters into the territory of Diomedes—a region that is neither polis nor kingdom to our north in the land dividing Portaceae from the polis of Helena. Despite being the middle of the day and sunny in Portaceae City, fog drapes over distant trees and shrouds the surrounding hillsides in grey.

The view changes to Herc's back as he and Altair travel on an unpaved forest path wide enough for only a single horse. As the trees thin, they’re replaced by jagged stones that spread out as far as the camera can fit into its view. Many of the stones nearest the path stick straight up in needle-thin projections. One fall, one misstep, and the landscape itself could kill a person who dares to travel through it.

With the forest behind them, it’s as if the area has consumed every color of life and every scrap of beauty. Instead of low-growing ground cover, ferns, or fields of wildflowers, skeletons of thorny shrubs litter the stony landscape. Eventually the fog lifts, but the sky remains covered in a thin layer of ashen clouds.

“Who chooses to live in a place like that?” Iolalus asks reflecting my own thoughts.

The path widens and Altair rides up alongside Herc. As they approach a stone house, the surrounding stones and pathway transition from jagged daggers to flat angled slabs stacked over one another like a pack of cards discarded by a giant. As the horses gingerly make their way over the stones, the camera angles wildly followed by the hollow bang of rock hitting rock.

“You okay?” Herc asks.

“It's not exactly the easiest surface to get a horse over.”

From behind the house the camera picks up the snorts and cries of angry horses.

Herc dismounts and walks to the door of the house with Altair following close behind keeping Herc in focus. Before Herc has the chance to knock, an old man jerks open the door. The man appears about seventy but is not unkempt or stooped. His silver hair is combed back, a fresh tunic is cinched at his trim waist, and on his feet are familiar knee-high leather boots. At his neck dangles a peacock charm

“A vigile,” Iolalus says in a hushed tone.

“What d'ya want?” The old man asks with not even a fraction of a welcome in his voice.

“Hera protect Portaceae,” Herc says in greeting.

“No she doesn't. It's why I don't live there no more. Now, what d'ya want?” He fires a stern look to the camera. “What is that thing?”

“I want your horses,” Herc says ignoring the question.

“He's asking?” I whisper.

“It worked with Frederic.”

“You don't want those things. They'll eat you alive and then beg for more.” He waggles a stump of a wrist at Herc to emphasize his point. “They can't be tamed and they don't want to be tamed.”

“Any horse can be tamed,” Herc counters. The old man gives a mocking snort and rolls his eyes.

“Not the way I trained ‘em. Unless you've got some extra human flesh you're hoping to get rid of, you can't subdue them.”

“Why would you train them like that?” Herc asks.

“Keeps most smart people away. Now, the beasts haven't eaten in a few days, do you want to have a look closer at ‘em?”

“I'm good here,” Altair replies.

“How much do they eat?” Herc asks changing his tone from judgmental to conversational.

“One person will satisfy them. They quarter their kills. Amazing ornery critters hate people but treat each other as equals. But just 'cause they're satisfied don’t mean they won't still attack. Satisfied does not mean stuffed. It takes at least three people for that. Closer look, then?”

“Please,” Herc agrees. A worried groan sounds from behind the camera. Altair keeps Herc and Diomedes in his view as they walk around the house.

“He can't be that stupid,” Iolalus says. “What's he up to?”

I can't respond. I can't even blink.

“We could use steeds like yours in the fight against the Areans. I’d like to learn to train a few of Portaceae’s horses to have a similar taste for blood. How did you turn them into carnivores?” Herc asks as Diomedes ushers them around the back of the house. Herc watches each step the man takes and places his foot in the same spot. Altair sways a few times when he misses the balance point of the unsteady slabs sending the stones tilting and clattering back into place as the view wobbles sickeningly on the screen.

“Started 'em when they were born. Took ‘em from Poseidon's own herd and gave 'em blood instead of milk. Later I switched 'em to rat meat. Ran out of rats right quick. I beat 'em so they'd hate men and fed ‘em the flesh of trespassers. It don't take long to destroy the nature of even the best bred animal. After they've eaten is the only time they can be dealt with. They’re still mean as a hornet's nest, but if you're quick, you can get a bridle on 'em.”

“It's wrong to beat an animal,” Altair says, his voice filled with unconcealed hatred.

Diomedes turns back, his face lit with amusement. “Well, they don't know no different so they don't know it's mean.”

My stomach lurches and I want to run back to the stables to my own silver mare, to pet her, and give her an apple and new straw bedding. I wonder how my old mare and the other horses taken from the Herene stables are doing under Eury's care, but know even if their tending isn’t as good as what they received under Cy, it won't be anywhere near as bad as this man describes. Even if our city is a ruin, Portaceans treat animals like gods themselves.

Not far beyond the house is a corral with posts that somehow have been set into the rocky landscape. Inside are four horses that, despite the streaks of scars across their backs and rumps, look healthy and prance about with their hooves clipping against the stones that bang back into place as the horses dance across them. From the way they repeatedly canter over the same spot to recreate the noise, it appears as if they enjoy the sounds they’re making.

“Do they have names?” Herc asks.

“The cream one is Blondie, the white one is Shine, the pinto is Blaze, and the roan is Trouble.”

When the horses hear their names coming from Diomedes's lips, they stop their game and charge toward him. Making a sliding stop, they halt only inches from the fence. Their eyes bulging with ingrained fury, they rear and snort at their master.

Diomedes bears a pleased grin on his face like a father watching his child receiving a school honor. “Hate these animals and they hate me. Yeah, curse on you too, ya ugly nags,” he shouts.

Altair pans to Herc possibly looking for his reaction to the sight of the horses. But Herc's gaze is focused on something at the far end of the corral. The camera follows his look and zooms in. A rail post at the far edge of the corral tilts, possibly from being knocked into during the horses' game or from a recent quake.

Herc strolls slowly around the corral. Diomedes follows as Herc continues asking questions about the ages of the horses, their parentage, what other training they’ve had, and other horse-related small talk until they near the bad post. All the while, the horses have traced their steps like mountain lions stalking the two men. The animals communicate in huffing whinnies that sound eerily like growls. Herc stops and angles his body in a way that causes Diomedes to turn his back to the post to face his guest as they speak.

“He shouldn't fall for that,” Iolalus comments.

“What?” I ask and then realize I haven’t checked Eury’s box since Diomedes appeared on screen. I flick my gaze there now. Still empty.

“What Herc's doing. It's a trick you learn in vigile training. You keep the person focused on you so they don't notice the obvious. Typically, the obvious thing is another vigile waiting to take the person from behind by surprise. Then, you shift your body so it’s angled just the right way to have you facing your partner. Since people naturally want to face each other when talking, the person you’re after will turn their back on the hidden vigile to keep facing you. They’ll be so worried you might be trying to trick them, they forget to guard their back. Herc doesn't have an extra vigile. He has that sketchy post and those horses. Still, this guy should know better.”

As if Iolalus's words have been spoken into Diomedes's ear, the man's stern face dawns with the realization of his mistake. He narrows his eyes at Herc and makes a move to step away, but his timing isn't quick enough.

Blaze stretches his neck as far as it will reach. With a gaping chomp he bites into the flesh of Diomedes's upper arm. The man tries to jerk away, but the horse sinks its teeth in deeper as Trouble's head reaches through the bottom rail of the corral and latches onto Diomedes's ankle.

Although I feel as if every sound has been sucked from my lungs, the crowd in the arena screams in a horrifying pitch. I throw my hands over my ears and am certain that the noise of the audience’s terror must be loud enough to reach the top of the Solonian Hill.

Herc slowly backs away from the scene. Altair has already taken five paces back and each clatter of the rocks under his feet makes the audience, myself included, jump.

Blondie charges over to Diomedes, pushing her way between the two stallions and presses against the skewed post with her head. Once, twice she shoves. On the third time it collapses onto Diomedes pinning him under a portion of the fence. The wood rail scrapes against Trouble's muzzle and he backs away neighing angrily. Shine prances through the opening left by Trouble, rears up, and comes down with his front hooves on Diomedes's head. Diomedes's screams stop instantly, but the noise is quickly replaced with the horses' wild whinnies of excitement. Blondie and Shine lick up the mess oozing from the crushed skull as normal horses do when given a comb of honey.

Diomedes is right, the horses do quarter their kill and they take no time mourning their tormenter. Trouble, the largest of the four, drags Diomedes out from under the railing. Once the body is free, each horse grasps a limb with its teeth and then backs away, pulling the carcass taut as it hangs above the ground like a gruesome awning. Another backwards step brings the flesh-crawling sounds of ripping tendons and popping bones. The crowd releases a collective gasp of horror and some women duck their heads into their men's shoulders to avoid the sight on the screen.

Another step and the body, now longer and looser than before, begins tearing along the skin at the shoulders. The next step breaks the body apart and the horses stagger back after the sudden release sending the slabs of stone tilting and crashing back into place. They quickly recover from their falter and each snatches up the nearest piece of Diomedes, tossing the flesh in the air and playing with it like cats with mice before settling into their meal.

The camera angle tilts to the ground and the arena is filled with the sound and sight of Altair vomiting.

“Sorry you had to see that, ladies and gents,” Altair says in a queasy voice.

The horses eat and, as Diomedes said they would, seem to mellow as the scraps of their cruel owner disappear. The shreds of the tunic and belt he had worn litter the corral, but otherwise the horses have eaten everything, even the man's boots. Herc waits at the edge of the corral. After a time, the horses droop their heads and sway slightly in a glutton's slumber.

Herc steps into the corral. Worried faces fill the audience and one person shouts, “Get out of there!” Herc eases his way to the tunic and tears it into four strips. Approaching Trouble, who opens a lazy eye but then slides it closed again, Herc gently wraps the animal's bloody muzzle with one of the strips. The horse stirs, setting off another gasp from the crowd, but seems not to mind the binding of his mouth.

As Herc nears Blondie, shouting fills the arena. I jolt, scanning the screen for what I might have missed then jerk my head to Eury’s box. Still empty. It takes a moment for me to realize the yells aren't coming from the audience, but through the speakers spaced around the arena.

“There, in the control room,” Iolalus says. “The microphone in there must be on.”

“Turn it off,” commands a familiar voice.

“The people want to see it. They deserve—” An older man's voice with an Athenian accent is cut off by what sounds like someone pounding a piece of meat.

“Turn it off,” grunts Eury.

“Yes, Excellency,” a younger man says, his voice trembling with fear.

“And you,” Eury yells as another punch smacks across the sound system. “Treason to disobey me.” Another wet pounding sound. “Open the windows. Traitors need to be dealt with.” The large window of the control room swings open as the screen turns black.

“Excellency, no, he's a good—”

The words of the younger voice stop abruptly. The crowd lets out a collective gasp of shock as a body flies from the control room window. Someone falls from the same height as the box I’m sharing with Maxinia and Iolalus. As he falls he flails his arms as if he might suddenly be given the gift of flight.

But the gods refuse to bless the man with wings. In a whooshing thump, he crashes face first onto the sandy floor of the arena. His body gives a jerking twist and then shudders into death. Iolalus is on his feet at once. I hurry after him as he dashes down the stairs, calling vigiles to him. From out of nowhere several vigiles heed the order and race with us up the stairs to the control room.