Timothy Boggs - Hercules Legendary Joureneys 01 (6 page)

Many miles' hard ride to the east were two mountains whose upper slopes had been scoured for aeons by the sword's edge of constant howling winds. Nothing grew there; everything that tried, died. The ground was bare rock and scattered boulders, and what little earth there was had been trampled into what felt like stone underfoot.

The peaks were jagged, slicing clouds and parting the wind.

During winter there was snow; the rest of the year there was no rain.

Animals from the fertile plain below seldom made the journey up, and birds never flew there; they took the long way around.

Between these nameless mountains was a narrow valley, so protected by them that it seemed another world entirely from the surrounding countryside. Lush grass, a stream that broke from the near vertical back slope to vanish into a pool midway along, a scattering of broad-crowned trees, and a temperature night and day that was preternaturally constant.

The only entrance was between two huge slabs of rock oddly marked by striations of white and dull red, the gap itself protected by a fifteen-foot gate of thick, unyielding wood banded in rust-pocked iron, with a brace inside made from three trunks lashed together. A quartet of sentries in fur and leather stood on a wood ledge above the gates, each with a bow and lance. A second quartet patrolled the grove of sycamore sixty yards away, down an easy slope that didn't stop until it reached the plain, nearly a mile away.

In the valley itself there were many lights from large fires, some in pits, some from torches, all reflecting off the polished stone of the north and south slopes. Midway along, near the south wall, a corral held nearly half a hundred horses; another beside it held cattle and oxen. Pigs and chickens roamed a fenced yard on the north side of the stream. There were no huts, only tents, but of these there were many.

Enough to hold a population of two hundred, maybe more.

There were no children.

There were no women.

The largest tent was at the valley's head, not far from where the mountains rejoined in a solid wall of rock.

The tent was black, all of it, from the overhang at the entrance to the pennants that flew from poles poking through the top.

It was guarded by twenty men, none of whom were without battle scars of one sort or another, all of whom would have laid down their lives for their leader.

In the tent, at the rear, was a high-backed, thronelike chair raised two steps on a dais. Both chair and dais were covered with luxuriant fur that seemed alive in the shimmering light provided by the fire burning in a huge pit dug in the center of the hard-packed floor, and by lamps hanging from the tent poles.

From the chair
,
Zorin studied the last of seven men who had been dragged before him in chains this night.

The others had been carted away after only a few easy questions. Of the dozen men who remained inside—Zorin's inner council—not a one reacted to what screams they eventually heard.

The last man, stripped to the waist, his chest and back red with welts, couldn't look anywhere but at the ground. His arms were behind him, lashed around a short pole stripped of its bark; his hair hung damply over his face.

"You were lucky," Zorin told him kindly. "It's not all my men who find travel so swift and easy."

The man swayed, but didn't fall.

Some said Zorin's hair had been fashioned from the wings of a giant raven, a reference to its color and the way it swept upward when it reached his shoulders. Some said his beard had been fashioned from the raven's breast, a reference to its color and how thick and soft it looked.

No one ever asked what had happened to the raven.

"And you say it was, what, pretty much one man, a single man who beat you?"

The man shivered as if from the cold. Except the tent was hot, the pit's fire roaring with freshly added wood, its smoke billowing through a hole in the peaked roof.

"What?" Zorin leaned forward, cupping a hand around one ear. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."

"Y-yes," the man stuttered.

"And this man. His name is . . . what?"

"Her-Her-Hercules, my lord."

"I see."

Zorin leaned back, crossed one leg over the other at the knee, and looked toward his lieutenant standing below him. "Crisalt, is this true?"

If Zorin's color was born of the raven, the color of Crisalt's hair and mustache had been fashioned from the raven's blood.

"As far we can tell, my lord. That's what all of them told us anyway."

The prisoner who had once been a raider finally collapsed to his knees.

Zorin ignored him. "And this Hercules took three prisoners, is that right?"

"That's right. There was Theo, and... let's see ..." Crisalt hesitated, closed one eye in concentration, and shrugged his apology. "I don't remember the others."

"It doesn't matter. They're dead anyway."

Crisalt agreed. "But Hercules is taking them to King Arclin."

Zorin's hand waved the point away. "Who cares?"

Crisalt agreed again.

Zorin considered the tips of his fingers for a few seconds, then rose and stepped down from the dais to stand over the prisoner. "And.. ." His voice rose slightly. "And Hercules told you to tell me that this village..." He paused, looked over his shoulder, snapped a finger.

"Markan," Crisalt told him.

' 'Yes, yes, Markan. That Markan is now under his protection, and I'm to keep my distance?"

After a long hesitation the prisoner nodded.

Zorin could see the blood drying on the man's back, could see the pattern of lashes a whip had laid across it. He crouched down and balanced on his toes, rocking slightly as he hooked a finger under the man's chin and forced his face up.

He smiled.

The prisoner
shuddered.

"And what," Zorin asked softly, "do you think he meant by that, man?"

The prisoner tried to speak, but Zorin's finger held his mouth closed.

"A threat?" Zorin frowned, but kept his voice low. "What a shame." He lifted the face higher, straining the man's neck muscles. "Do you think he knows what happens to those who threaten Zorin?"

He couldn't tell if the man had suddenly been taken by a seizure or was only trying to shake his head.

It didn't matter.

He snapped his hand up so fast, not even Crisalt could tell exactly when the prisoner's neck snapped, or when, precisely, the flesh parted at the hollow of his throat.

Zorin watched the man topple to one side, stared at the body and blood in distaste for a moment, and stood. Slowly. Making sure the others saw how annoyed he was.

How angry he was.

How enraged he was.

"Crisalt."

"Sir!"

Zorin returned to the dais, but instead of taking his seat again, he walked around to the back. To a large iron chest wrapped in silver chains.

Red light glowed from cracks in the metal.

Crisalt joined him.

"Any word?" Zorin asked as he scratched thoughtfully through his beard.

"Not yet, no."

"What do you think?"

Crisalt was the only man in Zorin's army who dared speak his mind. He was also the only man who knew when to speak his mind, and when to keep his big mouth shut.

He grunted noncommittally.

"Good point." Zorin caressed one of the silver chains.

The chest seemed to vibrate.

"Tell me something, my friend."

The only sound in the tent was the voice of the fire.

Crisalt didn't move, didn't speak. When his leader spent valuable time staring at the chest instead of planning the next attack, there was bound to be trouble. It never failed.

"Why do you suppose a man who tends oxen would call himself Theo the Mangier?"

Well, hardly ever failed.

"Self-esteem," said Crisalt instantly.

"Really?"

"It was his first time, you know, my lord. He probably needed something to build up his courage."

"Ah." Zorin nodded his approval. "Not a bad idea."

"No, my lord."

"But he did fail, didn't he?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Which means he has to die, doesn't it, Crisalt?"

"Yes, my lord."

"So tell me, my friend . . . how do you kill someone who calls himself the Mangier?"

Crisalt was stumped. Zorin's expression gave nothing away, nor did his hand cease caressing the silver chain. Not that it was all that important. Theo the Idiot would be interrogated by the king, would escape the dungeon thanks to a few well-placed dinars here and there, would come hightailing it back to the valley, and would be bloody lucky Zorin didn't pull him apart personally, limb by limb, before anyone said,

"Hello, Theo, Where've you been?"

Several minutes passed.

Neither man said a word.

Shadows on the tent's back wall crawled like snakes toward the top.

"I will tell you something, old friend," Zorin said, in a voice Crisalt had never heard before.

"I'm listening."

Zorin turned his back on the chest. "If it hadn't been for those two thieves, I would probably be shaking in my boots right now."

Crisalt couldn't believe it.

Zorin tapped the man's sternum hard with a finger. "Hercules is no man to fool with, make no mistake about it. Never, never underestimate him, Crisalt. Never." A glance at the chest. "Even with the fire, he won't be easy to kill."

Crisalt did his best to keep his face a blank.

Then Zorin grinned. "But make no mistake about this, either, old friend. He will die. He
will
die."

Hercules sat heavily on the ground, one hand pressed to his chest to make sure his heart didn't get away.

His lungs weren't working all that well, either, and it was all he could do not to pick the boulder up and smash it over the head of the man who stood before him, grinning like an idiot.

"Scared you, did I?"

"Go away," Hercules said.

"Can't. Have a message for you."

Hercules reached for the boulder, changed his mind, and sagged against it instead, hands limp on his thighs. "All right, all right. But"—he pointed sternly—"don't you ever do that again, you hear? You do and I'll pluck your bloody wings off. One by one."

Hermes, Messenger of the Gods, Master Thief, and occasional all-around pain in the ass as far as Hercules was concerned, pouted. "That's no way to talk to an old friend, is it? I haven't seen you in absolutely ages." Lithe as a cat, he sat cross-legged on a patch of grass, jamming his caduceus into the ground beside him and causing its wings to flutter in agitation. The two snakes that coiled around the golden shaft only hissed resignedly; they were used to being ignored, and treated shabbily to boot. "Why, the last time I saw you was . . . when? Oh my goodness, I can't think how long ago it was. Do you remember? It'll come to me, though. Just give me a sec, I'll bring it back."

Hercules glanced over at Nikos, looked back at Hermes, and wondered if there could possibly be a family connection. He wouldn't have been surprised.

Hermes was, even for a god, of average height, a little on the skinny side, with almost blond hair that curled gently from under his winged cap. He was also prone to fussing when he wasn't sneaking around with messages or stealing things or inventing things—like the lyre. Which, just two years earlier, he had tried to improve by adding a copper gizmo, which, when struck by lightning, would make the lyre virtually scream. The problem was, as Hermes had been the first to admit, the lightning also fried the player. One-note songs, evidently, were not destined to survive, or be popular at weddings.

Still, Hercules decided, it was good to see him.

Unlike some other gods and demigods he could mention, Hermes was basically honest, reasonably fair, and could be counted on to do as he promised.

But he was also a sartorial failure.

Tonight, for example, he had opted to match his silver, winged cap with a puffy, silver kilt that barely reached to midthigh. That wouldn't have been so bad had it not been for the pearls on the kilt, whose design—resembling a bald man with one eye—probably had some significance other than its appearance suggested.

He wore no top, neither shirt nor vest.

Hermes was also proud of his physique. Such as it was. Which, Hercules thought, wasn't much.

"What," he said, interrupting the messenger's blathering, "do you want?"

"You know," Hermes said, adjusting his cap and patting the wings thereon to calm them, "I've decided this kilt thing is a bust." He tried futilely to tug the garment in question down around his knees. "My legs, you know, deserve better framing, don't you think?" He admired them, looked up in hopes that Hercules would admire them as well, saw that he wouldn't, and sighed. "What do you know, anyway?"