by Eliza Raine
‘Excuse me,’ she said as timidly as she could.
The woman turned towards her, still holding the heavy tarp. ‘Hang on,’ she said, and wrestled the sheet down to the ground, where she began tucking the weighted ends under the wooden feet of the stall. When she had finished, she stood and faced Evadne, dusting her hands off on her long skirt. ‘What do you need?’ she asked.
‘Well, you see, I’ve heard that the first of the events is being held here,’ she started. She was trying to sound innocent and young.
The woman cocked her head at her. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘To rid us of the Nemean Lion.’
‘Exactly. And I would so love to get a glimpse of the heroes. Do you know where they might end up?’
The woman frowned. ‘Are you asking me where the lion is?’ she said.
‘Erm, well, I guess that is where they’ll all end up, so, yes,’ Evadne smiled.
‘Girl, you take us for fools. I know who you are.’ Evadne’s smile vanished. ‘You’re on the crew of the Hybris. And I’ll be damned if I’m helping that murderous captain of yours. I hope she eats him,’ spat the woman. ‘Now you’ll excuse me.’ And she swept away from her closed-up stall and into the throng of people in the market square.
Evadne clenched her fists and took a breath. Well, she reasoned, she had learned two things. Hercules was not as popular as he thought he was, and the lion was female. She resolutely schooled her face into a calm expression. She’d keep talking to people until she had enough information to take to her distracted captain, and then she’d make him listen.
The fourth person she stopped to talk to was a harried-looking male satyr. He was the only one of his race she had seen so far, and she knew satyrs had a reputation for succumbing to flirtation, so she had high hopes as she stepped in front of him. He looked up in annoyance and she smiled. He looked less annoyed.
‘Is there a reason you’re in my way?’ he said to her gruffly.
‘Oh, yes. I hoped you might help me.’ She made her voice sound girlish and grinned.
‘What do you want?’ He sounded cautious, and his horns twitched as looked her up and down.
‘Well, I wondered if you knew where I might find the heroes of the tournament. I just want a glimpse of them,’ she said hopefully.
He snorted. ‘They’ll all be eaten, girl, just as everyone else who’s tried their hand at slaying her has. You don’t want to see that.’ He tilted his head up to see her face better. She was at least a foot taller than he was.
‘The lion is female then?’ she asked.
‘Usually. But she can be anything she wants to be. That’s why pretty young things like you shouldn’t be sniffing around this sort of thing. She’s dangerous.’ Evadne pretended to look shy at the compliment. The goat-man shifted the bag on his back. ‘Why don’t you come along to my friend’s taverna, down by the docks. Maybe you can see the heroes from there, if they dock at Port Nemea. I hear Hercules already has.’
‘He has?’ She sounded delighted. ‘What if he’s already found the lion?’ Now she tried to look worried.
‘Pah! She’ll have found him more like. I heard he’s just her type, womanising and immoral.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Evadne, the youthful innocence slipping from her voice slightly.
‘The Nemean Lion is a creature of Hera’s. Sure, she says she’s out of control, but that’s nonsense. Hera created her, and she does her bidding. The lion lures single young men with no intention of marrying to their deaths. Does that sound like something the god of marriage would want to put a stop to?’
Evadne shook her head slowly.
‘I shan’t be on Cancer any longer than I can help it, I tell you,’ the satyr ranted on. ‘No fun at all. You’re the only girl I’ve seen on her own in three days! Not that I’m desperate or anything, you know. Just would be nice to have some female company.’ He stopped, and Evadne realised he was waiting for her to agree.
‘Er, I’m sorry, but I have a friend that I really should find.’
The satyr’s face fell. ‘A male friend?’ he asked.
She gave him an apologetic smile. Not just a male friend, she thought, as she began to hurry back towards the docks, but a single one with no intention of marrying. Evadne had a horrible feeling that Hercules may have come across the Nemean Lion sooner than he had intended.
19
For the second time, Lyssa noticed that the earthy smell of the forest was changing. It was nowhere near as nasty as the rotten smell of the harpies, but she wouldn’t go so far as to say it was pleasant. They were well past the harpy camp now, and if the dockmaster had been right, then they would find the lion’s lair soon. Lyssa was fed up with the claustrophobic feel of the gloomy forest, and like the bad smells, the humidity only made the feeling worse. Sinewy roots pushed their way through the moist earth, winding their way across the forest floor. They looked like veins. She thought about the cool, open space of the deck of the Alastor, flying through the skies, and clung to the memory.
‘What are we looking for?’ asked Phyleus as he wrestled with a low bough covered in prickly leaves.
‘A cave or big tree hollow, I assume,’ answered Epizon.
‘How do you know we won’t miss it?’
‘I’m guessing that a flesh-eating lion will leave some fairly obvious traces of its existence,’ said Lyssa, throwing him a look. ‘Can’t you smell it?’
Phyleus took an obvious sniff, and Lyssa shook her head.
‘We’ve got some work to do on this one, Epizon,’ she said.
Epizon smiled. ‘You don’t say. Seriously though, Captain, we’re close. The smell is stronger now, and—’ Epizon cut off abruptly. He gestured for them to get down, urgency on his now-serious face.
All three of them ducked down, hidden easily by the haphazard boulders, mouldy trunks and enormous plants that made up the forest floor. Lyssa’s heart started to pound as she heard the distinct sound of someone else forcing their way through the unrelenting trees. They crouched silently, time stretching as the sounds grew closer. She could hear a slight muttering now, and it sounded female. That meant it was a local, or Evadne from Hercules’s crew. There were no women on the Orion, and the Virtus wasn’t here. Her throat restricted slightly. If it was Evadne, Hercules wouldn’t be far away.
The woman’s voice became clearer, and they all crouched even lower as the trees to their right began to move a little, then a lot, as a figure pushed through. The figure was still ten feet away from them, but they could see well enough. Lyssa’s mouth fell open in surprise.
A girl no older than herself, with flaming-red hair, was dragging a huge, muscular man dressed in black across the forest floor. The man must have been unconscious or dead, because when she couldn’t pull him through the undergrowth, she was lifting him by the waist of his trousers and heaving him over obstacles like a ragdoll, all the while cursing him for being so heavy. Lyssa stared, agape, at the man’s lifeless form. It was Hercules.
20
Hercules moaned softly as he woke. His head hurt, a lot. He didn’t usually get headaches. His vision was blurry as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. A tingle of panic crept over him as he realised that he didn’t know where he was. He swallowed down the panic before it formed fully, and reassured himself that he was in control of himself, wherever he was.
Where had he been? He closed his eyes again, the blackness easier to deal with. He had been in the taverna with the pretty redhead. He had told her he would spend an hour alone with her if she would show him where she thought the lion’s lair was, and she had agreed, enthusiastically. It was hard for an unmarried couple to be alone on Cancer, so she had told him to meet her near one of the larger estates near the forest edge, on the far side of the residential region, and then she had slipped away. He had waited long enough to finish his wine and gone after her.
He screwed his eyes shut tighter, willing what happened next to present itself. His head throbbed again and he suppressed a groan. All he
could remember was a peacock’s face, alarmingly close to his, as he lay on the ground. He took a long breath and opened his eyes again. They cleared quicker this time. He started to sit up and found he was in a very large, very comfortable bed. The bed was in the centre of a stone room with no windows, lit by candles on shelves all around the edge of the circular space. It was clearly set up for romance and he relaxed. It was obvious that he was in a room used for secret trysts, so it was highly likely he was where he was supposed to meet Gata. He couldn’t understand how he had gotten there though, or what had happened to him on the way.
‘Gata!’ he called loudly.
‘Hercules!’ He heard her before he saw her, and twisted to look back at an archway to the left of the bedhead. His eyes widened momentarily when he saw her, and he let out a long breath. She was completely naked as she stepped through the doorway towards him. Her red hair fell about her freckled shoulders, and she was beaming at him. ‘I was worried about you,’ she said, reaching him.
‘You were?’ he muttered, his gaze fixed on her body.
‘When that awful man attacked you, I didn’t know what to do. I’m just glad you were already so close to my home.’
‘Attacked me?’ said Hercules, his eyes snapping to hers. ‘Who attacked me?’ He sat up straighter and noticed absently that he had no clothes on under the sheets either.
‘Just some man, shouting about you not winning the Trials.’ She shrugged. ‘But you’re here now.’
Hercules frowned and moved his hand to his head. ‘How did I end up unconscious?’ he asked, feeling for a wound. It took a lot to knock him out. In fact, he’d only ever known one man to do it. Suspicion and anger surged inside him.
‘That doesn’t matter now,’ said Gata, and she took his other hand, guiding it to her.
Hercules was distracted by the feel of her soft skin for only a few seconds. His being rendered unconscious by an unknown assailant was more than he could bear. He pulled his hand away from her.
‘I must know who did this, and how!’ he demanded.
She threw her hands in the air and gave a shout of annoyance. ‘Gods, I did! I drugged your wine, you imbecile!’ Hercules stared at her. ‘You may be pretty, but there’s not a lot going on up there is there?’ She tapped the side of her head mockingly. Her girlish tones had fallen away, replaced by the harsher tone of a much older-sounding woman.
Shock was slowly giving way to anger, and Hercules’s hands clenched into fists. The muscles in his legs and chest tightened as he prepared himself for violence. Excitement began to rush through him.
‘Who are you?’ he asked quietly.
She stepped back from the bed and raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Surely you’ve guessed by now,’ she said. As she spoke, her red hair grew around her, both in length and volume. Hercules growled and sprang to a crouch in the huge bed. ‘It’s a shame I’m going to have to kill you so soon. You’re the nicest-looking man I’ve had here for years. I really did want to have some fun with you first.’ She smiled, and it was no longer the giddy beam that the young Gata had been giving him before. It was a cruel smile, under hungry, narrowed eyes.
Adrenaline coursed through Hercules, and his muscles twitched as he maintained his rigid crouch on the soft mattress. He needed to be ready for anything. Her red mane had grown down over her shoulders and around her neck and stopped changing, but now her chest was morphing, along with her arms. Hercules watched, transfixed, as the beautiful girl’s body distorted and transformed, finally followed by her face. Her petite, freckled nose lengthened, and her eyes widened and spread. Her mouth merged with the growing snout, and sharp white teeth flashed as she flexed her morphing jaw. As her front legs thudded onto the floor, she shook her head, the fiery mane now framing the head of the most magnificent lion Hercules had ever seen. She must have been five feet tall at the shoulder, her head probably level with his own if he was standing, and she pawed the stone ground with claws almost the size of his hands. He looked into her golden eyes, and though the colour had changed, he recognised the girl he had been with in their flashing excitement. She roared, an earth-shaking sound that sent shivers through his taught body, and he smiled.
‘You’re still beautiful,’ he told her. She dropped into a tight crouch. ‘And this is going to be my greatest victory yet.’
She pounced at the same time that he leapt from the bed.
21
Lyssa didn’t know what to do next. They had let the girl get as far ahead of them as they dared, then followed the sounds of her dragging the heavy body across the crackly forest floor. She had reached a decent-sized clearing and crossed it, Hercules’s body leaving a smear though the muddy, leaf-ridden ground. She had reached a big boulder on the other side of the clearing and crouched down. The rock had a gaping mouth extending a few feet off the ground, and Lyssa had guessed it was the entrance to underground caves. They had watched, hidden behind a mossy fallen trunk, as the girl had hauled her dead-weight burden down into the tunnel. When they hadn’t seen her emerge and they could no longer hear her, they had crept out from their hiding place and moved cautiously into the clearing.
‘Could she really be the lion?’ asked Phyleus. His usually impassive face looked conflicted as he eyed the tunnel entrance.
‘Phyleus, come on. The dockmaster said the lion was female when she wanted to be. It seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it?’ Lyssa said. He still looked doubtful. ‘What? You think because she was small and pretty, she can’t be dangerous?’ Lyssa’s eyes flashed as she spoke accusingly. ‘How do you think she was dragging around a guy the size of Hercules? More to the point, why was she dragging around Hercules?’ She put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath. ‘Gods, I hope she’s killed him.’
Epizon appeared from around the other side of the boulder. ‘There’s no other way out that I can see, Captain,’ he reported as he rejoined them.
‘If she is the lion, shouldn’t we hide until we know how to, well, kill her?’ said Phyleus. He stumbled slightly when he said kill her.
‘Probably. Any ideas? On how we kill her?’ said Lyssa, making her way back to the fallen trunk. She had barely touched the tree when the sky above them darkened.
All three of them looked up, instinctively fearing harpies. The last thing they needed was to be given away by those gross flying brutes. Worse still, if they ended up fighting, they would waste valuable time and energy. She wasn’t even sure Phyleus could fight a harpy. It would certainly be a good test of his skills. But the cause of the sudden block in light shining through the forest canopy was not harpies. It was the enormous hull of a Zephyr-class ship.
‘Shit,’ said Lyssa. She reached for her slingshot at the exact same time Epizon slipped off his heavy coat. ‘Phyleus,’ she began, but as she looked at him, she realised he already had his own slingshot out. She had expected him to look panicked, but his face was focused, his bright eyes fierce.
The three of them moved closer together until they were back to back, weapons ready. Lyssa’s heart pounded as the ship hovered for a few moments more, then soared away, letting the light stream back into the forest.
‘They were just dropping off,’ muttered Epizon.
‘How did they find the lair?’ hissed back Lyssa.
‘Same way we did, I imagine. Asking people,’ he answered.
‘Why didn’t we just hover over the forest and drop off?’ asked Phyleus.
‘Our longboat is barely usable; we’d never have made it down in one piece.’ Lyssa was worried. If the giants were here, and Hercules was alive down in the lair, then they no longer had the advantage of time.
The trees opposite the cave entrance began to shake, and the crew of the Alastor turned as one and pointed their weapons at the disturbance.
One by one, three giants stepped into the forest clearing.
22
Eryx had a lot of respect for his captain, but diplomacy was not one of his strong suits. The tiny girl who captained the Alastor had dropped her wea
pon and had her arms out in a gesture for her crew mates to do the same. Eryx thought that if they knew what was good for them, they would keep their weapons exactly where they were. The black-skinned man on her left looked like he could do some damage with the glinting knife that he was holding in both hands.
‘We know that the lion is in her lair and that Hercules is in there with her, probably unconscious or dead,’ Lyssa was saying. ‘We think it would be best to let her kill him first. One less competitor to worry about.’ She tried to smile.
Antaeus gave a deep growl. ‘That man and his whole crew should be dead,’ he snarled. ‘They tricked us!’
Eryx winced. He’d hoped that wouldn’t be shared, especially not with a crew they were competing against. Eryx was in the line of trees at the clearing edge, out of sight. He had been told he was not to come out unless he was told to. He was being punished for falling for the girl’s trick. The stupid, sweaty brothers Albion and Bergion were flanking his captain and, to be fair, doing a good job of looking threatening.
‘They’re not good people,’ Captain Lyssa was agreeing.
Antaeus folded his arms. ‘How do we know when she has killed him?’ he asked. He was twice her height and only a few feet in front of her. She was craning to look up at him. Neither of her crew members had put down their weapons. Eryx stayed poised in the trees, ready to defend his crew mates if they needed him.
‘I don’t know,’ the girl admitted.
Antaeus snarled again and took one long stride to the edge of the clearing. He bent his knees and wrapped his arms around the wide tree in front of him. He bellowed as he stood again, tearing the tree from the ground. He could barely fit his arms around it as he carried it to the cave entrance. He threw it down and the ground shook, leaves and branches cracking under its weight. Laid on its side, the trunk of the tree was nearly five feet tall, much taller than the cave mouth. As he began to shove the tree against the tunnel entrance, Eryx realised what Antaeus was doing. He was trapping both the lion and Hercules in the cave.
