Timothy Boggs - Hercules Legendary Joureneys 01 (4 page)

Hercules leaped from the pallet, stopped at the door when Dutricia yelped, and turned just in time to see her slip to the floor. He ran back, helped her up, apologized, and ran out again, following the boy down the dark stairs to the inn below.

The room was empty.

He hurried outside and stopped again.

The square was lighted by a score of torches lashed to high poles. Long tables had been placed around the perimeter and were already laden with food and drink. But the party was over before it had begun.

Nikos, club in one hand, stood on the lip of the well, shouting instructions to at least two dozen lightly armed men. The carts and wagons had already been drawn across the gap. A handful of women were filling buckets with water in anticipation of fire, and Lydia was well into the task of rounding up loose children and herding them into the streets toward home. The urchins, this time, didn't mind obeying.

Hercules trotted over to the well and tapped Nikos on the leg.

"Raiders?"

"We're doomed!" a man cried from the shadows.

Nikos directed six archers to the roofs on either side of the gap closed by the carts. "Zorin, I'm afraid,"

he said gravely.

"Zorin?"

Nikos stared. "What, you've never heard of him?"

Hercules shook his head.

For several months, the innkeeper explained quickly, a band of raiders—nay, a veritable army of raiders—led by a mysterious man named Zorin had been roaming the kingdom and its neighbors despite King Arclin's best efforts to stop them. Stories of death and destruction, stolen livestock and kidnapped women, were staples around hearth and bar. And fairly effective for keeping problem kids in line. Although Markan had thus far been spared Zorin's wrath, most people believed it wouldn't be long before they too were hit.

"Doomed!" the shadow man cried.

"Looks like tonight's the night," Nikos concluded ruefully. He pointed over the carts. "They were spotted on the road." He rubbed his hands together. "But we're ready for them."

Hercules looked at the streets that led off the square. "Nikos, I don't want to disappoint you, you've obviously worked hard, but what's to stop them from coming in from the other sides?"

Nikos seemed shocked. "You're kidding."

"No."

"They'd really do something like that?"

"Yes."

Nikos pursed his lips. "Pride," he answered after a moment's careful consideration. "The stories say they're so bold, they never come through the back door. Why should they when they never lose?'

Hercules studied the other routes again, not caring for the prickling at the back of his neck. "What if the stories are wrong?"

"Doomed, doomed, doomed!" cried the shadow man.

Nikos nodded. "That about covers, it."

At which point one of the archers waved and yelled, "They're coming!"—and the square fell instantly silent, save for the hissing of the torches, and the whispered ' 'Doom' of the shadow man.

If the stories were true, however, Hercules suspected that all this preparation would be for naught. The villagers might gain temporary advantage, but temporary, in cases like this, usually ended in disaster.

He thought quickly for a moment, then hurried over to the barrier and stared out into the night.

He could see them, marching boldly down the center of the road.

As far as he could tell, there were only nine or ten of them, perhaps a dozen, marching two abreast.

They were heavily armed and heavily armored, at least three of them with feathered lances. Torchlight flared off silver studs on helmets and tunics, and the sound of their boots on the hard ground was like the steady beat of a war drum. Each carried a shield wrapped in hide, which, he knew, was designed to hold, not ruin, whatever arrows came their way.

There were more.

He knew it.

Out there beyond the reach of the light was the rest of the band, however big that might be. These men would be used to test the initial defenses, confident that their losses would be minimal. From the way the villager defenders fidgeted, from the way he saw one archer up on the right struggle to nock an arrow, he reckoned Markan didn't have a prayer, no matter what god or goddess happened to be listening.

Still, he couldn't help wondering ... always the front way? Always the frontal assault?

This was more than arrogance born of skill and success.

This was ... he frowned . . . downright spooky.

The raiders halted not ten feet from the cart-and-wagon wall, and a clean-shaven man with a horned helmet took a step forward, his unsheathed sword hanging loosely at his side. He lowered his shield and tapped the sword against it.

"You in there," he called sternly. "You don't have to die, you know."

Nikos had moved to the center of the makeshift wall, where two wagons had been backed against each other. He stood at the narrow gap between the wagons' rear wheels. "Then go away."

The bearded raider laughed. "Not likely, my friend. We've come a long way. We want, uh, food, drink, women ... and, oh yes, all your money. We get that, and we promise not to harm you."

"And the village?" Nikos asked, sweeping a hand behind him.

"Oh." The raider shrugged. "Well, we'll burn that down, of course."

The Markans growled.

The raiders laughed.

Hercules vaulted smoothly into the wagon before him, put his hands on his hips, and said calmly, ' 'No one gets hurt, nothing gets burned."

The leader gaped, looked at his men, looked back, and grinned. "And who says so?"

"I do."

"And who are you?"

"A friend," Hercules answered before Nikos could.

Again the raider grinned. "Well, listen. .
.friend ..
. why don't you go back where you came from and let me and the guy with the big nose do all the talking. My boys are getting restless."

The boys growled.

Nikos growled, albeit not as effectively as the boys, and swung his club.

Hercules only smiled a little regretfully. "Just leave, all right? I promise you, you don't know what you're getting into."

The leader scowled. "What? Are you threatening me with a bunch of farmers and shopkeepers?" He peered at Hercules. "And a guy who can't even keep his shirt buttoned?"

"Uh-oh," Nikos muttered.

Hercules didn't lose the smile on his lips, but the smile faded from his eyes. "One last chance."

"Oh," the leader said, "this is boring. The hell with the talk."

With a great shout he charged, his men directly on his heels.

Immediately, a shower of arrows filled the air from the rooftops, most of them missing, the few that struck their targets doing so harmlessly. Rocks flew. Villagers braced themselves. The leader reached the center of the barrier and scrambled between the wheels.

Not fast enough, however.

Hercules reached down and grabbed his left arm, yanked him off his feet and into the wagon bed. As the others reached the wall and began to shove the carts and wagons apart with an ease born of practice—and carts and wagons that weren't all that heavy to begin with—Hercules hoisted the leader over his head, turned, and flung him effortlessly toward the well.

Meanwhile Nikos had brought one raider to his knees with a well-aimed blow to the shoulder, while the other raiders were busily bringing the villagers to their knees with the flat sides of their swords.

"Keep an eye out there," Hercules called to the archers. "There may be more."

"More?" It was the shadow man. "Double-doomed!"

Hercules jumped from the cart and grabbed the helmet of a passing raider. The raider ran on, Hercules smiled and sidearmed the helmet, whistling it through the air, catching the raider square on his naked skull.

A third man rammed a stunted club into Hercules' back. He gasped and stumbled forward, half turning as the raider thrust his sword toward his neck.

The sword never made it.

Nikos snapped it with his club, then transferred the momentum up and under the raider's chin, sending him off his feet and onto his back.

"Thanks," Hercules said.

Nikos looked at the fallen raider and said, "Wow."

The rest of the battle happened so quickly, Hercules barely had time to register the jaws struck, the bodies that flew, or bounced, or both, and the blows he himself took, most of them harmless and the others merely pesky.

Within a few minutes the attack part of the raid was over, and the villagers had won.

What raiders hadn't already been wounded or belted unconscious formed a loose protective circle around the well, facing outward, and already a half-dozen Markans lay at their feet; in the firelight their blood sank blackly into the ground. It was clear to Hercules that they believed they would easily be able to stave off any further village assault until the rest of their band arrived to rescue them.

He also knew there was little time left. The Markans were brave, but they just weren't warriors.

As another wave of villagers tried to break the raiders' defense, he turned back to the "wall," inspected it quickly, and discovered a fallen lance beneath one, caught under a wheel the largest, heaviest wagon.

"What are you doing?" Nikos asked.

An archer tried to pick the raiders off, and was picked off himself.

His scream was swallowed by the night.

Hercules tugged at the lance, cursed when it wouldn't loosen easily, and grabbed hold of the wheel's thick spokes; he lifted, muscles swelling, eyes partially closed.

A young man rolled on the ground in agony, clutching a gash in his shoulder; another knelt before the raiders, his hands pressed tightly to his stomach.

The wagon protested loudly, creaking, then shrieking, then groaning as it rose, just enough for Hercules to nudge the lance aside with his foot. When he dropped the wagon and stepped back quickly, the axle split and the wagon collapsed.

"Sorry," he said, and picked up the lance, held it in both hands, and turned.

"There're too many," Nikos said, worried.

"Watch," was all Hercules offered as he advanced cautiously on the well.

Nikos waved the rest of his men into a charge.

The raiders braced themselves while their leader stood on the lip and snarled, his sword sweeping back and forth. He muttered something then, and Hercules suspected he knew what it was.

A moment later the man jumped from the well, his men forming a wall that pushed toward the carts, and the freedom beyond.

The villagers were knocked aside like high grass before a great wind.

Hercules charged as well, the lance held lengthwise in front of him.

He stopped abruptly and snapped his arms out, releasing the heavy weapon, which struck the front four raiders squarely across their chests, knocking them off their feet. He sprang over them to face their leader.

The raider didn't stop his charge or change direction. His sword lifted, and he swung his shield. Hercules blocked it with his left forearm, grunted at the impact, and ducked when the sword chopped at his head. Lashing out instantly with his right leg, his foot caught the man's knee and tumbled him face first into his men.

Within seconds the villagers had pounced, snatching weapons away, using whatever came to hand to pound the surviving raiders senseless.

When it over, and it was over quickly, there was another silence.

This one, however, was soon puncutated by the groans of the wounded, the pleas of the dying, and the muffled weeping of the women who had come to the site to tend to the fallen.

Hercules wasted no time.

He ordered the attackers doused with water to bring them around, then ordered three, including the leader, to be bound hand and foot. The others he ordered chained together at the wrist after stripping them of their armor.

"I don't get it," Nikos said, following as Hercules led the survivors toward the road.

"We're letting them go."

"What?"

"They'll go back to this Zorin and tell him what happened here. One man might be accused of cow-ardice, and lying to save his own skin. So might two. But these miserable ..." He nodded in disgust at the seven strung out behind him. "These will be the truth."

"But what are they going to tell Zorin?" Nikos wiped his face and stared in surprise at the blood he saw on his palm. "He'll just bring his whole band back to get revenge, and we'll all be dead anyway."

"No," Hercules said.

He dragged the men to the road, grabbed the first in line by the throat, and said, "You heard?"

The man, bruised and cut over one eye, nodded fearfully.

Hercules nodded, and lowered his voice. "Then you tell him this, too,
friend.
You tell him this village has my
protection, do you
understand?"

The man nodded again, so hard his teeth clacked.

"Oh, yeah?" The second man, who seemed to have lost one ear, sneered. "So who the hell are you?"

Hercules stood in front of him, grabbed his shoulders, and yanked him so close their noses nearly touched.

"Hercules," he said tightly. "You tell this Zorin it's Hercules."

No one said a word.

Hercules stood aside and jerked a thumb. Immediately, the line began to move, stumbling weakly along the road, cursing, complaining, until they vanished into the night.

"You know," Nikos said after a few moments, "you're scary when you're mad."

Hercules looked at him. "Believe me, Nikos, you haven't seen me when I'm mad."

Slowly he returned to the square, and felt sick at what he saw. Too many had been injured, too many had died. It was evident that the tales about Zorin's raiders understated their brutality, if this is what only a handful of them could do.