Chapter 42
Hedone
Even the acrid smell of sulfur is barely registering as I watch Hercules, utterly transfixed. He looks like a living god as holds the colossal, glowing red sword in front of him. He doesn’t flinch as the monster approaches. In fact, he seems to grow.
His perfect frame is clad in the lion skin.
My breath catches as the beast hisses and Hercules raises the sword.
The head on the right darts down, and the one on the left moves above him.
He swings the sword in an arc high over his head, warding off the tongue that shoots out from above, and then brings the blade crashing down on the other neck.
There’s a loud clank as the weapon makes contact.
Hercules falters, and Theseus draws in breath next to me.
“Was that…” he murmurs, frowning and squinting through the gloom.
“Metal?” finishes Psyche, standing on his other side.
We’re far enough out of the canyon that the mist has lifted, but we’re still well away from the swamp. Theseus is not a man who rushes into a situation without a plan.
“He’s doing well,” observes Psyche. Pride wells in me, though I know I have no right to it.
“Yes,” answers Theseus, still quiet. “That’s quite a weapon.
It’s called Keravnos, and Aphrodite was worried that Zeus would hand it over to him at some point.
” I watch the glowing sword as it moves with Hercules, rolling and swiping and clashing as the two serpentine heads draw back and snap forward again and again.
He’s magnificent, a being of sheer strength and power and force. Just imagining being his to protect makes my heart swell painfully.
Suddenly, he’s still, crouched low to the ground, and cold clutches at me in place of the longing.
Is he injured? I crane my neck forward, trying to see more. One of the horn-rimmed heads lowers fast, the strange tendrils hanging from its jaw writhing as they near the ground.
“I think the tendrils are like a cat’s whiskers—they feel for things its eyes cannot see,” Theseus muses. “Interesting.”
With a burst of energy that makes me jump, Hercules launches himself upward, higher than the creature’s head.
As he leaps over its shining neck, he brings his blade down.
The red glow intensifies as it makes contact with the scales, and an even louder clang rings across the swamp.
Then the blade is sinking through the beast’s neck, and I can just hear the triumphant roar coming from Hercules as he lands hard on the ground.
The sword has gone clean through, and the totally severed head rolls across the ground.
I can make out his smile as he lifts a booted foot and kicks the head toward the swamp. The red light in the serpent’s eyes fades as it rolls toward the inky liquid.
“It is metal!” exclaims Psyche, pointing.
The exposed stump of the creature’s neck is flailing around, bashing into the roaring second head, and I can clearly see that there’s no blood, just silver metal that’s glowing an icy blue.
The third head, previously out of sight on the other side of the swamp, appears high above Hercules. He raises Keravnos in challenge.
But neither of the two remaining heads attack.
They both rise, high into the mist, their necks extended. The red eyes glow and the roaring quiets as the flailing neck slows down. The blue glow doesn’t dim, though. If anything, it’s getting brighter.
“I don’t like this,” says Theseus. I’m standing shoulder to shoulder with him, and I can feel him tense. “That light should be dying, not getting brighter. If this is one of Hephaestus’s automatons, given life by Athena, then this will not be simple.”
Anxiety grips me as Hercules bellows, “Do you fear me?” His roar fills the air, and he shakes his great sword at the two remaining heads.
The blue light is suddenly bright, so bright I have to look away. When I turn back, the metal scales on the severed neck are multiplying. They’re building on themselves, clinking as they interlock, rebuilding the neck that has been removed.
I gasp as I realize that it’s not just the severed head that is re-forming. The neck is splitting into two as it grows.
Horns are materializing before my eyes, shiny liquid metal hardening into brutal points as I watch. The snakelike head is next, the slimy-looking tendrils growing from its jaw as the vicious teeth take shape.
In under a minute, two newly formed Hydra heads rise to meet their siblings in the mist, red eyes glowing bright.
“Shit,” breathes Psyche.
“Yeah,” says Theseus.
I can’t speak. I have to help Hercules.