HEARTDANCE

A rabbit broke cover and tore for its life across the grassy glade. Close behind a muscular blond man half ran, half stumbled, cursing and muttering under his breath, his amulet around his ear and his elbows filthy from an earlier headlong sprawl in the damp forest humus. He came to a halt at the edge of the glade, aware of the sound of the slow, steady stride coming up behind him.

"If I hadn't broken that bowstring he'd be roasting by now," he complained.

"If you hadn't broken that bowstring we wouldn't be a couple of miles off the road to Thessaly," came the amused reply. Hercules appeared through the trees moments later. "Looks like we're stuck with the last of that dried meat from Tyrus."

Iolaus groaned. "Not again. I need real food, not boot leather. There's gotta be some quail around here--"

"But Salmoneous isn't," Hercules pointed out ruefully.

"He's not the only one who can catch a quail," Iolaus retorted indignantly. "Nothin' to eat since yesterday," he muttered. "I'll catch us something if its the last--"

He paused, surprised, when Hercules took a very loud, unceremonious sniff of the occasional breeze that breathed in and out of the trees.

"Looks like your luck might have changed," he observed. "Got anything to trade for a meal?"

Iolaus rolled his eyes. "Why is it always me? You know I spent my last dinar back in Tyrus on that flower for Harmony, so why ask?"

Hercules chuckled. "That's why," he said, affection in his eyes for his friend. "We'll go visit anyway. Maybe they need something fixed, or lifted, or something...c'mon."

As they drew close they realized it wasn't a farm or a hunter's lodge or any kind of settlement. Iolaus peered through the trees at the camp. Two hides were staked out on the ground and a bow leaned against a tree with a single horse tethered to it.

"A hunters camp?" Hercules mused, but Iolaus missed the amusement in his voice, and the recognition in his eyes.

There were two bedrolls, brightly colored and embroidered, and a strong fire blazing near them with a black pot on a swinging arm hanging over it. The steam rising from the pot was the source of the wonderful aroma.

Now that they were closer, Iolaus could smell other things too. Bread was cooking somewhere, and perfume, or at least very pretty soap, hung in the air. A goatskin backpack was open next to one of the bedrolls. Iolaus could see the neck of a wine bottle poking out of it, along with bits and pieces of clothing.

"Herc', if this is a hunter's camp they won't begrudge us something to eat, and they don't seem to be around, so--" He'd taken only two steps into the camp when a great beating of wings startled both men.

Within seconds Iolaus was hanging in thin air, held in the claws of a great beast, struggling for his life.

Struggling, that is, until he realized that Hercules wasn't screaming to him, he was laughing. He stopped struggling and looked down. It was true. His best friend was roaring with laughter. Not only that but he could hear more laughter. Women's laughter.

At that moment a blur shot across the camp and impacted with Hercules' chest at great speed, after which he embraced the figure with as much vigour as she embraced him.

Iolaus rolled his eyes. "Kendaa," he muttered and looked up at the scaly body above. "Which means that you have to be Sky'ree," he raised his voice to a yell, "and that pesky Khyra can't be far away!"

Sky'ree released. Iolaus shrieked before hitting the wet humus with a resounding squelch.

"That wasn't necessary," Khyra scolded the chuckling dragon as they landed close by and she ran to her friend's side.

"Iolaus?"

Iolaus lifted his face from the rotted leaves. "You called?"

Everyone laughed. In moments he was on his feet and laughingly enjoying Khyra's enthusiastic embrace while scowling at Sky'ree over her shoulder.

To which the dragon contrived to look even more smug.

When they all turned for the fire, it was Hercules who spoke first.

"You ladies are a long way from home. What brings you so far across country on your own?"

"The queen," Kendaa replied, bending to the stew-pot. "She asked me to come alone, on a mission for her. There's trouble brewing--rumours of a new tribe of Amazons--Amazons who don't live by our rules, who may be going back to the old ways...Hera's ways. Apollena wants me to find out if the rumours are true--and if they are, to send Khyra and Sky'ree back with the news, since they can reach her in a third of the time it would take us on foot."

"A new tribe of Amazons?" Hercules repeated. "Why would Hera bother? It's over for her with the Amazons. She's got plenty of other toys without going back over old ground again."

"We don't know. We only know that the rumours are causing bad feelings between the villagers and the Amazons, and that we're being blamed for things we haven't done. I have to find out, Hercules," Kendaa told him, and handed him a plate of wonderfully aromatic stew, which he handed to the almost salivating Iolaus.

"Why doesn't your stew ever smell that good?"

Iolaus made a face and sniffed it. "Because you don't get me the kind of herbs and spices I can smell in this. Hey, Kendaa, how come I can smell bread? There's no oven around here."

She turned with a shallow, lidded pot in her hand. "Oh yes there is. I got this from a funny little man peddling kitchen utensils in Corinth last month. He showed me how to make bread in the fire." She opened it, ashes sliding off the lid and scattering on the ground below.

Hercules smiled, then chuckled to himself. Salmoneous. Had to be.

Iolaus sighed, almost in ecstasy at the smell. It didn't look that great...but the smell...

Khyra was watching him with as much amusement as Hercules was. She knew his passion for food, and how much he enjoyed catching up after short rations. She also knew something else. He was breaking the chunk Kendaa had put on his plate of stew into pieces for dipping when Khyra came to his side with a small cloth parcel. She unwrapped it carefully, the inner parchment last.

"Try this on the bread."

"What is it?" Iolaus asked, his nose wrinkled at the sight of the creamy yellow stuff.

"Something I traded from a farmer outside Mede two days ago, along with a chicken for Sky'ree. Try it. You won't regret it."

He dipped a small piece of the hot bread in the lump of yellow stuff and gingerly tasted it, his eyes lighting up as he chewed.

"This is great," he enthused, his mouth full, making everyone chuckle again. "What is it?"

Khyra shrugged. "The farmer would only say that he beat some cream too hard trying to thicken it, and that rather than waste the result he strained it and salted it and gave it to his family to eat. They liked it so much he's been working on improving it ever since.

Everyone ate with enthusiasm, and sat back afterward, sated, warm and content.

Kendaa poked at the fire with a charred stick. "Where are you bound, Hercules?"

"Thessaly," he told her sleepily.

"A wedding invitation. Nothing spectacular," Iolaus elaborated.

"Mind if I travel with you tomorrow? Khyra is going ahead with Sky'ree to scout, and to find him another chicken."

Hercules folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. "No problem."

Khyra turned to Iolaus. "You want to come with us tomorrow? We never seem to really catch up--"

"Come with you? How? I don't have a dragon..."

"No problem. Sky'ree can carry two easily. Haven't you ever wondered what the Earth looks like from up there?"

Iolaus looked dubious. "Sure," he admitted, half an eye on the now-dozing dragon. "But not actually from the back of a dragon--a smart-alec dragon at that."

"Oh go on, Iolaus. You know you want to," Hercules said without opening his eyes. "Besides, its an honour to be asked. If I'm not mistaken its never been done before."

Khyra nodded. "Before--when I was Queen, I upheld the Dragonrider's traditions. The bond between rider and dragon is a sacred thing. No dragonrider would make the offer lightly. And neither do I. Iolaus is the closest thing in my life to family--"

Iolaus smiled with genuine affection and dropped an arm around the young dragonrider, who'd been leaning easily against his shoulder for some time.

"The feeling is mutual," he told her. "I'll go, but that oversized lizard of yours better not drop me again--"

"And that undersized primord better watch his mouth," the lizard retorted without opening his eyes.

Iolaus made a face at Sky'ree and turned to Kendaa. "What exactly is Apollena planning on doing if you find these new Amazons? I mean, its not like they owe any allegiance to her or anything..."

"No," Kendaa agreed, "but if we find that they are committing atrocities, or destroying our good name with acts of violence, Apollena will declare war. And if I find that Hera is involved--!"

Hercules opened his eyes then and leaned forward to touch Kendaa's shoulder.

"You can't. Even I only just hold my own against her, and those she sends against me. If you go against Hera, you'll die..." His voice had dropped away to a hoarse whisper. "And she's killed too many people I love already."

Kendaa shrugged, her luminous green eyes staring into the fire. "We'll see."

Big fingers turned her face toward Hercules. "No, we won't," he said firmly. "Promise me you won't go up against Hera on your own," he demanded.

She searched the blue eyes, lit by the light of the fire. There was something in his voice, vulnerability, or...fear. Something, somehow, that she couldn't ignore. She touched his cheek.

"I promise," she said softly. "But it doesn't end here."

He drew her into the hollow of his shoulder. "Maybe not," he said wryly, "but until this thing is over, I'm going to be keeping a close eye on you."

Kendaa closed her eyes, militancy temporarily giving way to warm contentment. "Is that a promise?"

"Oh-h, yeah," he chuckled.

The evening drifted contentedly into night, all seemingly well until sometime soon after midnight, when Hercules was woken by something. He raised himself onto an elbow and surveyed the camp. Iolaus was asleep on his back, close to the fire--and the food, and Khyra was curled up in the crook of a snoring Sky'ree's wing. Kendaa, however, was struggling with some nightmare scenario, hands and feet twitching, breast heaving, her bedding in turmoil as she continued to thrash intermittently in her sleep. Then she cried out again.

He was there in an instant, but she was still asleep. He was about to touch her arm, to wake her gently, when she screamed. Not a full throated scream, but the kind of choked, muffled, desperate cry of nightmares. He caught her as she tried to sit up.

"It's all right," he said gently. "It was a nightmare. Just a nightmare."

She raised bleak, angry eyes to him. "I know," she croaked. "They've been my constant companion since...since..." She looked away.

But Hercules understood. She'd told him her history long ago, as long ago as the special trust, the bond, they shared had been between them.

A bleakness came into his eyes that matched hers. "And is there never anyone for you to share the horrors of the night with?"

Kendaa turned back to him and shook her head. "Not any more than there is for you," she said, articulating what they were both thinking, her face still filled with the terror and the hurt.

Hercules looked back toward the camp to the two people they each loved in their own way. "There are some things no one can really share," he almost whispered.

She nodded and turned out of his grip. "We should get some sleep."

He seemed to agree, moving away and allowing her to curl up again on her bedroll. She turned back at the muffled plop of a blanket hitting the ground. A moment later Hercules' huge form was stretched out next to hers. Wordlessly he drew her across, back against his chest, her head on his left arm, and closed his right arm around her shoulders."

She tried to move, and felt his arm tighten ever so slightly.

"Go to sleep," he murmured near her ear. "You aren't the only one who has nightmares."

After the first moment of resentment, Kendaa found that she didn't want to move. So many lonely years of independence had not prepared her for the warm protection of his arms, despite the uniqueness of their friendship.

Soon his rhythmic breathing told her that he'd drifted off to sleep, but it was some time before her consciousness was willing to let go of the child he'd managed to touch in her. In all these years she'd believed that child to be dead and gone, and in one kind gesture he'd found her, and given her the chance, just once more, to know what it felt like to be loved and protected, shielded from the shadows of the night and the cold fingers of late fall.

She found herself listening to the slow thump of his heart beating against her back. Moments after that, she was fast asleep...

Sky'ree as always, woke first, disturbing Khyra, who stretched and yawned like a kitten after a long sleep in the sun. She stopped when she heard Sky'ree chuckle.

She looked around to see a fully dressed Hercules curled up with a fully dressed Kendaa, both in a deep sleep, and smiled to herself. Not far away she discovered the object of the dragon's mirth. Iolaus had rolled too close to the remnants of the fire and his boot was smouldering. Khyra shook her head at the dragon and went to him.

She shook his shoulder gently. "Iolaus--"

"Uh?"

"We need to fix your boot."

"My boot?" he muttered, then his eyes opened wide. "Ouch! My boot!" He sat up swiftly and reached for the smoking leather. "Ahh--ouch!"

The noise in turn had wakened the rest of the camp. Hercules was now sitting up grinning, and watching his friend trying to get his--very hot--footwear off.

Kendaa stretched next to him, trying to ease a kink out of her neck where it had rested for most of the night on Hercules' bicep.

Khyra meantime, had moved to gather her things together.

"When are you leaving?" Hercules asked as she secured the roll behind the dragon's wings.

She grinned back. "When Iolaus organises his foot and both of us have eaten. Sky'ree needs to eat soon."

"Why don't you just give him some bread?" Iolaus offered grouchily, still rubbing his foot.

Sky'ree looked him up and down. "I'd rather have haunch of turkey," he drawled.

Khyra rolled her eyes, Kendaa giggled and Hercules almost blew out his sinuses trying not to laugh.

Iolaus threw the boot at him.

Sky'ree looked down his aristocratic dragon nose at the half-toasted object, his nostrils pinched.

"It would taste better than you, I'm sure, but I think I'll pass." He picked it up in a hand-like claw and flicked it to lob in a perfect arc into the centre of the glowing coals.

With a roar of indignation Iolaus dived for it with a great many exclamations and fished it, smoking once again, from the fire.

An amused Hercules turned to the still giggling Amazon next to him.

"I think we'd better organize breakfast before these two end up breaking something we can't fix."

"We?" Kendaa asked with interest.

Hercules smiled like a small boy. "Sure. I take turns with Iolaus. Unless...you'd rather wait on us hand and foot?" he teased.

Kendaa snorted. "Stir up the fire while I find us some eggs."

"Eggs?"

But Kendaa was already moving. "Eggs," she confirmed over her shoulder. She returned from her pack a moment later with a frying pan and a cane box. When she opened it there were six hen eggs in it packed in chaff. Hercules was impressed.

"Three days worth for Khyra and me, but just enough for the four of us this morning, with some of last night's bread."

Breakfast was an uproarious, enjoyable interlude, Iolaus and Sky'ree still trading insults, Hercules and Kendaa arguing about who was best qualified to scramble the precious eggs before agreeing on a joint effort, and all of them in stitches at their combined efforts to toast the stale bread on sticks over the fire.

Hercules' stick burned right through, dropping his bread into the coals. Iolaus roared with laughter, held his too close to the flames and promptly immolated it. Kendaa, in turn, laughed so hard at both of them that the jostling broke hers and it plopped into the coals and burst into flames, setting them all off again. Meanwhile, Khyra serenely produced a beautiful golden brown chunk onto which she slathered the over-churned cream, bringing groans of envy from all as they started over. Eventually the others managed to do the same, and to enjoy their meal almost as much as the preparation.

Kendaa and Hercules followed Khyra and Iolaus to Sky'ree's side when the camp was finally broken and everything packed away.

"I'll miss you," Kendaa told them, suddenly loathe to see her friends leave.

Khyra chuckled and threw her arms around her friend. "We won't be gone all that long, and besides," she grinned, "Iolaus will protect us--"

A strange wheezing, almost giggling, sound drew everyone's attention. Sky'ree rolled an innocent dragon-eye up at them.

"Oh ha, ha," Iolaus smirked and proceeded to clamber up with as much kneeing, bumping and jostling as possible, behind Khyra, who'd climbed up and seated herself at the base of the dragon's neck. The moment he settled, there was a melodramatic groan.

He made a face at the back of the scaled head, then cocked his head at his host and winked as the dragon's wings spread for flight.

"Khyra, where do I hurl if I get motion sickness?"

"Into the nearest volcano if you're not very careful," Sky'ree shot back and lifted them into the air without warning.

Khyra grinned as Iolaus' warm arms suddenly clutched her middle with almost panicked force, and waved goodbye to Hercules and Kendaa.

"Maybe this...wasn't such a good idea," he huffed into her ear as they climbed far above the forest canopy into the brilliant morning sunshine."

"Iolaus, relax," she told him. "Sky'ree will tease you, but he'd never let anything happen to you. He's honor bound to protect those who ride dragons, and those whom he allows to ride with them."

"Uh..whatever you say," he said uncomfortably, and endeavoured to look down. "Urgggh," he moaned, "its a long way down. Why is the ground moving so fast?"

"Don't look straight down, silly," she scolded, "look out at the surrounding country-side, or ahead at where we're going. Sky'ree flies three times faster than any beast you've ever ridden on the ground."

"Wow!" Iolaus exclaimed, eyes everywhere at once, fear forgotten for the time being. "I never thought I'd ever be up with the eagles. "Will you look at that, I can see all the way to the mountains, and look, that way you can see the ocean..."

Both dragon-rider and dragon grinned, this time in shared appreciation of the exhilaration of flight. Then Sky'ree wheeled towards the morning sun and took them toward whatever new adventure awaited...

It had turned into a beautiful autumn day. Kendaa had even managed to convince Hercules to ride with her on the big horse Apollena insisted she take in the interest of haste. The grey stallion, Dart, was progeny of Apollena's own stables, and one of the fastest ever of the Amazon horses.

They were deep in discussion--Hercules arms holding her secure in front of him as he guided Dart, who sauntered along at a rhythmic, almost sleepy walk--when birds were suddenly flushed ahead of them from the trees.

"Trouble," Kendaa muttered.

"Yeah," Hercules agreed, tightening the reins and gathering the big horse, who'd suddenly come alive. "But what kind?"

They moved forward cautiously, alert to any movement, the big horse prancing, as if sensing the sudden tension in his riders.

"Who's there?" Hercules demanded, when no attack was forthcoming.

At that eight or nine figures appeared, seemingly from nowhere. They all wore the same, peacock-blue masks, the sign of Hera engraved on the forehead of each.

"Hera!" Hercules growled under his breath, and only just managed to restrain Kendaa as she tried to slide off Dart before he could stop her. "No you don't," he grunted as she struggled. "Kendaa, you made a promise," he whispered forcefully near her ear.

She stopped struggling as the figures closed in.

"What do you want to do?"

"Walk away," he said simply. "But I don't think they're going to let us. If we fight, we have to watch each other's back. If we get separated they will kill you."

Kendaa half turned, searching his face. There seemed to be so much more in his voice.

"What is it?"

"Don't die, Kendaa," he replied, loosed his feet from the stirrups and leaped from the horse onto the closest pair of masks before she could answer.

Kendaa followed suit, Dart rearing up as she did so. In a split second she unsheathed her war-staff from its resting place along Dart's right flank and moved to Hercules' back. He'd knocked out the first two attackers and was spinning another over his head when one of them came at her with a sword.

They were too evenly matched in strength for comfort, Kendaa barely able to keep the other from her throat, let alone make the room to swing her staff. She was on her back, staff trapped under her, and using all the strength in her arms to hold back the blade when she realized something; subliminal clues, from body odour to bone structure, hair texture to boot size, all coming together in her subconscious.

"Hercules!" she cried. "It's a woman."

Hercules threw the struggling body in his hands on top of the three or four all ready sprawled on the ground and turned, almost panicked, his eyes haunted. He'd heard that cry before. Kendaa felt her attacker lifted bodily off her and watched as Hercules mercilessly punched it in the solar plexus after it swiped the sword at him. He took the sword, threw it away and roughly tore off the mask.

Long red hair spilled from its pins and green eyes flashed with rage. For a just a split second Hercules saw again the mark of Hera in her eyes.

"Don't work for Hera," he told her. "Trust me, its a dead end job."

She struggled twice as hard, making it almost impossible for him to hold her. Kendaa, who'd been watching from the ground, detected a movement in her peripheral vision and was on her feet in seconds.

The last few masked assailants had tried to attack while their compatriot kept Hercules busy. Kendaa waded into the attack, keeping two of them busy, while Hercules knocked down the redhead in order to deal with the third.

Kendaa had broken the shin bone of one, sending it crashing to the ground, and knocked the other unconscious with a whack in the ear when she turned, too late, to see the unmasked woman lunge at Hercules.

"Hercules!"

But it was too late, Hercules falling, a previously concealed dagger in his side, to the ground.

Kendaa screamed. Far more terrifying than a war cry, it held a note of insanity that frightened the other assailants into flight. And then she was charging Hercules' seeming killer.

The woman laughed in Hera's raucous, cruel laugh and lashed out at the Amazon, but Kendaa's war-staff was there, blocking the blow. In quick succession Kendaa struck the object of her blood-lust seven or eight times with the staff, the figure crumpling to the ground, at least one leg broken, and all limbs rendered useless.

She stood over her victim, hatred glittering in her eyes, her breast heaving with the fever of her rage. She raised the staff like a javelin, its carved end pointed at the face of the woman on the ground and drew her arm back to bring it down...

"Kendaa!"

It stopped, halfway through its arc.

Kendaa turned, barely able to see through the tears mingling with the rage in her eyes.

"Hercules?"

"Don't. She's not worth it...and you're no murderer," he managed, between grunts of pain.

Kendaa's knuckles whitened on the staff. She turned before Hercules could call out again and smashed the side of the staff against the side of the woman's head, knocking her out.

And then she was running to Hercules' side. His tunic and his undervest were soaked in blood, and there was no color in his face.

"Hercules?" she choked.

"I...I'm not going to die," he told her. "At least I don't think I am..."

She chuckled a watery chuckle, then cried some more. "Do you want me to pull it out? It seems not to be more than halfway to the hilt."

"I know," he groaned. "I think she hit a rib and deflected off. Pull it out."

Kendaa offered up a prayer to Zeus. If that was true, he might have a chance, but there was so much blood, and she'd seen enough bellies opened to know that there were organs around and below where the knife had penetrated. She prayed most of all that he was not mortal.

Then she knelt down and touched his face, lifting the many strands of hair still fallen across his eyes, and gently caressing them away.

"Hold on," she whispered.

The blue eyes, blurred with pain, looked up into hers, large fingers reaching up to brush tears from her nose. And then he smiled.

"I'll make it," he repeated, then his expression grew serious, his face reddening with sudden strain, his eyes wide with pain. "Do it," he commanded.

She took hold of the hilt carefully and lined herself up so that the withdrawal would be straight and clean. It came out cleanly, blood flooding out behind it. Hercules cried out in agony, struggled to speak, but passed out.

The blade was jagged and cruel, and the sign of Hera was carved on the hilt.

Kendaa sobbed, then threw the bloody knife as far away as she could. He was very pale, and the bleeding was bad. All she could do was use his undervest to make a bandage, and her own spare undershirt wadded up and forced into the wound, to try and stem the bleeding.

When she'd gathered up the scattered weapons left from the battle, bound and gagged the red-haired woman, and tethered Dart she went back to check on him. They couldn't stay where they were, but though a powerful woman, Kendaa was no match in size or strength for Hercules' bulk.

She sat down close to him and drew his head onto her lap, her fingers at the pulse in his neck. She was relieved to feel it beating strongly, though too fast to be normal. At least the bleeding seemed to have slowed, not showing through the yellow colored bandage yet.

It was late in the afternoon before he showed signs of rousing. Kendaa had idly lined up the four swords, two daggers and the handful of throwing stars next to her as she waited, willing her friend to live.

She was fingering some of the strange, razor sharp stars when disaster threatened to strike again. From nowhere two of the masked attackers returned.

"We want Hercules' body," they announced.

"He's not dead yet!" Kendaa protested. "Take your leader instead."

"She's dead," one of them said contemptuously.

"No she's not. I hit her, but she's just unconscious," Kendaa protested.

They shrugged. "She's dead," the other repeated. "Now give us Hercules or die."

Kendaa slid her legs from under Hercules' head and stood up, the stars still in her hand.

"And if I say go to Hades!?" she demanded. They lunged. She launched the stars, the pair flying backward from the impact and falling to the ground with the shiny metal stars stuck between their eyes.

Kendaa ran to check her other prisoner and howled with rage when all three vanished, leaving only a haze of blue smoke. She went back to Hercules, to find his eyes open.

"Kendaa?" he moaned.

"I'm here, my friend," she said softly. "We have to get you to a healer. If I help, do you think you can stand?"

The idea seemed to take a moment to penetrate his haze of shock and pain. Then he nodded. It was a very slow, agonizing process for Hercules.

When they were both finally on their feet, his bandage was soaked in blood and his color was a greenish white. He leaned heavily on Kendaa's shoulder, so heavily that she thought he was going to collapse, but he made it, with her help, to where Dart was tethered.

He was a very tall man, but there was no way he was going get his foot into Dart's stirrup, much less pull himself up.

"Wait," Kendaa commanded, untied Dart and swung him around to lead him to an old stump close by. Someone had felled the tree years before, for whatever purpose, then went back for Hercules. He managed the stump with only slightly less devastating results than standing up.

Dart, as if knowing, stood stock still while he slid a toe into the left stirrup and eased a leg clumsily over the animal's back. This time Kendaa rode behind.

She could feel the pain of every jolt Hercules suffered as they made their way to their original destination, Gola, to find a healer.

Kendaa talked to him all the way there, even when he couldn't answer, trying to keep him from slipping into unconsciousness again and falling from the horse. She told him about her childhood, about the earliest, happiest memories she'd never told anyone before, about the pain of the attack and the loss of her family, about joining the Amazons. Then she lapsed into light hearted recounting of the many mad adventures she and many of the other young Amazons had gotten themselves into before being blooded for war. At that she fell silent again, the memory of leaving Hercules' back open, of the sight of him collapsing with that dagger in his side, more than she could bear.

They were in sight of Gola when he slipped sideways. The strain on her arms, to hold him and keep him from falling to the ground and possibly doing himself mortal harm, was almost a torture in itself, but she held him between them, out of pure temper and determination. She moved the horse into the village and demanded to know the location of the healer.

A tent opened nearby. "I am the physician. Who calls me?" demanded a voice. "I don't have time for games."

"I call," Kendaa retorted viciously, her right arm almost out of its socket from Hercules' weight, his blood all down her leg. "Does this look like a game?!"

The healer, a dowdy looking man, had several even more shabby men carry Hercules into the only lodgings in the town. Kendaa paid for someone to take Dart to the stables and a room with a bed big enough for Hercules. They placed him in it.

She watched the physician work, removing her bandage and studying the wound, his face all the while inscrutable.

When he was done the wound was cleaned and dressed with herbs and moss, and rebound with clean bandages. He left powdered herbs for her to give him with water and instructions to monitor him constantly for the first twenty-four hours.

"I don't think he's in danger of bleeding to death, inside or out, as long as he isn't moved again. He seems to have been very lucky."

"You're certain he's going to live?" she asked plaintively.

The old man shook his head.

"The only thing I'm certain of right now is that he's not dead yet. A hundred things could happen tonight--the wound could turn bad, or it could turn gaseous; the knife might still have damaged something vital, or he could just die from the strain--I've lost far too many, with lesser wounds than his, that way...they go blue and clammy and their pulse goes off the scale, and then they just die," he said, shaking his head again."

Kendaa's cheeks blazed. "I won't let him die," she declared.

The doctor gave her a gallows grin. "Good luck explaining that to Hades," he drawled, and let himself out.

Kendaa stood silent for a moment. It seemed like every time her world was filled with warmth and security, the gods blew it away, and those she loved most either suffered or died...

In a little while she moved to Hercules' side, her fingers sliding into his large ones, and her eyes filling with silent tears as she watched him. For an eternity she stayed there, unmoved, waiting for a change, in his breathing, in his color...anything, but he remained as he was, seemingly in a peaceful slumber.

When the light had gone and the room was in darkness, she finally roused enough to go and find a candle. The fireplace had been laid, but not lit.

The inn was filled with travellers, and a fire blazed in the huge hearth. Kendaa moved quickly through them all to light her candle and swiftly back out again, barely aware of her surroundings.

Back in their lodgings Kendaa watched their fire blaze to life, the dried leaves and twigs crackling as it took hold, before hurrying to Hercules' side. His chest was still rising and falling in a reassuring rhythm and his face seemed peaceful and full in color.

She exhaled with relief and lay her palm on his cheek, feeling its warmth, its life, then slid it upward, her fingers reaching tenderly into his hair for a few moments. It was even more gold in the firelight, his face even more devastatingly dear in the dancing light and shadow.

They were supposed to meet Khyra and Iolaus in three days, in Thessaly. Kendaa sighed bitterly. That wasn't going to happen now...

By mid afternoon Khyra and Iolaus had almost reached the supposed territory of the new 'Amazons'. The land was lush and green, the day blue and gold, only the merest wisps of clouds in the sky.

"You know, Khyra, this is great," Iolaus said near his friend's ear, and shifted his numb butt for the third time, "but I'm really starved. "Don't you think we should think about stopping for lunch? There're farms all over the valley down there. Surely one of them would have a chicken for Smokey here?"

'Smokey' blew out a great plume of flames and smoke, indicating that there was nothing wrong with his hearing.

Khyra chuckled. "We can try. We've made good time. What do you think, Sky'ree?"

"I think...that one," the dragon replied mischievously and turned head down, wings folded back, almost diving toward the largest, by far, farmlet in the valley. Near it was a blue smudge of a lake, more like a jewel embedded in the land than a simple water holding.

Iolaus had Khyra in a death grip once again, but he said nothing as they plunged toward the ground. And then the dragon spread its wings again and turned hard for the lake and accelerated.

Khyra jumped when Iolaus suddenly whooped, not with fear, but with exhilaration. And again as Sky'ree skimmed the surface of the lake, mere metres from its sapphire waters. He made another pass, back across the lake, toward the farm buildings and came to rest behind a clump of trees a dozen metres from the outermost one, a hay barn.

Both humans slid down gratefully, stretching, Khyra like a contented cat, Iolaus in a broken, bow-legged kind of hobble.

"Thanks," Iolaus told the dragon, without a trace of irony in his voice. "I never had a ride like that before. The only way I can think of to describe it was...bitchin'," he grinned.

The dragon blinked. "Yes...bitchin'," he agreed. "I like it. Your's?"

Iolaus shook his head, still grinning. "Nope, Aphrodite's."

At that the dragon nodded, a sage, 'I might have known' expression on his face.

"A free spirit," was all he said.

Iolaus chuckled. "Yeah, well, you got that right. Are you as hungry as I am?"

Sky'ree was. Khyra told the dragon to wait for them and they started toward the big stone farm house. It was the kind of farm Iolaus dreamed of making out of his own modest holding, but he was never enough of a farmer to turn the dreams into reality.

Plump chickens scattered in all directions, goats wandered between the buildings and a huge grey plough horse looked at them over a corral rail as they approached the door of the stone building, beneath its impressively shingled roof, not one wooden shingle out of place.

Iolaus knocked on the door while Khyra was still sizing up the chickens. It opened almost immediately, but the next few moments would always remain a blur, both to the hunter, and the dragon rider.

Khyra's most vivid recollection later was of Iolaus' body falling backward in a crumpled heap, his head bloodied, a jagged split opened up from his forehead into his hairline, and strangest, but most vivid: a long, diagonal slash across his smooth chest.

After that all she could remember was the smell of perfume, mixed with oiled leather, before the world turned black. That an Amazon, much less a dragonrider would ever be taken by surprise, could only have meant one thing.

Hera.

Which was why an oblivious Sky'ree continued to wait sleepily in the sun for his friends to return long after they'd vanished.

It was dusk when he decided that something must be wrong and ventured into the farmyard himself, sending livestock shrieking and running in all directions. The door of the farmhouse was still open. When his sharp eyes, ears and nose could detect no sign of either his bond-sister or Iolaus, and no other human appeared to investigate the noise of the beasts he took the risk of pushing his head and long neck through the door.

Inside he discovered the owners of the property unconscious on the floor. A woman, two children, a young man and a much older man, probably the father of the house, all lay in some kind of Morpheus-induced torpor on the floor.

Sky'ree snorted. It could only have been the work of the gods, and only one would have gone to these lengths. He nudged one of the children with his nose experimentally.

It was a girl, about six. She groaned, then sat up and blinked. He waited for the scream, but it was not forthcoming.

"Can you wake the others?" he asked her.

"You can talk? What's your name? Where did you come from?" she rattled off.

"Yes. Sky'ree. From the east," he listed. "Now wake your family," he ordered sternly and waited patiently while she did so.

The farmer and his wife were a little less laid back about finding half a dragon in their living room when they roused.

When the woman finished her scream of fright and the farmer and his son had finished arming themselves frantically, Sky'ree spoke impatiently.

"If I was going to harm you do you think I'd have asked the child to wake you first?" he demanded irritably. "I want to know what happened to my friends. Do you know how you ended up on the floor? Does anyone remember anything?"

Mouths dropped open. None of them had contemplated conversation with a dragon.

"Well?" he demanded, worried about Khyra and Iolaus.

The farmer blinked. "We were having lunch together--a celebration for Tobias' birthday," he indicated the small boy. Suddenly the room was filled with masked creatures--warriors, something. The next thing any of us knew, you were hovering over us," he explained, bewildered.

"Sounds like we found the Amazon imposters," Sky'ree told himself and then looked up at the farmer and his brawny older son. "You were touched by the gods, probably Hera, in order for her warriors to lay a trap for my friends. Consider yourselves fortunate that the warriors left you all alive."

They watched as the impressive dragon head withdrew, then followed it out the front door.

"How will you find them?" the young man asked.

"Can we help?" the farmer added, and Sky'ree realized they were good people, too good to have been caught up in Hera's plotting.

"I have to find them," he replied, "but I must eat soon or I won't be any use to anyone. It was the reason we came here. If you could spare a chicken..?"

It was late morning. Sunlight poured through the uncovered window, bathing Kendaa's face in its warmth. She roused slowly, reluctantly, the precious little sleep she'd had, far from enough.

When she opened her eyes, however, she immediately came wide awake. Hercules' blue eyes were smiling down at her. She instinctively put up a hand and touched his face.

"You--You're alive? Hercules you should by lying down," she stammered.

"I am," he told her, amused.

Then her mind registered the fact that he was--that they both were in the wide bed--and, more importantly, that there was still strain around his eyes and mouth from the pain of his wounds. The fire was out, and it was cold again in the room. She sat up and shook out her hair, rubbed her face.

"I remember now. I crawled in here to watch you. Nice of them not to see fit to have stools in their rooms," she drawled. "I must have fallen asleep some time in the early hours. I remember seeing the moon through the window..."

Hercules frowned. "Then you've barely slept," he told her.

"The doctor said you might die."

Hercules looked down at the bandaged wound, which showed no sign of further bleeding.

"Kendaa, I've survived Hephaestus' arrows, and Hera's endless supply of monsters. A single dagger isn't going to kill me--"

"Not even if it had Hera's mark on the hilt?" she asked bitterly.

He shook his head. "Not even then. I still don't know if I'm immortal or not, but I do know this: if I can survive an arrow made by Hephaestus there's no way I'm just a mortal, either."

Kendaa's eyes glittered with unshed tears of relief. "How do you feel?" she whispered.

He grinned. "Hungry," he replied.

She giggled, and the tears dislodged, both of which states Kendaa's friends seldom, if ever saw her in. It had pleased Hercules to see her laugh at Iolaus and Sky'ree, but this was hardly the Kendaa he knew.

Moved, he reached out his good arm and drew her close to him, resting his chin on the golden hair.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," he said softly. "If I could have, I would have spared you. I don't know why I slept so long--"

Kendaa sniffed somewhere near his sternum. "Blood loss," she explained hoarsely. "You lost a great deal of blood. You were fortunate not to have severed a pumper, but I think there was so much blood that it must have affected you."

Hercules murmured agreement, his chin moving on her crown.

"But I feel fine this morning."

Kendaa pulled herself away to scowl at him. "Don't patronise me, Hercules," she growled. "I saw the pain in your eyes, your face." The color had flown to her cheeks, and her eyes were flashing, the flecks of gold brilliant in the striking green pools.

There was a sudden, tense silence between them, Hercules tender blue eyes looking all the way into her soul. Then, somehow, he was bending his head toward hers.

Kendaa felt his lips cover hers, caress them into his, and then she was responding, kissing him back with a long suppressed hunger, despite the gentleness of his mouth. It wasn't until he slid the hand of his good arm into the hair around her ear and she felt it trembling, that the magic of the moment was lost.

She drew back, taking the hand in hers, avoiding his questioning gaze, and pushed him back down to the pillows.

"You shouldn't be exerting yourself like this, you'll make it bleed again," she managed breathlessly and was gone before he could argue. "I'll go and find you some food."

Hercules closed bemused eyes. He wasn't sure what had happened, or what could possibly come of it. All he did know was that he'd wanted it to happen again...

After a modest breakfast together, Kendaa escaped the undercurrent of physical tension still between them, to check on Dart, to bring him back to the inn, and to ask about the Amazons' mystery impersonators.

By late afternoon it was apparent that whatever legacy Zeus had bequeathed his son, it included a spectacular ability to recover from wounds. While it was no less nasty, it was scabbed over when she checked it. Kendaa was amazed at the power and the speed of Hercules' recovery. It was as though the very strength given to him by the gods was able to somehow meet and overcome the effects of the wound.

He would not stay in the inn another night, as Kendaa had anticipated, but despite his protestations to the contrary, she refused to allow him to walk.

They rode out of the settlement in silence, Hercules content for Kendaa to take the reins, his hands resting loosely in her lap. She in turn, was content to rest her back against his still overly-warm body, acutely aware of the reaction of her own.

They weren't far out of sight of the village when she felt Hercules weight shift slightly. A moment later his hair brushed her ear, then his warm breath caressed it as he lowered his head to touch her neck with his lips, then her ear, her hair, and finally her nape, before resting his chin, once again, on her fair, fragrant crown.

Kendaa struggled to calm her treacherously overheated body, her flushed cheeks, forcing herself not to turn in the saddle to find and claim those lips with her own. Instead she loosened the reins a little more and leaned back against the great chest, content to settle for the pleasure of feeling his arms curl around her, each of his hands covering hers on the reins.

They travelled well past midday, Dart sauntering unconcernedly along the path, his riders seemingly relaxed, almost sleepy in the warm morning sunshine.

In fact, Kendaa would have continued indefinitely, unwilling to be parted from the intimate contact, had she not begun to notice tension in his body, and a change in his breathing.

Strained, and very obviously in pain, he took very little convincing to stop a while. It was past time for a meal anyway, and there was what sounded like a fairly fast running stream just ahead, which would have to be forded.

Kendaa slid down first, the air cold on her back where his body had earlier warmed it. In fact all of her was burning, her cheeks flaming, every nerve ending singing.

To minimise the effect on his wound, Hercules lifted the leg on his good side over to meet the other one, then slid down, frontwards, to land lightly on his toes, grimacing momentarily on impact, but seemingly none-the-worse for wear.

To hide her discomforture--and her cheeks--Kendaa turned away and unstrapped her pack from Dart.

"I still can't believe you're doing this," she told him. "Yesterday I thought I was going to l--that you were going to die, and today you're jumping off horses.

"Sliding off Dart, who didn't even move," Hercules amended dryly. "I told you. I don't understand it either. My mother never forgave me for being so--relatively--well after she thought Hera's archers killed me with Hephaestus' arrows. I mean I did almost die--but...well...here I am."

Kendaa threw the pack onto the grass. "Here you are," she echoed, more in her voice than she realized, and tethered Dart. "How many times will the gods let you get away with it, Hercules? Which blade, which poison--which monster of Hera's will be the last..?"

He lost the bemused look. "Don't you think I don't think about that--in the night, when its just me and the silence..." He frowned. "Sometimes, in fact lots of times, I've kidded myself its because Zeus won't let them kill me--and yet I've seen him scared to death because he thought I wasn't going to make it through some challenge of Hera's.

Kendaa considered that. "Maybe that has more to do with his loving you, than it does with your mortality?" she proposed.

Hercules was pulling the bread, the water and the fruit they'd brought from the village, out of the pack.

"I wish I knew," he said softly. "I wish I knew..."

Khyra woke with a splitting headache. Even before she opened her eyes the smell, the feel of the place she was in was wrong. Then a memory flowered in the fog that blanketed her mind.

"Iolaus!"

She sat up too fast and swayed, opened her eyes, squinted, then looked around frantically for her friend. He was just a few feet away, still in a crumpled heap on his side. She went to him, unsteady on her feet, and terribly disoriented, but she needed to know there was breath, and a pulse, in the familiar form.

She licked two fingers and held them under his nose. There was breath. Faint, but still breath. The pulse in his wrist was too fast, but its presence was even more reassuring. For a few moments she stroked a pale temple, pushing the fair locks off his brow.

His hair was matted with blood, and the split was worse than she thought. Black and purple bruising extended right into his hair line, and the area around the cut was swollen. His color was pale and his skin clammy. She rolled him onto his back, uncertain what to do next. He seemed almost boneless as she turned him, frightening her even more.

"Iolaus," she whispered. "Don't die. Please don't die."

Somewhere, drums began to pound. It was a strange, rhythmic, almost animalistic sound. Khyra looked up and blinked, then down again at her friend. There was nothing she could do for him now.

She suddenly felt vulnerable on the floor, and pulled herself reluctantly to her feet. They were in a hut--a house. The walls were woven and thatched panels of leaves and aromatic tree branches, the framework polished olive wood. It had, unusually, a ceiling made from cross beams of the same olive wood, and laid across with more thatch, this time with many colors woven together. It was meant to be a permanent structure. Khyra had seen the trick before, of creating a barrier of air between the roof and the living space, to keep in the heat in the winter and to keep it out in the summer.

Whoever designed, and perhaps even built it, was no rude peasant. Tanned hides and long haired goat skins were scattered on the floor, and there were cushions, but not one stick of furniture. Khyra considered that for a moment, and didn't like the conclusions she reached.

To put all this work into a home, and then not live in it meant either that the owner/designer no longer had possession of it, or that they'd left in a mighty hurry. There were no personal possessions to be seen.

Khyra tried all the windows and the two doors. All were either barred, or otherwise fastened so that she couldn't force them open.

She turned back to Iolaus. He looked worse, a little bluer around the mouth, and the slash on his chest was swollen and angry. A tremor went down her spine. It hadn't been like that when she first went to him.

Khyra knelt at his side and studied it. It was almost blue at its edges, and the swelling had a queer yellow green caste. Fear grew in her. In spite of herself, she sobbed. His terrible color wasn't from the head wound.

It was from what was surely some poison of Hera's, designed to make Hercules suffer again the loss of a loved one, to hurt him so deeply that he'd never recover.

If the blade had been poisoned there was little she could do. Of all her gifts, healing was not one of them.

Kendaa had told her the story of Iolaus' death at the hands of the fire enforcer and Hercules' bargain with Hades to save him, but even she knew that to strike such a bargain once was a miracle, twice...impossible.

Her hands trembled as she sat down, lifted his head onto her lap and stroked his cheek helplessly. A few moments later she raised her head, and her eyes. Only one person could help them now.

"Zeus, if you can hear me, please...don't let him die!" she begged. "I don't know who else to turn to. If you let her take Iolaus too, not only will Hercules never forgive you, but he won't ever recover from it either. Do you hear me? He won't be the Hercules you know, ever again, if you let Iolaus die! You know I have the seeing!" she shouted. "You know I'm right!"

But only silence answered. And the relentless rhythm of the drums...