Hercules admired his reflection in the nearest pond. ‘Aw, yeah. Fashionable and invulnerable, baby!’
He headed back to Tiryns to report to the high king. If all his tasks went this well, he might end up with a whole new wardrobe.
Hercules strolled into town and caused a riot. Covered in his Nemean Lion cloak, he might have been a beast or a man or some sort of were-lion from a whacked-out episode of True Blood. The commoners screamed and fled. The guards shot arrows that shattered against his cape.
Inside the throne room, Eurystheus heard the commotion. His guards scattered in terror. The burly silhouette of a man-lion appeared in the doorway, and the king set a fine example of courage. He dived into a large bronze pot next to the throne.
Hercules couldn’t hear or see much with his lion hood pulled over his head. He reached the royal dais, pushed back his shaggy cowl and was surprised to find the throne empty.
‘Eurystheus?’ Hercules called. ‘Hello? Anyone?’
The guards and servants were trembling behind the tapestries. Finally one of the king’s braver heralds, a guy named Copreus, came out waving a white handkerchief.
‘Um, hello, Your – Your Hairiness. We didn’t realize it was you.’
Hercules scanned the room. ‘Where is everyone? Why are the tapestries shaking? Where is the high king?’
Copreus dabbed his forehead. ‘Um, the king is … indisposed.’
Hercules glanced at the dais. ‘He’s hiding in that decorative pot, isn’t he?’
‘No,’ Copreus said. ‘Maybe. Yes.’
‘Well, tell His Majesty that I have killed the Nemean Lion. I want to know my second task.’
Copreus climbed the steps of the dais. He whispered into the bronze pot. The pot whispered back.
‘The pot says …’ Copreus hesitated. ‘I mean, the high king says you must go to the swamp of Lerna and kill the monster that dwells there. It is a Hydra!’
‘A what, now?’ Hercules thought he might have heard that name in a Captain America movie, but he didn’t know how it applied to him.
‘The Hydra is a monster with many poisonous heads,’ Copreus explained. ‘It’s been killing our people and our cattle.’
Hercules frowned. ‘I hate monsters that kill cows. I’ll be back.’
On the way out of town, Hercules realized he had no idea where Lerna was. He stood there, trying to think, when a chariot drawn by a team of black horses pulled up next to him.
‘Need a ride?’
The young man at the reins looked very familiar, but Hercules had been away from Thebes so long he barely recognized his young nephew.
‘Iolaus?’ Hercules laughed with disbelief. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Hello, Uncle! I heard about your Ten Labours and I want to help.’
Hercules’s heart twisted like a pretzel. ‘But … I tried to kill you. Why would you help me?’
The boy’s expression turned serious. ‘That wasn’t your fault. Hera inflicted you with madness. You’re the closest thing I have to a father. I want to fight by your side.’
Hercules’s eyes stung with tears, but he tried to hide that under his lion-head cowl. ‘Thank you, Iolaus. I – I could use a ride. Do you know where to find this swamp of Lerna?’
‘I’ve got GPS. Climb aboard!’
Together, Hercules and his trusty sidekick rolled out of town in the newly christened Herculesmobile.
‘I’ve heard rumours about this Hydra,’ said Iolaus. ‘Supposedly it has nine heads. Eight of them can be killed, but the ninth head is immortal.’
Hercules scowled. ‘How does that work, exactly?’
‘No idea,’ Iolaus said. ‘But if you chop off one of the mortal heads, two new ones sprout to take its place.’
‘Ridiculous!’
‘Yeah, well … Looks like we’re going to find out soon.’
The chariot stopped at the edge of the swamp. Mist clung to the ground. Stunted trees clawed upward from the moss and mud. In the distance, a large shape moved through curtains of switchgrass.
The tall grass parted, and the strangest monster Hercules had ever seen came lumbering through the mire. Nine serpentine heads undulated hypnotically on long necks, occasionally striking at the water to snap up fish, frogs and small crocodiles. The monster’s body was long and thick and mottled brown, like a python’s, but it walked on four heavy clawed feet. Its nine pairs of glowing green eyes cut through the mist like headlights. Its fangs dripped with yellow poison.
Hercules shuddered, remembering the nightmares he’d had as a child after strangling those vipers in his nursery. ‘Which head is immortal? They all look the same.’
Iolaus didn’t answer. Hercules glanced over and saw that his nephew’s face was as white as bone.
‘Stay calm,’ Hercules said. ‘It’ll be all right. Did you bring any torches?’
‘T-torches … Yes.’
With trembling hands, Iolaus brought out a bundle of tar-covered reeds. He lit the end with a spark of flint.
Hercules pulled half a dozen arrows from his quiver. He wrapped the tips in oilcloth. ‘I’m going to provoke the monster, make it charge us.’
‘You want it to charge?’
‘Better to fight it over here on solid ground. Not over there, where I could slip in the mud or fall in quicksand.’
Hercules lit his first arrow. He shot it into the switchgrass, which immediately erupted in a sheet of flames. The Hydra hissed. It darted away from the fire, but Hercules shot another arrow right in front of it. Soon the swamp was an inferno. The monster had nowhere to go except straight towards them. It charged, smoke rolling off its dappled brown hide.
‘Stay here,’ Hercules told his nephew, as Iolaus tried to keep the horses from bolting. ‘By the way, can I borrow your sword? Mine broke.’
Hercules grabbed the boy’s blade and leaped out of the chariot.
‘Hey, spaghetti head!’ he yelled at the Hydra. ‘Over here!’
The Hydra’s nine heads hissed in unison. The monster didn’t appreciate being compared to pasta.
It charged forward, and Hercules had a moment of doubt. The stench of poison burned his eyes. The monster’s heads moved in so many directions that he didn’t know where to start. He wrapped his cloak around himself and ran into battle.
The Hydra’s mouths snapped at his cape, but its poisonous fangs couldn’t puncture the lion fur. Hercules dodged and weaved, waiting for an opening. The next time one of the snake heads lashed out, Hercules cut it off.
‘AHA! Take that … oh, crud.’
Unfortunately, Iolaus’s information had been correct. Before the severed head even hit the ground, the bleeding stump began to bubble. The entire neck split down the middle, like string cheese getting pulled apart, and each new neck sprouted a snake head. The whole process took maybe three seconds.
‘Aw, c’mon!’ Hercules shouted. ‘That’s not fair!’
He dodged and slashed until the ground was littered with dead snake heads, but the more he cut off, the more grew back. Hercules kept hoping he’d hit the immortal head. Maybe if he separated that one from the body the whole monster would die; but he realized he couldn’t do that by trial and error. The smell of poison was giving him vertigo. Dozens of sets of green eyes swam in and out of his vision. It was only a matter of time before the Hydra would score a hit and sink its fangs into his flesh. Hercules needed to stop the heads from doubling.
‘Iolaus!’ he yelled. ‘Get over here with that torch and – WAHHH!’
One of the monster’s necks swept sideways, knocking Hercules off his feet. He rolled, but another neck wrapped around his legs and lifted him off the ground. Hercules managed to break free, and he found himself climbing through a reptilian jungle gym of slimy necks and snapping heads. He punched and kicked, but he didn’t dare use his sword – not yet.
‘Iolaus!’ he shouted. ‘The next time I cut off a head, I need you to jump in with that torch and sear the stump so it can’t grow back. Understan
d?’
‘C-c-crab!’ Iolaus said.
Hercules was sweating with concentration. He punched another snake head and somersaulted over one of the necks. ‘Crab?’
‘Crab!’
What is the boy talking about? I ask him a yes-or-no question, and he answers with ‘crab’? Hercules risked a glance at his nephew.
Wriggling out of the mud, right in front of Iolaus, was a crab as big as a chariot wheel. Its mouth foamed. Its pincers snapped.
Hercules had never heard of giant crabs living in a swamp. Then again, vipers didn’t usually crawl into children’s bedrooms.
‘Hera must be messing with me again,’ Hercules grumbled. ‘Hold on, Iolaus!’
He sliced his way out of the maze of Hydra necks. He knew that would just cause more of them to grow, but he couldn’t let his last surviving nephew get eaten by a crustacean. He launched himself at the crab with a flying kick and brought his heel down right between its eyes. The shell cracked. His foot penetrated the crab’s brain, killing it instantly.
‘YUCK!’ Hercules extracted his foot from the goop. ‘Okay, kid, get that torch ready and –’
‘Look out!’ Iolaus shouted.
Hercules spun as the Hydra bore down on him. Only the Nemean Lion cloak saved him from a dozen new body piercings.
Hercules slashed off the nearest head. ‘Now, kid!’
Iolaus thrust the torch against the neck and seared the wound. Nothing sprouted from the blackened stump.
‘Good job!’ Hercules said. ‘Only fifty or sixty more to go!’
Together they pruned the Hydra’s heads until the air was filled with acrid smoke and the smell of barbecued reptile. Finally the monster had only one head left, surrounded by a corona of sizzling, charred polka dots.
Hercules grunted. ‘Of course the immortal head would be the last one.’
He sliced through the neck. The entire monster collapsed in a heap. The still-living head flopped around in the mud, hissing and spitting poison.
‘Gross,’ Iolaus said. ‘What do we do with it?’
Hercules clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You did good, nephew. Just watch the floppy head for a second. Don’t let it get away. I have an idea …’
Hercules collected some of the dead snake heads from the ground. He spread out a leather tarp and carefully milked the Hydra fangs for venom. Then he wrapped the tarp around his arrow points, coating them with deadly poison. He bundled the arrows and returned them to his quiver.
‘Poison arrows might come in handy some day,’ he told Iolaus. ‘Now, about this immortal Hydra head – I suppose there’s no way to destroy it?’
Iolaus shrugged. ‘That’s probably why they call it immortal.’
‘Then we need to make sure it never causes trouble again.’
Hercules dug a deep pit, buried the head and covered the grave with a heavy rock so nobody would ever unearth the nasty thing by accident. Then he and Iolaus rode back to Tiryns.
According to legend, that Hydra head is still alive and thrashing somewhere near Lerna under a big boulder. Personally, I’d recommend you don’t go looking for it.
Back at the palace, High King Eurystheus had finally emerged from his decorative pot.
Hercules explained how he’d defeated the Hydra. He showed the king some of the dead snake heads and a case of premium crabmeat they’d collected from Hera’s foamy friend.
Eurystheus’s eyes glinted. ‘You say your nephew helped you?’
‘Well … yeah. He burned the stumps while I –’
‘WRONG ANSWER!’ The king pounded his armrest. ‘No one can help you with your tasks! This deed does not count!’
The tendons in Hercules’s neck tightened like suspension cables. ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘Oh, no! The Oracle told you only I could judge whether a job was done correctly. And this job was not! You still have nine stupid tasks to go!’
Eurystheus smiled in triumph, apparently not appreciating how hard Hercules was clenching his fists. Eurystheus wanted payback for the pot-hiding incident. He didn’t like being made to look like a fool. (Not that he needed Hercules’s help with that.) He wanted Hercules to suffer.
‘On the borders of my kingdom,’ he continued, ‘a huge boar has been causing all sorts of trouble, ravaging the countryside, goring my peasants –’
‘You want it killed,’ Hercules guessed.
‘Oh, no! A hero of your talent needs a tougher challenge. I want the boar brought to me alive!’
Hercules silently counted to five, which was the number of times he wanted to kick the high king in the teeth. ‘Fine. Where can I find this monster pig?’
‘It usually roams the land of the centaurs near Mount Erymanthius. Because of this, we call it –’
‘Let me guess. The Erymanthian Boar.’
‘Exactly! And don’t take your nephew this time. Do the task alone!’
Hercules trudged out of the palace. With reluctance, he told Iolaus to stay in town and sell their premium crabmeat while he went boar hunting.
After weeks of hard travel, Hercules reached the land of the centaurs. He was worried about dealing with the natives, since centaurs had a reputation for being wild and rude. But the first one he met, an old stallion named Pholus, turned out to be super nice.
‘Oh, goodness!’ Pholus exclaimed. ‘Hercules himself! I have waited for this day!’
Hercules raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘You have?’
‘Absolutely! I’d be happy to give you directions to the Erymanthian Boar, but first would you honour me by having dinner in my humble home?’
Hercules was tired and hungry, so he followed Pholus back to his cave. While Hercules made himself comfortable, the centaur fired up the barbecue pit and put on some ribs. Then he knelt on his equine forelegs and brushed the dirt-covered floor until he unearthed a wooden trapdoor.
‘Under here is my secret larder,’ Pholus explained. ‘This is going to sound weird, but generations ago my great-grandfather heard a prophecy that one day his descendants would entertain an important guest named Hercules!’
‘A prophecy spoke of me?’
‘Oh, yes! My great-grandfather set aside this jug of wine for the occasion …’ Pholus brought out a ceramic pithos covered in dust and cobwebs. ‘It’s been ageing in this larder for over a hundred years, waiting for you!’
‘I’m – I’m honoured,’ Hercules said. ‘But what if it has turned to vinegar?’
Pholus uncorked the jar. A sweet aroma filled the cave – like grape vines ripening in the summer sun, gentle spring rains on a field of new grass and rare spices drying over a fire.
‘Wow,’ Hercules said. ‘Pour me a glass!’
They drank a toast. Both agreed that it was the best wine they’d ever tasted. Pholus was just about to tell Hercules where he could find the Erymanthian Boar when five spear-wielding centaurs stampeded into the cave.
‘We smell that wine!’ said one. ‘Gimme!’
Pholus rose to his hooves. ‘Daphnis, you and your hooligan friends were not invited. This wine is a special vintage for my guest.’
‘Share!’ Daphnis yelled. ‘Or die!’
He levelled his spear and charged at Pholus, but Hercules was faster. He drew his bow and fired off five poison arrows, killing the intruders.
Pholus stared at the pile of dead centaurs. ‘Oh, dear. This wasn’t how I imagined our special dinner. Thank you for saving me, Hercules, but I must bury them.’
‘Why?’ Hercules asked. ‘They tried to kill you.’
‘They are still my kinsmen,’ said the old centaur. ‘Family is family, even when they threaten murder.’
Hercules couldn’t argue with that. He’d had some experience with family killing. He helped Pholus dig the graves. Just as they were laying the last centaur to rest, Pholus pulled one of Hercules’s arrows from the corpse’s leg.
Hercules said, ‘Careful with –’
‘Ouch!’ Pholus cut his finger on the poisoned arrow tip. The ol
d centaur promptly collapsed.
Hercules rushed to Pholus’s side, but he had no antidote for the Hydra venom. ‘My friend, I – I’m so sorry.’
The old centaur smiled weakly. ‘It was a special day. I had excellent wine. I dined with a hero. You will find the boar to the east of here. Use … use the snow.’
Pholus’s eyes rolled up in his head.
Hercules felt terrible. He built a funeral pyre for Pholus and poured the last of the wine on the fire as a sacrifice to the gods. He didn’t understand Pholus’s last advice – use the snow – but he headed east in search of the boar.
Family is family, Hercules thought. Still, if Eurystheus hadn’t sent him on this stupid quest, that kind old centaur might still be alive. Hercules wanted to strangle his royal cousin.
He found the boar tramping around in the hills to the east, just as Pholus had said. I’ve described enough giant boars in this book that you can probably guess what it looked like. After all, Ancient Greece was infested with giant evil death pigs. The Erymanthian one was just as big, bristly, ugly and mean as all the others. Killing it wouldn’t have been a challenge for Hercules. Capturing it alive … that was tougher.
Hercules spent weeks chasing the boar through the wilderness. He tried to dig a pit for the boar to run into. He tried nets and snares and Acme boar-catching kits with anvils and seesaws. The boar was too smart for all of that. It enjoyed taunting Hercules, letting him get almost within reach before running away again, leaping over his tripwires and squealing in piggy laughter.
This thing can smell a man-made trap a mile away, Hercules thought. But how else can I stop it?
By this time he’d followed the boar into the higher elevations of Mount Erymanthia. One afternoon he climbed a ridge, hoping to get the lay of the land, and he noticed a steep ravine below, filled with snow.
‘Huh,’ Hercules said. ‘Use the snow …’
He murmured a prayer of thanks to the centaur Pholus.
It took Hercules a couple of tries, but, with flaming arrows and lots of shouting, he finally managed to chase the giant boar into the ravine. The boar charged straight into the snow and became hopelessly stuck, like an appliance in moulded styrofoam.