She shook her head. “The man’s a fool. You should be out there with Telamon, Ancaeus and the others. You’re one of our best men.”
Hylas looked down at the planks, his cheeks reddening as they always did when she paid him a compliment. She turned back to the crack. Still no sign of Heracles returning. He should have been back by now.
“You don’t need to worry about him. I’ve seen Heracles face far worse things than a bunch of six-armed monsters. This will be sport for him.”
“I’m not worried,” she lied. “I just hate waiting.” She shifted to peer through the crack again. “I wish you could see more of the isthmus from here.”
“May I?”
She made what room she could for Hylas to shuffle in beside her. There was barely enough space for them both on the platform, and their bodies pressed together as he leaned in.
She looked at him squinting through the crack. The hours spent on the rowing benches had drawn out the freckles on his cheeks. His ears, always pinker than the rest of him, poked through his chestnut curls. She remembered how it had felt, watching him slip away under the influence of the poison dart. She couldn’t explain why, but she felt like they were made of the same clay, like there was a grain of Naxos in him. He didn’t even know her real name, but when she was with him, she felt like Danae. It was comforting to know that despite everything that had happened, she was still in there somewhere.
“I’m glad you’re not dead.”
He turned to her. They looked at each other, but neither spoke. The silence grew thick as honey, then suddenly he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. Instinctively, she jolted back, cracking her head against the cave wall.
The color drained from Hylas’s face. “I’m sorry... I... I misunderstood.”
Danae didn’t know what to say. The platform seemed to shrink in size with each moment she couldn’t muster words.
There was a roar beyond the cave. They both lurched toward the crack, and Danae pressed her eye so hard into the gap, the rock cut into her skin.
Heracles was charging along the beach, clanging a bronze shield with his sword. Was that blood on his blade? She couldn’t tell at this distance. The hero was running toward the isthmus, kicking sprays of pebbles in his wake. She waited, the breath locked in her chest, but the Earthborn did not appear.
“Why aren’t they following him?”
She leaned back to let Hylas look, sagging in disappointment. Her plan had failed.
Then Hylas tensed. “I can see them!”
She pushed against him and looked through the crack.
The Earthborn poured over the cliff in a wave, like huge rats surging from a cesspit, their coarse fur glistening like oil in the morning light. Cyzicus hadn’t done them justice. Their faces bore the snarling snouts of bears, but that was where the similarity ended. Their movements were grotesque, bodies jerking as they scuttled on elongated arms like spiders, their claws scoring rivets in the rock. When they reached the beach, they transferred seamlessly onto thick, muscular legs and towered above even Heracles.
There were so many of them.
“Shit, I can’t see the isthmus,” said Danae.
The Argonauts should have leaped from the water by now. Fear began to leach out of her skin. She had to know what was happening.
“Fuck Jason,” she said as she dived across the platform and lowered herself down the ladder.
“What are you doing?” asked Hylas.
“Helping our crew. Are you coming?”
He hesitated, then climbed down after her.
They hit the ground running, slipping between the stalagmites as they raced toward the entrance.
“Stop!” Dolos called after them. “Jason hasn’t given the signal!”
But his words echoed down an empty passageway. Danae and Hylas were already clambering out of the cave.
The Argonauts and Doliones had leaped from the water, their weapons clanging as metal met claw and the sea around the isthmus ran red. From the heaps of bristly bodies Danae could see lining the sand, it looked as though the ambush had been a success. There were still several Earthborn on the beach, but Heracles stood as a mighty gatekeeper, felling the creatures as they surged toward their kin trapped battling the Argonauts and Doliones on the isthmus.
The hero slashed down and in one motion sliced two arms off an Earthborn that had lunged toward him. The beast howled, waving its useless stumps, as Heracles swung his sword back around and drove it deep into the creature’s gut.
