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Kleptokus peered suspiciously through the bars. It was hard to tell in the gloomy light of the prison, but he could have sworn to Hermes that the barrel in the corner had moved since he’d last looked at it. Frowning he looked around to see if anyone else had seen the same thing. The guard, dozing outside their cell, hadn’t moved except to pick his nose and shift uncomfortably on his seat in the corner.
Kleptokus sighed a little at the sight. If the man had just sat two foot further to the left he’d have been able to lift the keys dangling so temptingly from the guard’s belt, as it was, the gods weren’t so much as not on his side right now, but pointedly taunting him. Okay, so he’d sworn he’d never thieve again after he got caught last time, but everyone relapsed from time to time didn’t they?
Looking to the left at his celebrity cellmate, Kleptokus sighed, so much for the great rescue. The King of Corinth’s soldiers had been so confident; “Hercules will save us,” they’d told him after they’d been thrown into the cell. Kleptokus snorted, yeah right…He looked at them now, slumped in despair occasionally glancing at the silent chained man in the corner.
Kleptokus had to admit that ‘chained’ was something of an understatement. In fact, you could hardly see the legendary hero underneath the loops of chains wrapped around him. Not that the thief blamed their captors for the overreaction, Hercules’ rescue attempt had been extremely impressive, if not a tad lacking in subtlety. Kleptokus had been napping in the corner of the cell when the huge man had burst into the prison, flinging guards around like they were, well, a lot smaller and insignificant than they actually were. For several minutes it actually looked like it was actually going to work. Not surprisingly with what sounded like a small war between nations going on, the captive soldiers had woken up too and started cheering Hercules on. Unfortunately, things didn’t go so well after that. The noise had also woken up the garrison soldiers a few doors down and even Hercules’ strength didn’t work when outnumbered by a hundred or so angry, sleep deprived soldiers.
Eventually worn down by the sheer weight of numbers Hercules had succumbed to a large plank of wood applied to the back of his head with some force. Kleptokus had winced at the sound, but amazingly thought at first that even that impact had failed to affect Hercules, but after a few seconds the man’s eyes had glazed over and he’d crumpled to the floor, where he was wrapped in what seemed to be several miles of metal chains, before being dragged into the cell. Kleptokus glared at the man accusingly, that had probably been the worst rescue attempt he’d ever seen. He was *so* not impressed…
Seeing Kleptokus’s glare Hercules shrugged apologetically, chains clanking. He couldn’t argue with the man’s assessment, it hadn’t been one of his best days. Still…his eyes narrowed, that barrel had moved another few feet closer to the guard as the man dozed… Kleptokus turned to see what Hercules was looking at, his mouth falling open as he realized that the barrel had moved, he hadn’t been imagining it. Either the gods were playing tricks with both their minds or maybe, just maybe some kind of rescue was in progress. He’d heard that the King of Corinth had connections, maybe he had another superhero type up his sleeve…maybe one with a few more brain cells. With that thought he turned back to Hercules, placing one finger to his lips and making a shushing sound. Hercules responded by rolling his eyes but after the rescue attempt Kleptokus had witnessed he wasn’t going to bank anything on the demi-god’s intelligence levels.
The thief watched, trying to look like he saw barrels moving around on their own on a daily basis. Slowly and cautiously, assuming a barrel could be cautious, it sidled up to the sleeping guard and a small hook slowly appeared from the side of the barrel moving unerringly towards where the key’s dangled from the man’s belt.
Kleptokus tensed up…it was now or never. He knew from the comments the guards had been making that all the prisoners here were due to lose their heads in a very literal way in the morning. Sneaking a sideways glance at Hercules he could almost feel the tension emanating from underneath the mound of chains.
They both breathed a sigh of relief together as with a practiced flourish, the keys were successfully removed and disappeared inside the barrel, which again began moving quietly in their direction. Kleptokus couldn’t stop a quiet whistle of approval, their new would-be-rescuer (he wasn’t assuming anything at this point) had style and he’d place a bet with Hermes that he’d stolen a thing or two in the past, although he had to be a small guy, or maybe a contortionist. The barrel wasn’t exactly spacious looking…He grinned a little, the Mighty Hercules being rescued by a midget in a barrel, surely someone would pay him for a story like that. Wasn’t there that guy who wrote scrolls about Hercules? Salmonicus?
He returned his attention back to the present as he watched the barrel shuffle over to them.
“Iolaus?” Hercules hissed in a disbelieving voice.
“You were expecting someone else?” The barrel asked sarcastically, before suddenly growing taller as it developed a set of short, but very human looking legs underneath it. A pair of hands also appeared, hoisting the barrel up and over the head of the well built blonde man that had somehow squashed himself into it. Quietly opening the door to the prison cell he smiled widely at the wakening soldiers. “Have no fear, the sidekick is here.” He whispered, before turning to look at Hercules and his chain collection.
“Sidekick?” Kleptokus frowned to himself. He’d never read about a sidekick in any of the scrolls, but still, he wasn’t about to complain if the guy actually managed to get them out of here.
“Gods Herc. I go away to a festival for two lousy days…” Iolaus grumbled as he knelt down to start picking at the many locks holding the chains in place.
“I had it under control. I was just waiting for the right moment.” Hercules protested quietly.
Kleptokus didn’t quite manage to smother the laugh. Iolaus grinned his agreement as he looked at the thief for a moment. “So who’s this?”
“He’s a thief, got caught the other day.” Hercules whispered.
“Ex-thief.” Kleptokus responded automatically.
Iolaus grinned again as he carried on working on picking the locks. “What’d you take?”
“A goblet. It was just there, you know? Asking to be stolen…”
“It was on an altar.” Hercules pointed out.
“Exactly. With a whole pile of other stuff. Who would have missed it?” Kleptokus asked.
“Hera maybe?” Hercules suggested.
Iolaus whistled. “Stealing from the Queen of the Gods, and I thought Hercules was stupid!”
“Hey!” The demi-god protested.
“So, you’re telling me you took time and came up with a plan before you burst in here to rescue Jason’s men?” Iolaus asked, looking up from his task, one eyebrow raised.
“Well…” Hercules paused. “I was in a hurry.”
“How many times do I need to tell you? Plan first, save time later, Herc.” Iolaus shook his head with a smile. Kleptokus kind of got the idea they’d had this conversation a few times before.
“So, what’s your punishment?” Iolaus asked.
“Um, well, death.” Kleptokus admitted.
“Seems a bit harsh.” Iolaus smiled. “We gonna let him go, Herc?”
Hercules somehow managed to frown, despite his eyebrows being hidden by chains. “That depends on whether he’s going to steal again.” He said, ruining the serious look with a quick wink at his friend.
“Hey, I said I was an ex-thief!” Kleptokus protested.
“So am I.” Iolaus winked, his eyes full of mischief. “Okay, that’s got it.” The last lock clicked free and Iolaus carefully and quietly lowered the chains to the floor, or at least he started to, but Hercules let out a sudden shout of warning and shoved the smaller man to one side as an axe whistled down just past his ear.
Surprisingly quick and silent for his size the guard had woken up and decided to separate their rescuer’s head from his shoulders. With a roar of anger he tried again, swiping at Hercules this time.
Kleptokus did what any self respecting thief would do when faced with an axe wielding manic. He ran, well as far as the back of the cell anyway, where he settled for Plan B – cowering.
He turned to watch the action as Hercules easily took out the lumbering guard, and Iolaus ran over to the captive soldiers and started to undo their restraints.
As the shout of alarm went around the prison and the thump of boots started to pound along the corridor Iolaus tossed the keys and his lock pick to the remaining chained soldiers and turned to face the threat with Hercules. The two men stepping out of the cell to give themselves more room.
Kleptokus would tell his grandchildren about what followed. He watched in awe as the two men stood back to back in a practiced move. Protecting each other they fought as one, using each other’s strengths and guarding their weaknesses. Kleptokus got a front row view of the two best fighters in the land. As the Corinthian soldiers freed themselves, they too threw themselves into the action and pure mayhem ensued.
After several hectic minutes Hercules and Iolaus stood breathing heavily as they surveyed the room. Silence now replaced the noise of the fight, only the groans of some of the surviving prison guards and enemy soldiers punctuating the stillness.
“I love a workout in the evening.” Hercules grinned. “You okay?” He checked with Iolaus, who only moments before he’d thrown deliberately across the room in what seemed to be some kind of insane planned manoeuvre.
“Never better.” Iolaus grinned back, cleaning his sword. “Ten to one odds. Boring!”
Hercules laughed. “Next time we’ll wait for the reinforcements from Mycenae to arrive so it’s twenty to one. Still, we’d better get out of here, Jason’ll be wondering where we’ve got to with his men.”
“Right.” Iolaus nodded, starting to round up Jason’s soldiers, checking for injuries, before starting to herd them out of the prison.
Hercules guarded the rear as they moved out. Glancing over he spotted Kleptokus, who was still standing stock still, his jaw open. “You coming?” He asked.
Kleptokus shook himself back to reality before nodding. Stepping gingerly over the unconscious guards and enemy soldiers he followed the others, listening as Iolaus continued to banter with Hercules.
“So, you’re not going to tell him about the barrel thing, right?” Iolaus checked.
“Of course I am, maybe this time you’ll get a mention. I mean you did save the day this time.” Hercules replied.
“Yeah, but all he’ll do is talk about the barrel part. You know Salmoneous likes to go on about how…” He trailed off.
“Short you are?” Hercules prompted, getting a dark scowl from Iolaus in reply.
Kleptokus tuned out of the rest of the conversation as he homed in on one word. Salmoneous, that was the name! He grinned, maybe Hercules wouldn’t mention the barrel, but he certainly would. He could make plenty of dinars with this story. He probably wouldn’t have to steal again, well…not for a while anyway…
THE END
All the stories on this site are fanfiction. No infringement upon the copyrights held by MCA, Universal Studios, Renaissance Pictures or any other person or group involved with the making of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys is intended. This is purely for fun to keep me entertained and give me something to do of an evening. No profit has been made.
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