He’d thought waiting for death had been hard. Waiting for life was harder still, each waking minute filled with anxious imaginings, his doubts and concerns magnified a thousand fold, and his heart torn between faith and fear. He’d tried to sleep, but, when he’d surrendered to the demands of his exhausted body he’d simply plunged himself into a swirl of nightmares, filled with angled, jointed legs, and snapping blade like jaws. He’d wrestled with armies of armour clad ants, who slashed at him with dripping mandibles and pierced his skin with stings of fire; he’d stumbled through a landscape of squirming, hungry maggots, crushing dry white, picked clean bones beneath every step – and, at the last, he’d collapsed among the heaving mass and come face to face with the half eaten remains of their latest meal …

Hercules had woken from that one in a sheen of sweat, his heart pounding through his chest and a strangled scream of anguish and terror on his lips. The moment had felt so real that he’d crawled to the edge of the cave and looked out, half expecting to see the images which echoed in his soul reflected in reality. He saw nothing to confirm his fears – and nothing to calm them either. The pulsating, squirming carpet of ant larva sprawled out across their nursery cavern, concealing everything which lay beneath it. Nothing even vaguely human had moved in the semi-darkness, which was filled with menacing half shadows and the hint of high stepping, jointed limbs.

They should be halfway to the surface by now …

He’d dragged himself back to the soft support of the fungal mass, letting it take the aching weight if his body and trying to ignore the throb of nagging pain which pulsed in his shoulder and back. That pain was bearable; the gnawing terror which had settled in his heart and was busy feasting on his soul was much harder to dismiss.

He’s coming back.

He’ll be here …

He used the words to armour himself, forging a shield of confidence and using it to drive back the despair which threatened him. His nightmares were no more than fever inspired fears, given weight by his weakened and helpless state. He had faith in his partner’s abilities; Iolaus had found a way down, he’d find a way out, and he’d find a way back.

Provided he didn’t run into more trouble than he could handle, that was …

Stop it, Hercules chided himself, trying to shake the thoughts which had just popped into his head straight out again. As long as Iolaus kept a low profile and didn’t do anything to antagonise the nest’s inhabitants, he’d be safe enough. Safer than skulking about in some warlord’s or royal castle in fact, since the creatures on guard in this Queen’s domain clearly weren’t bright enough to recognise him as an intruder.

On the other hand, he sighed, staring at the rock ceiling overhead, most royal guards aren’t exactly equipped to seize hold of a man and slice him in two …

Well, not the way the ant’s were; his own debilitated state was stark evidence of just how dangerous the oversized insects could be. He’d had his Olympian heritage to protect him, but Iolaus was only mortal -–and if they did decide to turn on him, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

He’ll be back.

He repeated the thought firmly and tried to focus on other things. Ways to deal with the Queen, for instance; he occupied himself for almost a whole minute going through all the things he didn’t have, and therefore couldn’t use to dispose of the menace. He had no weapons, and nothing to use as such – except for a few dry, broken bones that probably wouldn’t even scratch the ant’s armour. Fire was out of the question: even if he had something substantial to burn, the dampness in the nursery cave would prevent it from burning for very long. The little that remained of his much vaunted strength was currently focused on the onerous task of keeping himself awake and breathing – and even if he were in full health, it had taken almost everything he’d had to wrestle one worker ant into submission. The soldier ants were going to be much tougher.

Much tougher …

He shook his head, closing his eyes and succumbing to a semi-hysterical chuckle. Here he was, the son of Zeus, hero of Greece and defender of mortal kind, lying weak and helpless in the depths of an improbable nightmare, calmly contemplating ways to commit suicide. He scarcely had the strength to move, let alone charge into battle.

Getting out of the nest alive was going to be hard enough. Killing the Queen was going to be impossible.

I could always eat a few of these fungi and hope I made myself poisonous …

He chuckled again, only too aware of the ridiculousness of his situation. That was the kind of desperate, innovative, last resort thinking that Iolaus was always so good at – except that, up until now, Hercules had always believed that the hunter came up with those sort of solutions simply to put all the other possibilities into perspective. It had never occurred to him to take them seriously.

Not that he was actually considering such a desperate move, of course. Just that – for one of the few times in his life – he found himself looking at the world through his partner’s eyes. Trying to find a solution that didn’t depend on sheer strength or an almost inexhaustible stamina. Having to face a choice between solving the problem or ensuring his own survival. It was an enlightening - and somewhat humbling - revelation. He’d always admired his friend’s tenacity and determination; now he was beginning to understand just how admirable those qualities were.

He always gives his best …

Cold, tired, hungry, wounded, beset on all sides, or just facing overwhelming odds, when push came to shove the hunter always, always pushed back with all his heart. He might gripe, or groan, whimper, whine, or wearily protest – but if need demanded, he’d grit his teeth, face fate with a grin and give a hundred and ten percent without hesitation.

Why does he do that?

How does he do that?

Hercules focused his thoughts on the answers to those questions, gladly immersing himself in the memories which they brought to mind. The tension in his body slowly relaxed as his mind made its escape into the past; the remnants of the pain slowly ebbed away into nagging echoes, leaving nothing behind but a weight of weakness, which lay draped over him like an old rumpled blanket. His sense of time drifted away, the burden of waiting becoming one more layer among the many that weighted his weariness. Old memories swirled to the surface; he tracked the evidence of his sword brother’s irrepressible spirit back through their mutual history until he lost himself in the shadows of things past, studying the events of his life and recalling the voices that coloured them with affection, amusement - and a hint or two of regret.

Chiron was there, dispensing his honest wisdom with patience and perception; stern and unyielding when it came to matters of discipline, but always gentle when need demanded it. In many ways he’d been the father that headstrong, eager young men had sorely needed because flesh and blood had failed them; Jason’s father had been a King first and a parent second, Skouros had preferred the challenge of the battlefield to the greater demands of raising his son – and Zeus … well, Zeus was Zeus and always would be, no matter what was said or done. It had taken Hercules a long time to understand that; one of his greater regrets was the number of times he’d endangered his friends, simply because he’d wanted to prove himself worthy of his father’s love. It wasn’t until he’d become a father himself that he’d realised that such love is unconditional – and how much Zeus loved all of his children. Even Ares.

Even me …

Hindsight is an irksome gift; it was no comfort to realise that his father had been protecting him, through all those long years of his apparent absence. Hercules hadn’t wanted divine favour, he’d wanted a father – and while they had managed to achieve a level of understanding, even reconciliation, since, they would never share the kind of relationship he had longed for, back in the days of his youth.

Would I be who I am, if we had?

It was a good question. How much of a man’s character is determined by the events which shaped it? Had Iolaus developed his determined, stubborn streak because of his father’s scorn, or had his response to that scorn been a result of his having been born with that particular trait? No doubt one had fueled the other; the son of Skorous had gone from desperate attempts to make his father proud of him, through equally desperate attempts to live up to his disdain before finally settling on a fierce resolve to simply prove the man wrong – which was something he’d been doing on a regular basis ever since.

We must have driven Mother crazy.

Thoughts of his mother lifted a smile to his lips. He missed her; missed her warmth and her wisdom, her gentleness, her patience and her perceptiveness. She was another of those stubborn influences in his life, one which had taught him that – if something is right, then it’s worth fighting for. Like freedom. Like love. And life itself …

"Hey, Herc!"

Past and present collided with startling impact; for a disorientating second or two Hercules wasn’t sure if he’d heard the words or merely recalled them. He opened his eyes a cautious crack, half expecting to see nothing but the dark walls of the cavern – or, even worse – the darker walls that lined the roads leading down to the Styx. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find that death had crept up on him while his mind had been elsewhere, sending his soul spiralling down to the Underworld - but the last thing he wanted was to find his sword brother waiting for him when he got there.

The voice was real – as was the grin that greeted him; Iolaus was clambering up over the lip of the tiny cave, tipping a squirming ant lava ahead of him. The larva hissed and wriggled as it rolled across the uneven floor. The light was still the same dim phosphorescent glow, and the air was rank with the vinegar scent of the nest. He hadn’t lost the fight. Not yet, at least - and his partner was still very much alive and kicking; a fact he proceeded to demonstrate by slamming the side of his boot into the larva’s nose so as to discourage it from crawling too close.

"Miss me?" the hunter enquired warmly, dropping back onto the jutting rock he’d vacated when he’d left. Hercules smiled.

"Every minute," he confessed, trying to ease himself up – and quickly realising that was a mistake. He sank back with a gasp; his partner’s grin – which had begun to widen in response to the admission – was immediately replaced with a frown of concern.

"No heroics, buddy," Iolaus advised, reaching out to check pulse and temperature with gentle fingers. What he found was clearly reassuring, although the frown didn’t go away completely. "You’re doing okay," he concluded, more than a hint of relief in his voice. Since Hercules felt about as okay as a sodden sack of rotting cabbages used as a ball in a game of Titan’s Pitch and Toss, the announcement was a little hard to believe.

"I am?" he questioned incredulously. The hunter nodded.

"Uhuh. Your fever’s down, your heart is stronger – and your colour’s improved …"

Iolaus paused to consider that statement, glancing down at the colour of his own skin, which was a pallid, unhealthy green in the phosphorescent light. "Well – you have colour, which is more than you did when I left you. Few day’s rest, a little TLC – you’ll be right as rain in no time."

Hercules heaved a soft sigh, wishing it could all be that easy. "In case you hadn’t noticed," he said grimly "I don’t have a few days. Not even a few hours. Iolaus – I’ve been thinking about this. Pouring oil into the nest might slow the ants down for a while, but it won’t reach this deep. We’re going to have to kill the Queen …"

He steeled himself for dissent, expecting the grand speech about ‘getting you out of here’, and ‘coming back once the fire is out’ – or, even worse, ‘coming back once you’re safe’. As far as he was concerned, all of those arguments spelt a death sentence for his partner and – while he was willing to accept that a sacrifice might have to be made – there was no way that he’d let his best friend face those kind of odds on his own. He was more than ready to argue that one out – except that, far from disagreeing with him, the hunter broke into a broad grin.

"All in hand, buddy. Don’t even give it a second thought. I’ve been working on a plan."

"A plan?" Hercules didn’t mean to sound sceptical, but past experience suggested that Iolaus’ plans didn’t always work out the way he intended them too. Not once they were past the ‘charge in and see what happens next’ stage, anyway. The grin got even wider.

"Yeah. A plan. You’re not the only one who studied strategy and siege tactics under Chiron, you know. "

Siege tactics? Hercules struggled to find any relevance in the reference, recalling nothing but vague memories of that particular class. In fact, the only one that sprang immediately to mind was of the so called ‘practical’ day, in the course of which Iolaus had persuaded a bunch of volunteer sappers to undermine the south wall of the Academy and had ended up in need of rescue when his team had tunneled too close to the source of the well spring …

"Gods," he exclaimed, half sitting up in alarm and consternation. His body protested the effort, but he reached for his friend’s arm anyway, driven by recollection of the panic and terror that day had inspired. "Iolaus – you half drowned in that tunnel – not to mention nearly getting yourself buried alive when the roof collapsed."

"Exactly." The hunter’s grin was unrepentant. He untangled his friend’s grip on his bicep and gently pushed him back to the support of his makeshift bed. "Just relax, willya? I’ve got this all worked out."

"That’s what I’m worried about," Hercules muttered, only half in tease. The remark earned him a slightly hurt look, which he returned with an indulgent, if long-suffering one of his own. "Okay, okay. So what’s the plan? And – why have you brought one of those in here?"

Iolaus glanced at the squirming larva with a wry grimace. "Junior’s your ticket outta here. Right now you stink of dead ant and blood and gunk n’stuff - "

"And you’re a rose garden?" The remark wasn’t meant to be as pointed as it came out, but Hercules was tired and he hurt, and none of this seemed to be making much sense. Fortunately, the hunter took no offence; he giggled instead, lifting one arm to take a thoughtful sniff at the caking of half dried slime which decorated his skin. His nose wrinkled and his head reared back with decided revulsion.

"Whoa," he gasped. "Bad idea. You’d think you’d get used to it after a while …"

Hercules chuckled softly, amused by the indignant reaction; he suspected most of it was exaggeration, since his friend didn’t really smell that bad, but the scent was strong and highly distinctive. Iolaus grinned at him. "Don’t be so quick to gloat," he advised. "You’re gonna get the full treatment in a minute."

Ah …

The thought was instantly sobering. "That’s - part of the plan, right?"

"Right. The first part. The one that lets us walk out of here without getting challenged. You smell right, these things’ll just ignore you. Least," the hunter added thoughtfully, "it’s worked so far …"

The son of Zeus heaved a small sigh. "Meaning that you can’t be sure this will work for me."

Iolaus hesitated for a moment, then agreed with a reluctant nod and a discomforted shrug. "Well – no. Not entirely. But I can’t see why it won’t – and if we don’t try – "

"- then we don’t go anywhere," Hercules concluded glumly. "Okay. I’m convinced. You gunk me up. What next?"

"Ah." The hunter sat forward, his eyes gleaming, even in the dim and lurid light. "That’s the good bit. See – I help you get as far as the far side of the Queen’s chamber. There are some – pillars, I guess you could call them, holding up the roof over there. They’re just hard packed earth and stuff. I think they left them when they dug the place out. Anyway – they’re soft enough to dig into, so I’m gonna leave you working on one or two while I come back here – "

"Whoa," Hercules requested, putting up his hand to halt the flow of eager words. "Hold on a minute. Let’s just say – for a moment – that I have the strength to do that. Won’t that just bring the roof down on top of me? We might get lucky and bury the queen, but you’d be trapped this side of the fall, and I – well, the way I feel right now? I seriously doubt I’d be able to get out of the way once the roof started caving in."

"Ah-ah," the hunter waved, halting the objection with a knowing grin. "You’re getting ahead of things here. Tactics, remember? I don’t want you to dig through the pillars. I just want you to weaken them. The water’s gonna do all the rest."

"The water?"

"Mmmhuh. See – while you’re back there working on bringing the house down, I’m over there – " He pointed at the far side of the vast nursery cave. "- updating the plumbing arrangements. Remember how I said that they’d stopped digging because they were close to the lake? All I need to do is weaken the wall a little more – and the pressure will do all the rest."

"You know this idea is crazy don’t you."

"Uhuh." Iolaus was concentrating on helping his partner ease his way down onto the floor of the nursery cave. It was an anxious business, since Hercules was barely strong enough to move, let alone stand upright, but he’d insisted on doing what he could rather then just being picked up and manhandled down the slope. The hunter didn’t know whether to be grateful – because it saved his strength for when it was going to be needed most – or to express his exasperation at his friend’s mulish stubborn streak. Gratitude was currently winning, mostly because he knew that he’d be just as stubborn in the circumstances – and that with a man who, in his normal state of health, was perfectly capable of picking him up with one hand and fending off giants with the other.

"There’s all sort of ways this plan could go wrong."

"I know."

"That water’s going to come in with tremendous force. If you misjudge things you’ll be completely overwhelmed."

"So I’ll get a little wet."

"You’ll drown."

"And you’ll probably end up buried alive … Herc, I know this is a long shot." Iolaus scrabbled down the last of the slope and kicked a few curious larva away from his friend’s slumped form. "But – like you said - we can’t just leave. If – when – Theo starts pouring that oil it’s not going to get deep enough to reach the queen. And if she survives, well – it’s goodbye Greece, right?"

Hercules took a moment to find his breath. "Right," he agreed, turning his head to share his comprehension with a look that spoke volumes. "Iolaus," he said, "if we do this, there’s a good chance neither of us will make it out of here. I just – I just want to be sure that you -"

"Now come on," Iolaus protested, reaching to help his friend to his feet and letting him rest his weight on a supporting shoulder. "Just cut that out, will ya? We’ll make it out. Somehow. And if we don’t – well, we’ll go the way we always promised. Together. Back to back, huh? Heroes?"

"Heroes," Hercules echoed, his arm tightening into an attempt at a hug, and his lips curving into the shadow of a smile. "Somehow this isn’t quite how I imagined it."

Iolaus grinned. "Me neither," he admitted. "Come on, buddy. It’s not that far. Then you can sit down again."

They staggered across the nursery cave, staying in the shadows as much as they could, and stopping every now and again so that they could both get their breath back. The hunter practically knew the route by heart now; it allowed him to focus most of his attention on keeping his companion upright and moving forward. Hercules was trying to contribute, but he was alarmingly weak and shaky. Every third or fourth step his legs would buckle and he’d nearly fall, his weight resting heavily on his supporter’s shoulder. They’d pause, he’d take a determined breath and then they’d move on again. Iolaus suspected they’d get there quicker if he just picked his friend up and carried him, but there were several good reasons arguing against the idea, not least of which was an awareness of his own growing fatigue. He’d been running around in the nest for hours; it had to be well past midnight by now, and he’d been on his feet since early that morning. Add to that a couple of fights, a bout of ant wrangling and any amount of scrabbling up slopes, falling down shafts and dodging traffic in the nest, and anybody’s reserves of energy would show signs of running a little low.

Mine included …

He suppressed a wince as Hercules stumbled yet again, bracing his legs to take the shift in weight and grumbling good-naturedly about putting his friend on a diet. He got a soft chuckle in response, which would have been more reassuring if its owner wasn’t leaning quite so heavily on his shoulder.

We can do this. I know we can.

For all the casual reassurance of his ‘you’re doing okay’ he was actually desperately worried about his partner. Hercules was rarely sick, hardly ever broke bones and had a habit of shaking off wounds that would bring a lesser man to his knees in no time. His strength was a keystone in the foundations of both their lives, and for the son of Zeus to be reduced to a helpless, shivering bundle of pain was not a situation that sat comfortably in his sword brother’s heart. If anything, it lay like a dagger through that particular organ; every stumble and every desperate gasp for breath twisted it with savagery.

He’ll be okay.

If the plan worked. If the water from the lake came in with sufficient force to wash away the weakened pillars and so bury the queen. If he could run fast and far enough ahead of it to reach his partner before the whole world caved in on them both. If he then had the strength to carry or drag his wounded friend up through the rest of the nest ahead of rising waters and get them out before Theodorus put a torch to the oil …

There were too many ifs in that assessment. And he had no way of factoring in the reaction of the rest of the ants once the nest began to collapse.

So why worry about it? he asked himself irritatedly. Herc’s right. I’m probably going to drown the minute that wall gives way …

"Is that it?"

They’d paused to rest almost exactly on the spot where he and Timeon had done earlier; the same soldier ant was on guard at the top of the rock strewn slope. At least, it looked like the same ant. Iolaus had no way of knowing whether it was or not.

"Uhuh. Just up here, and then around the main chamber. There are pillars on this side as well as the other, but – the other’s closer to the way out."

Hercules threw him a thoughtful look. "Further for you to run."

The hunter grinned. "Yeah, but – the shorter the distance I have to carry you, the better."

"Oh." His friend mulled that one over for a minute. "Good point."

An ant skittered past, probably on its way to the egg chamber since a freshly laid egg glistened in its jaws. Iolaus held his breath as it brushed passed them, and not just because its closeness meant that a fresh flurry of the eye watering scent washed over him. They’d managed to avoid the workers wandering around in the nursery cave, so this was the first opportunity they’d had to test the effectiveness of Hercules’ new odour. The creature paused for a moment, turning dark, multi-facted eyes in their direction. Iolaus stared back, willing it to ignore them, to not even see them against the rough cut wall of the tunnel

Just passing through …

The ant gave itself a shake and turned away; both heroes released held back breath with decided relief.

"That was close," Hercules muttered, wiping a sheen of sweat from his face with the back of his hand. "Is it me, or are those things really ugly up close?"

The hunter chuckled, knowing what lay waiting for them in the chamber ahead. "You think that’s ugly? You ain’t seen nothing yet …"