The Hydra

The pre-dawn morning was clear, the moon was still bright, and Celery had never been more flabbergasted in his life.

“Wait, go back – what was my part in this… this amorphous little plan of yours again?”

Skall the Barbarian grinned, showing off every gap in her teeth to full effect.

“Distraction,” she said.

The rogue was just puffing up to let their muscle know exactly what he thought when Sir Ethanol elbowed him in the side.

“Let it be,” the knight muttered, polishing Excelsior with his usual care. “It’s not a bad plan, and we’ve spent this entire quest trying to get her to think ahead. We need to encourage every scrap of judgment she shows.”

“Do you even remember what happened the last time we went with this kind of plan? Blue’s best healing spells barely managed to cicatrize your wounds!”

“This isn’t going to be like Terminus,” Ethanol replied. “We know what’s in there this time, and it’s nothing so bad as summoned elementals.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that an eldritch being with six heads was nothing to worry about. What was I thinking?” Celery hissed.

“Cel, Ethan,” their healer’s voice came from behind them, “enough. We don’t need to fight among ourselves when there’s quite enough of a fight waiting for us in the near future.”

They deflated. There was something about Blue’s remonstrations that made you want to hang your head like a scolded puppy and beg forgiveness with your eyes. Even the dauntless Skall had looked ashamed the time Blue told her off for defenestrating a particularly recalcitrant minor priest – though in Skall’s defense, the man was a skank and definitely deserved it.

And right now, in his own defense…

“I don’t want to die,” Celery complained.

“You won’t,” Skall assured him with a worrisome twinkle in her one good eye. “Don’t worry, little man. I’ll protect you, as long as you can keep the beast busy long enough for me to get the first blow. You be the carrot, we’ll be the sticks.”

“The carrot only works because something wants to eat it! You guys said we’d be legends for doing this – I’d just rather not be legendarily deceased.”

“Ah, but what an ending,” Ethanol said, sliding his sword back into its sheath with a small smile. In a moment of anagnorisis, Celery realized that he was being teased, and if even Sir Stick-In-The-Mud was poking fun at him then he truly had no hope.

“See if I step in next time I see Skall google your codpiece,” he muttered, reveling in even the slight vindication that came with seeing the unflappable knight look so perturbed.

“Google isn’t a word,” Ethanol said, choosing to ignore the point.

“Yes it is. It’s when you stare at something.”

“I think you mean oogle, or ogle.”

“No, I mean google. Trust me; I’m certain of it.”

“When we get back to a proper city I’m taking you to the nearest university and we’ll be asking every learned man or woman we can find about that one.”

“Oh, good, so if I don’t die of Hydra I can die of Ennui instead. Just what I’ve always wanted, thanks.”

Now you’re just being facetious.” Ethanol looked at the eastern horizon. “I think I see some light. Shall we?”

“No,” Celery mumbled. As usual, he was ignored.

Curse them. Curse everything.

-

“There she is,” Skall whispered at his ear. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

“Pulchritudinous,” Celery said, staring down at the slumbering beast. He tried to count the heads, but they were all tangled together in a great chiaroscuro heap, necks vanishing so deeply into shadows that he couldn’t be certain it was still the same neck when it re-emerged in the light.

“Can’t we kill it in its sleep?” he asked.

“It won’t work,” Blue murmured from Ethanol’s other side. “The hydra is protected by the dark, and it wakes up the moment dawn arrives; we will only have an effect then.”

“Speaking of which,” Ethanol added as the beast below began to stir, roused by the catalyst of rosy dawn light reaching in through the mouth of the cavern, “that’s your cue. Go on, get down there before it notices.”

With extreme reluctance, Celery descended from the narrow shelf of rock running along the edge of the cavern to the moist, craggy floor below. He stood there, framed by light and feeling very small indeed, as the great beast went about the apparently difficult process of unfurling itself from sleep. Then, at last, it stood above him, six long necks swaying and six pairs of beady red eyes fixed on him, the strange little curiosity that stood in their presence like a suicidal snack.

“Um, hel-hello,” he said, clearing his throat when his voice cracked. He knew better than to hope nobody else had heard that; the cave had excellent acoustics from the sound of it. “Who’s a nice big evil beast? You, um, had some fun terrorizing a few villages nearby? Not very neighborly. No, no, stay right there! Don’t come—no, leave me—SKALL, ETHANOL, BLUE, HELP!”

Something huge and bellowing dropped from above and behind the hydra, and in a flash the head reaching for Celery jerked and crashed to the stone, eyes still gleaming and yellow teeth bared even as black blood spread across the stone. On the other side another head fell to Excelsior, and bursts of ice encased the stumps.

The remaining four heads reeled back, pained and confused. By then, they didn’t stand a chance.

At the end the party reconvened at the stream outside the cave to wash the blood and muck away.

“See? What did I say? Not a scratch on you, skinny one!” Skall crowed, nearly knocking Celery into the water.

“I suppose,” he allowed, rolling his shoulder.

“And just wait – I have even more ideas for next time!”

“Next – oh no. No. Never again.”

They only laughed.