My very first piece of writing ever. Up for constructive criticism. Please leave a review if you love or hate it, or just kind of like it, thanks. I don't know if people even come read these anymore, so let me know if your out there! Haha. laterrr

Don't own any of these characters. Not for profit.

Hercules and Iolaus were exhausted.

They had just spent over a month and a half helping to defend several villages from a group of barbarians led by a warlord named Donovan. It was a near constant battle, Moving from one village to the next, trying to defeat the gang when Hercules and Iolaus were clearly outnumbered.

In the end, Hercules ended up killing Donovan in battle when he refused Hercules' repeated requests to surrender. While Hercules hated to extinguish any life, he realized he didn't have much choice, Donovan and his gang were ruthless killers.

After their leader fell, the small remainder of Donovan's followers scattered, and Hercules and Iolaus were confident that without a leader they wouldn't be doing much harm.

After endless thanks from the villagers, and declining several victory feast invitations, Hercules and Iolaus were finally headed away from the war stricken area to find someplace to have a much needed vacation.

At the moment they were headed down a well worn road. They weren't entirely sure where they were headed yet, but Hercules knew they just needed somewhere to rest up a bit.

After a while Hercules glanced over at his smaller companion. He could tell Iolaus was dead on his feet. Hercules couldn't blame him though, even he was tired and he was a demigod.

However, before Hercules could suggest that they camp at their current location or stop at the nearest inn, iolaus looked over at him and broke the silence, "Herc if I remember correctly there is a village just over that hill. You mind if we stop there?"

Hercules smiled. "You read my mind," he replied. "I know which village your talking about. We'll stop there, get some food, and see if there are any rooms available at the inn."

Iolaus nodded. "Sounds like a plan, except I'm headed straight to bed.."

Hercules looked at his small friend with concern. Iolaus had lost a lot of weight over the past month. Hercules knew why, over six weeks of constant motion, barely any sleep, and virtually no time to eat a decent meal had taken its toll on his companion. Hercules had lost some weight himself, but nothing too noticeable. He noticed Iolaus, however, had to start notching his belt tighter to keep his pants up. Hercules had pretended not to notice for Iolaus' sake, but the fact was that Hercules was really starting to worry.

"What about dinner?" Hercules asked. "The inn were headed towards has decent enough food if I remember correctly."

Iolaus just shook his head. "Nah, I'm too tired to eat, I'll fall asleep in my plate."

Hercules wanted to argue but he decided to drop the subject for now, "Ok." he said.

The two friends soon arrived at the village, if it could be called that. It looked to be mainly a place for travelers to rest, but it was seriously lacking in the inviting homey feeling. Hercules and Iolaus made a bee line straight towards the tattered inn and walked inside. Hercules noticed a group of rough looking men staring at them when they entered, but he decided to ignore it. The owner was behind the bar trying to clean dirty mugs with an even dirtier rag. He stopped what he was doing and looked up when Hercules and Iolaus approached.

"What can I do for you two gentlemen?" he asked, "m'names Cal."

"Just a couple of rooms please." Hercules said, declining to give out their names. For some reason he didn't trust this place or the people in it.

Cal looked at him suspiciously for a second, and then broke out in a smile, "Your in luck sirs, you just got yourselves the last two rooms. That'll be twenty dinars."

Behind him, Hercules heard Iolaus snort, no doubt at the ridiculous price the owner was charging. Hercules pulled out his money pouch and laid the dinars on the counter with a smile.

The owner looked surprised that he didn't get any resistance on the price, but he then quickly scooped up the money.

"Thank you for the rooms, and the generous price, now we'll just be going on up to our rooms now," Hercules said pointedly with his hand out.

"Oh, yes, yes," Cal said, "here are your keys." He handed Hercules two keys and then proceeded to dirty up some more mugs.

Hercules turned away from the bar, rolled his eyes and tossed Iolaus his key. "Friendly place," he remarked.

Iolaus just chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. He was beyond caring about anything but going to sleep. Iolaus pocketed his key and headed towards the staircase with Hercules following behind. Iolaus was just starting to imagine his head hitting the soft pillow when a group of thugs stepped in his way.

Hercules stepped up beside iolaus, noticing this was the same group of men who had been staring intently at them when they had come in.

"yes?" Iolaus asked with forced politeness. Uh-oh, Hercules thought, Iolaus is so not in the mood for this crap.

The biggest thug, who also looked to be the leader of the group spoke up, "I believe we have a minor problem. You see, you two just took the last two rooms."

Iolaus rolled his eyes. "And your point being?"

The thug bristled with anger, "The point being, that you two are going to hand over your keys, or else."

"Or else what?" Iolaus asked clearly fed up with the situation, "You'll knock us out with your foul breath?" Iolaus then took a step forward intent on shouldering his way past the goons to the staircase, "Get out of my way, we're going to the rooms we payed f..."

Iolaus' sentence was cut short as he suddenly found himself a foot off the ground, with a large hand wrapped firmly around his throat.

End chapter one.

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