King Numitor had set up an elaborate spread for his champions, but none had made any effort to partake. After repeated attempts to stimulate the motley group, the King had left the men on their own to deal with things as they needed and went to focus his attention on Rhea. The golden oriental body of Ursus sat despondent next to the stretcher bearing the weak, unconscious Lin. The stinging effects of the poisoned arrow tips after their capture by Amulius had been warded off by the massively muscled body of Ursus. All that remained on him as a memory of the torture were a few reddened lines and a small scar just above the nipple of his massive left breast. In time, these would heal, but, without Lin, it was questionable how long it would be before Ursus' heart would heal.

Lin had not faired nearly as well. The same poisons now possessed his much smaller and more fragile body. In Ursus' mind burned the guilt that he had failed to protect his childhood friend and adult companion. Lin had not shown any change since he had slipped into the drugged sleep just before the brutal rock and dagger torture began. Ursus had not left Lin's side since they were all freed by the strange actions of Eros.

At the time he set them free, Eros had pleaded with Maciste that he had acted out of love. Maciste had reacted with justifiable confusion. How could he be expected to believe that a man who had tried to have him killed once and had partnered with their enemy in their capture and torture was now "in love" with him?

Eros insisted that he been in love with the magnificent muscle giant since the day of the chariot incident and was simply waiting for the right time and the right opportunity in which to act against Amulius. He knew, or so he said, that the act of stimulating Maciste's fabulous cock to its highest level of arousal just before the weighted stone had been released would increase the muscular giants capacity to resist the deadly challenge for the longest period of time and, thus, buy him, Eros, the chance to act.

He even went so far as to insist that the "news" of the loss of the trail of Rhea, Atlas and Argolis was his doing. The fact that King Numitor had managed to get back to his own troops was an added blessing from the Gods. Once Amulius left, Eros had asked Maciste pointedly, had he not acted immediately to eliminate the guards and free the man he loved and his two companions? Instead, Eros insisted, it was Maciste who was turning a blind eye to the love being offered to him.

Maciste had had no time, then, to deal with all that confusion. He placed Eros in a nearby cell; made sure that Ursus was well enough to care for Lin and watch the palace; and had set off after Amulius. Now, Maciste was just too depressed by the losses they had suffered to care to deal with the issue of Eros. Maciste replayed the past few days over and over in his mind.

Amulius had set a path directly for the dam connecting Tiberia and Alba. Along the way, his scouts reported to him that they had found the cabin in which Rhea was being sheltered. They had wanted to approach it but two of the gigantically muscled creatures were also there. It was presumed by the scouts that Rhea had given birth because the sounds of crying infants could be heard. This last bit of news disturbed Amulius greatly.

He ordered several of his best men to the cottage. He told them to wait in hiding because even these two impossibly muscled creatures had to rest sometime. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, they were to take the infants. The soldiers were instructed to do what they must to the other occupants, but they were not to harm Rhea unless they had to do so. The men were surprised at the Kings lack of interest in re-securing his daughter and none-to-thrilled with the prospect of facing even one of the massive musclemen.

It was not long after the arrival of the hidden soldiers that Atlas and Argolis had gone off into the woods together. A couple of the men followed quietly and were doubly blessed when they were presented with the opportunity to witness the mutual muscle-expanding games and the amorous activities that ensued between the two gorgeous compilations of muscular grandeur.

The images of Atlas and Argolis fully flushed with impossibly sized muscles in total and glorious display would have sent any healthy body into erotic arousal. While the two colossal men had been involved in mutual muscle appreciation, pec to pec and cock to cock, the secret audience was treated to a posterior show of ungodly beauty. Argolis stood between them and the fully aroused image of Atlas, but a clear view of the back portion of Argolis in action was more than enough stimulation. His sun bleached blond hair flowed loose around his massive shoulders like the rays of the sun in a golden sky.

Argolis' writhing back muscles had swelled to such proportions that any two normal men would have been hidden behind the flared expanse of upper rear musculature. Ropes of muscle as thick as those used to anchor the great sailing ships extended from the central back column of muscles ever outward and wrapped in beautifully laboring motions around the outer edges of the lats and disappeared to their secured positions at each side. The trapezius muscles had molded themselves into formidable wedges of undulating meat as they supported the cock crunching motions of the hidden intertwined hands on the stupendous shaft of Atlas.

The girth of the contorting upper back exaggerated the slimness of the lower back where it dove into the rock-frozen creamy pools of ass muscles. The gluteal masses were visions of stretched pilings of rock shifting atop one another as the seismic forces within applied pressured assistance into Argolis' equally astounding cock shaft. The vertical central cleft that divided the ranges of ass muscles showed invitingly deep and dark. The spread positions of the anchoring legs permitted fleeting glimpses of the moist anal canal access point.

The legs themselves were no less formidable than the trunks of the largest of the surrounding trees and appeared to be no less solid. The sweeping curve of Argolis' upper leg mass defied logic as they bowed impossibly thick out over the exaggeratingly small knee joints. Also, making an occasional mocking appearance between the swell of inner thigh mass and hanging half way down to the knee joint were the two marvelously global testicles. Their full, heavy sacs swayed and bounced in the excitement of the conjoined sexual activity of the heated musclemen.

It wasn't long at all before the cocks of the two onlookers present at that visual feast of muscle were actively spewing their loads of cum on the adjacent ground and each other. Then, as the two monumental muscle creations tackled their interactive assaults on the shafts of each other's male organ weapons, the two guards reluctantly turned back and advised their fellow soldiers of the ripe opportunity to act. They had entered the cottage swiftly; seized the object containing the two infants; and darted out.

Reuniting with their leader, Amulius had ordered them all forward toward their next task of stopping the advance of Numitor and his men. The dam would be the best place to meet this challenge. The same good fortune that Amulius seemed to have had on his side against Maciste and in seizing the two infants did not travel with him to the dam. Numitor and his men, rather than rounding up the last vestiges of Amulius' troops that had attacked Goliath, had headed directly for the dam and were now camped on the Tiberian side of the river crossing.

Water collected from the melting snows of the nearby mountains ran swiftly over the spill area in the central part of the dam making passage a slow and treacherous process. Amulius had counted on reaching the dam before his brother and on the need for those men to cross in a slow narrow column as a means by which he could eliminate them with ease. Now they would have to make other plans. Amulius ordered his men back a bit and made a fireless camp for the evening so as not to divulge their presence.

At the first light of morning, Amulius and his men broke camp, taking everything with them, and set off to attack the camp of Numitor in the hopes of catching them off guard before they were fully aroused and ready. Amulius entered the camp with a vengeance and swooped down on the still quiet tents. The surprise, however, was his when they found the tents unoccupied. It did not take long to realize that they had walked right into the trap set by Numitor.

Before Amulius and his men could turn to leave, they were greeted by the surrounding vision of the plan that had been formulated by the rightful Tiberian King and his friends the evening before. On the rise to their east between Amulius and the dam were Numitor and his men. Looking to the north, south and west they were met by an even more frightening sight.

Goliath and the twinned former muscle guards of Amulius stood naked and readied to the north. Equally naked and primed full of muscle stood Atlas and Argolis to the west. From the south came the lonely but most imposing figure of Maciste.

From the way the six muscular creatures appeared, they had been up much earlier and had readied their bodies to the maximum extent possible. The sun glimmered and reflected off the vast array of naked muscle facing Amulius. All six bodies bore the fruit of their muscle priming in the form of impossibly hard erections. They stood like great peacocks in all their glorified splendor.

The frightened, unbelieving eyes of Amulius' men drifted from God- like figure to God-like figure. As if to acknowledge the attention they were being given, the six figures began to flex into displays of dazzling muscle proportions.

Atlas and Argolis turned face-to-face as their huge pecs loomed high, rounded and striated into cantilevered domes of suspended muscle arcing precipitously out over the narrow wedges of their side-viewed waists. The two ankle thick cocks pushed straight forward from their invisible groins like two impassable poled gates. They stood in solid relief with the mushroomed crowns locked together in stiff contact. Clasped arms pressured the global pairs of pecs further and further forward until they, too, kissed in splendid contact.

The silhouetted black figure of Goliath glimmered like polished ebony against the brightly lit sky. His biceps and triceps ballooned to waist-wide proportions as bolts of sharpened light sparkled off of the network of roped veins crystallized just beneath the surface of the shimmering skin. Line after line of crisp, thick muscle sliced its way across the vast meaty upper arm masses from shoulder to elbows and then re-exploded in leg-thick upper forearms.

One of the twins stood on each side of the darker muscle phenomenon with hands clasped around Goliath's wrists. They pulled against the marvel of muscle as if to mock Amulius in his previous attempt to dismember Maciste by using a similar pulling force. The resulting stresses ripped the lats of Goliath into giant wings beneath the arms and diving ever inward to a waist made impossibly narrow by the sheer width of the spread lats. The tick dark cock pointed straight out toward the trapped army, readied like a veritable ramming pole. The two huge ball sacs hung like stiff counterweights.

Both of the twins, though considerably smaller in stature than the centerpiece of the muscle sculpture, were still visions of inspired accomplishment. Their own biceps were peaked and globed into multiple split balls of richly decorated muscle fiber and veining. Their own ample male appendages bounced high in gleeful delight.

Then, finally, there was the image of Maciste. He brought his arms up over his head and reached back, clasping hand to wrist behind his head. His body twisted slightly as the gargantuan upper mass sat boldly on top of his own mightily constricted abdominal core. The morning sun reflected each separate abdominal and ringed them in their own dark, defining halo.

The boulder-sized pecs stretched as best they could to extend between upper torso and pulling shoulders. The topmost masses of the pectoral volumes pushed up into the bottom of Maciste's chin. The central line of cleavage remained a deep, dark, inviting chasm walled in by the shredded muscle breasts. As the upper body gyrated and twisted on the lower torso, the hand-deep breast meat undulated and quivered in heavy, sweating delight. At the outer sweep of each lined, meaty tit, the stiffly aroused nipple shot out as a warning to any potential challengers.

The positioning of the arms forced Maciste's lats out to their broadest limits with the upper vision of muscle almost four times wider than the width of the waist. The crested wings of muscle shaped themselves into full quarter wheels of solidified mass. Ribbons of veins reached around and crossed from lined bundle to lined bundle as if to tie the masses of latissimus meat together under the skin and made the overall appearance of the upper back look more like carved marble than the inhumanly dense flesh that it was.

Maciste's bent, locked arms had forced his amazing biceps into heavenly creations of balled magnificence. Each moon of muscle was larger than his own head and just as thick. His face was all but hidden behind the bulbous masses of codified meat. Veins pumped like beating tubes flowing with pressurized liquid. The curving mass of the distended triceps glowed round and full with the promise of out- sizing their opposing upper-arm muscle brothers.

The twisted body presented the most enormous of the male organs at its greatest angle of displaying splendor. If Maciste's other muscle brothers possessed ramrods instead of mere cocks, then his was no less formidable than that to be found protruding from the front of the greatest warrior sailing ships. His cock had masted itself with such dominance that even the bravest of horses carrying the men of Amulius would be ashamed by the comparison. As Maciste crunched his upper muscle mass hard upon his lower torso, the prodigious organ shifted from hypnotizing flesh to stone fountain nozzle.

Squeezing his ass cheeks into striated wonders, Maciste used their power and glory to force his cock to even greater heights and length. The crimsoned weapon glowed with frightening prominence as it presented itself as a lustful tool of massive destructive power to any who dared to challenge it. Then all the magnificent musculature carried on the impossibly beautiful body of Maciste joined with his cock as his enormous physical control pushed each dripping muscle to total anatomical display with every viciously huge fiber, cord, cut and striation visible through the translucent fabric of skin.

Then, as quickly as the six deliciously contorting muscle figures were present upon the hilltops, the muscular corral was gone. Shaking himself back to reality, Amulius ordered his men to ready their weapons. He was determined to show them that even their cornucopia of muscle was no match for the piercing metal of his finely sharpened spears and arrows. Just as quickly, the muscled assaulters reappeared. This time, each was carrying the huge trunk of a tree in front of his enormously muscled girth.

With the trees acting like great shields, the impossibly crafted muscle formations moved forward. Volley after volley of sharply aimed arrows and thrown weapons dug harmlessly into the wood or shot past the hidden muscle figures. Soon Amulius men began to panic as the ever closing wall of muscle and wood began to squeeze them so close together within their trap that firing off their weapons was no longer a safe option.

Seizing the benefit of the growing fear and confusion, Amulius swooped down and grabbed the wooden trough containing the two infants and charged off in the only direction left to him. He headed straight toward Numitor and his men. They were ready, but Amulius was always crafty. Using the children and their container as his own shield, he jumped quickly through the small band of men assembled with Numitor. By riding low on top of his horse, Amulius left no target from the rear and headed directly out onto the dam.

With the soldiers secured inside their walled prison of tree trunks, Maciste, Atlas and Argolis set off after the fleeing Amulius. Goliath and his twin muscle companions stayed with Numitor to keep the soldiers in place and force them to disarm. The steep, rough footing of the dam and the crib burden slowed Amulius' movement down but not his determination. Atlas and Argolis started to head down lower in an attempt to get around Amulius and cut him off from the far side of the dam. The swift water cutting through the spill channel blocked their way.

Maciste's anger grew. He was not going to let Amulius succeed this time. Amulius was approaching the top of the spillway where it was easiest to cross. The mighty Maciste reached over and wrapped his impossibly huge arms of solid muscle around the biggest boulder he could grasp. With a huge heave, he ripped the man-sized stone out from the wall of the dam.

The image of the mountainous creature of muscle hoisting the boulder over his head was one of sheer power. Every fiber in the stupendous image of Maciste writhed in all-consuming musculature. His gargantuan back fanned out like pulsing slabs of pure sinew. The small of his back boiled with stiffening fibrous density as each lower muscle constricted into compressed meat capable of supporting the man, the muscle and rock. His shoulders became one in form and vision with the very rock they carried.

Then, as he readied for the throw, the arms of Maciste pounded themselves into striated marvels of such a size as had never been witnessed on a single man. The biceps balled up into veined masses that overshadowed the power of the shoulders, back and pecs as they prepared to launch the extraordinary weight of stone. With one powerful heave, the huge boulder flew across the distance between Maciste and Amulius just as the wretched King was about to reach the far side of the spillway.

Rock crashed against rock as the impact sent the water raging out from the newly enlarger gap. The weakened dam wall began to shake with instability and several large rocks controlling the spout of the spillway split away from their lodging and were carried down and away with the cascading waters. Amulius' horse stumbled under the movements of the localized earthquake. The agile man leaped from the horse toward the far side of the dam. The frightened horse surged after its master. In the process, the loosely connected roping holing the wooden cradle to the harness came undone and the trough, along with the two children, was grabbed up by the swift tide and washed away.

Down below, Argolis and Atlas witnessed the separation of the crib and, abandoning their own fear to the danger, both dove into the rushing flood after it.

Now, these many hours later, the party sat in the palace and bemoaned their looses and their failures. Amulius had made it to the far side and to his own kingdom. The unstable dam had continued to self- destruct until the river had reclaimed its former bed, thus separating the two city-states from one another once again.

The twins refused to let their new-found muscle-gods alone and, whenever the chance presented itself, they would offer food or drink to them. Ursus refused to leave the side of the unconscious Lin. Goliath did his best to console the worn bodies of Argolis and Atlas as they sat in forlorn silence. They had found tier way out of the flood but had never been able to find the wooden vessel containing the newborns. Even though Rhea had sworn that she did not hold them responsible in any way for her loss, their minds carried the guilt that none of this would have transpired had they not left her alone in the cottage with Sylvia and the children.

Then, suddenly, the room was consumed with an eerie light and the voice of Hercules filled the air. •