The Legend Thief

by The Legend Thief (mobi)

  The strange Piebald swooped after him. "What's your name?" Sky asked.

  "CAW."

  "Fred?" said Sky, confused. "What kind of a Piebald name is that?"

  "CAW!"

  "All right, all right," said Sky, holding up his hands, "I get it! You're not from around here. I'm sure Fred's a fine Piebald name where you come from." Sky tossed the Piebald a cracker from his pocket, but the bird turned up its beak and the cracker dropped to the ground. Sky had never met a Pie bald that didn't like crackers before, especially the uniquely disgusting phosphorescent kind Andrew and Hands made from super explosive distilled urine.

  Before he could wonder too much, a murder of Piebalds arrived and snatched up the cracker amidst a flurry of wings and snapping beaks.

  "I need eyes," said Sky, throwing more crackers.

  The murder squawked at him and then took off. Sky slung his backpack over his shoulders, where it rested snugly between his ICE containers. He adjusted his cloak and continued jogging roughly northwest. He'd planned to get the hunters' attention so he could lure them away from the manor; he was pretty sure he had it now, and more than he wanted.

  Fred flew next to him, ignoring the other Piebalds. Sky didn't have the time or focus to edgewalk into the Piebalds to see through their eyes, which meant he'd have to rely on their judgment and verbal warnings, a terrifying prospect in its own right.

  "CAW!" a Piebald screeched.

  Sky dove to the side and an arrow struck a tree beside him, just missing his head.

  Sky stared at the quivering black arrow, heart pounding.

  The arrow began to smoke, and black lines-like veins-spread through the tree, and then it crumbled to ash.

  A shout went up behind him. Sky gulped, switched on his Fogger, and hit his jetpack like Jumpers. He shot through the air, leaving a massive cloud of Fog in his wake. A giant tree branch rose in front of him and he bounced off of it and onto the next, and the next, canvassing the area as arrows whizzed past. He heard traps snapping below and hunters screaming and yelling. With a final leap to a lower branch, he plunged back to the ground and rolled amidst the blue light of his Shimmer. Then he veered from the path and started running in earnest.

  He definitely had their attention.

  More arrows whizzed past. He crashed through the under­ growth, jumped a log, and rolled to the side. The trap sprung and the hunter behind him dropped into a pit.

  Sky scrambled to his feet and kept running. He hop­ scotched through a clearing as his Fog petered out. Hunters dove at him with knives and swords. Logs swung down from trees, knocking hunters to the sides. Saplings sprang from the ground, tangling the hunters in knots, and still more hunters vaulted into the air as slabs of spring-loaded bark exploded and vines dragged them away.

  Stinging Lizzies, double bogies, and dozens of other traps Phineas had taught him sprang up, snatching the hunters. But for every one caught, two more appeared.

  Sky sprinted down a hill and crashed through a small creek.

  On the other side, the ground leveled and grew mushy.

  A hunter dropped out of a tree in front of him, eyes glowing green.

  "Whoa!" Sky faked right. The hunter took a step and a vine closed around first one ankle and then the other, yanking the hunter crotch first into a tree-Montezuma's revenge, one of Uncle Phineas’ favorite traps. Sky raced past, heart pounding. He heard more traps going off behind him and to the sides.

  Piebalds called out warnings from above, steering him away from the larger groups. For a moment he thought he saw Chase Shroud rushing through the trees to his right, but then the hunter veered off and sped away, leaving Sky perplexed and, if possible, even more frightened.

  Sky hit his Core, and the Pounder slid into his hand. He raced along an old animal trail, lengthening his lead. A year of running from monsters had made him fast. Very fast. Hopefully fast enough.

  Another green-eyed hunter leaped at him. Sky shot her with the Pounder, driving her back into a trap. He took out two more, racing on.

  Ancient trees stretched out above him, blocking the moonlight. He navigated his way across the swampy ground and into the craggy, tombstone-covered moors that marked the beginning of the north cemetery, the border of the Sleeping Lands. Old and flooded hunter tombs leading to underground family crypts lay scattered ahead, rising from the bog.

  "CAW!" the Piebalds warned, but Sky was too slow and a hunter tackled him from the shadows, pinning him in the mud. As he struggled to get free, he caught a glimpse of a slightly older boy with blond hair, high cheekbones, and puffy lips.

  "Crenshaw?" Sky sputtered in amazement. Last year Crenshaw and his cronies-Reo (T-Bone's brother), Cordelia, Marcus, and Alexis-had made a pact with the child-eating Wargarou and become giant, wolf like Shadow Wargs. They'd tried to kill Sky. Since then, most of the cronies had left him alone, but Crenshaw still blamed Sky for the death of his mother-a hunter who'd died when the Arkhon had attacked twelve years earlier. Crenshaw picked fights with Sky whenever he thought he could get away with it; in other words, all the time.

  Fortunately, Crenshaw wasn't a Shadow Warg anymore, thanks to Ursula. Unfortunately, he was still bigger and stronger than Sky.

  Crenshaw smiled at him. "You're done for, Sky. Morton sought me out personally to track you down tonight, and I'm not the only one."

  "Malvidia's not going to be happy when she finds out you sided against her," said Sky, probing to see if Crenshaw knew anything of Malvidia's allegiance; his entire plan hinged on her. "Sided against her? You have no idea what you're talking about," Crenshaw spat. "I finally get to kill you, and the

  Hunters of Legend will call me a hero for doing it!"

  A long silvery knife flashed into Crenshaw's hand. Sky raised the Pounder and Crenshaw sliced through the recently repaired hoses before he could shoot. Compressed gasses rushed out, spraying into Crenshaw's face.

  Crenshaw raised his hands to block the spray. Fred swooped down, clawing and thrashing at Crenshaw with his wings.

  Sky rolled and threw his feet out, launching Crenshaw into the nearby swamp water. Vines exploded upward, trapping Crenshaw in a watery net.

  Sky jumped to his feet and started running again, troubled on so many levels. If Malvidia and the Exile hunters were really helping Morton, what chance did he have?

  He passed the first tomb, a large, gaudy entrance to Crenshaw's forgotten family crypt, the perfect place for Crenshaw to lurk. The epitaph on the Argrave tomb simply read: ARGRAVE IS YOUR GRAVE .

  He moved past, running deeper into the Sleeping Lands or, more accurately, Nasty Dead-Hunter Soup, the one-time burial lands of the hunters before the swamps had come and the land itself had chewed up the dead and spit them out.

  Hunters were closing in. Sky could hear them all around him now, slogging through the swamp.

  Sky leaped across a bog, trying not to imagine what kinds of fetid flesh floated beneath the surface. At some point, maybe ten years ago, maybe a hundred for all he knew, the Vulpine River a few miles west had overflowed its bounds, creating the swamps and washing away grave sites. Whether because of the icy waters, or because of some long-forgotten preservation ritual performed upon the dead, many of the bodies were miraculously well pickled. With the topsoil washed away, these coffin less dead, these ancient hunters stared out of the water with sightless eyes and graying flesh.

  Though Sky had now visited the Sleeping Lands many times, he couldn’t help but fear that with each leap, he would feel a gnarled hand on his ankle, waiting to drag him down to join the dead in their eternal frozen slumber.

  As if maniacal hunters bent on killing him weren't bad enough.

  Shivering, Sky raced after the Piebalds.

  His traps-meant to keep the worst of the monsters away from Exile-were nearly spent, and Sky felt weary to the bone. Adrenaline and a year of one of the worst exercise routines imaginable were the only things keeping him on his feet.

  Ahead, sitting on a small island in the middle of a s
wampy wasteland, he saw a gigantic gnarled tree bristling with green needles, and he knew he was nearly there.

  Sky ditched his cloak and gear as he ran-everything but his waterproof, fire-retardant backpack-and then dove into the stagnant water and swam deep beneath the surface, past corpse after corpse in this, the most disturbing part of the Sleeping Lands. Arrows zipped by, trailing bubbles.

  Sky dove deeper, skirting tombstones, mausoleums, broken statues, and the bodies of hunters long dead who drifted with the waves and watched him with milky, indifferent eyes.

  An arrow landed in the chest of the corpse next to him, a man with only half a face, the other half whittled to the moldy-green bone. The corpse rolled with the impact and drifted backward in the water, its arms rising up as if to grab Sky. A sightless white eye stared out of the man's broken face. On the corpse's forehead, Sky thought he saw another Eye, black and scarred, spilling inky darkness into the water: the Eye of Legend.

  Freezing pain, answering darkness, and tarlike blood erupted from the matching Eye on Sky's palm.

  The corpse smiled at him.

  Sky screamed and bubbles exploded from his mouth­ Bedlam had found him, just as the hunters predicted.

  Water froze around Sky, above him, frozen by the cold and terrible darkness spilling from the Eyes, and he could feel Bedlam pressing at his mind. Sky swam frantically to stay ahead of the ice and grew disoriented in a blackness so deep that even his eyes couldn't penetrate it. Laughing corpses lurched into his path. He swatted them away and left them in his wake. His lungs burned; his skin froze. Finally his feet touched bottom and he sprang upward, crashing through the ice. With scrambling hands, he dragged himself onto the small island and collapsed in the mud, shaking uncontrollably.

  Dead faces stared up at him, laughing and locked within the dark ring of frozen swamp that spread out from the island and reached halfway to the far shore. He saw the half-faced man far away near the ice's edge, just beneath the surface yet seemingly close enough to touch-the half face a rictus of frozen laughter, and Sky could hear the corpse, in his head, laughing still. And laughing. And laughing still.

  Living, grim-faced hunters clambered out of the swamp waters and burst out of the ice, creeping ever closer as Sky fought to push Bedlam from his mind.

  The cold moved through Sky- his body, his blood-reaching for his heart, clasping at his mind. He pushed at it, wrestling it like a living thing, fighting to keep the darkness away.

  The world around him went pale and gray. He flopped onto his back and jerked spastically, unable to stop. The moon above began to tremble and crumble to pieces, crashing in the swamp all around and shaking the earth. Burning trees bowed to him, water boiled with the pale dead, and haunted creatures for miles around let up a long and terrible wail.

  Sky's screams joined the wailing, and he'd never felt more frightened in all his life. But as dark blood from the Eye spilled across the white Hunter's Mark, soft, weak light slipped out, so faint he almost missed it. He focused on that light-that speck of brightness and warmth-and clung to it through terror and madness until the moon settled, the fires died, his screaming turned to quiet sobs, and the waking nightmare ended and returned everything as it was. No fires. No shaking earth and crumbling moon. No bowing trees.

  No Bedlam.

  But the creatures of the night still wailed and the dead still stared out of frozen waters with sightless eyes, and Sky's Eye of Legend still bled black. For the moment, at least, he'd fought off Bedlam. He was still in control.

  Piebalds squawked around him, urging him to run as hunters crept slowly across the cracking ice. His thrashing and fight for control against Bedlam, which had seemed like hours, had taken but minutes. Still, the ice and Sky's early lead were the only things keeping him alive, but not for much longer.

  Fred landed a few feet away and watched him quietly, almost as if he knew what Sky had just gone through.

  Sky took a deep, steadying breath and then began scooping up great handfuls of mud and smearing them all over himself as fast as he could- through his hair, on his arms, his face-until every exposed inch of him was covered. Then he stumbled toward the humongous tree covered with little green hibernating and very hungry needles.

  The giant trunk spread out before him, four arm lengths around at its base, and the fop stretched upward, reaching for the moon. Sky wedged his hands and feet into the deep grooves of the bark and with a weary breath began climbing. His arms shook with the effort, and he wished he hadn't thrown away his Jumpers with his other gear, but he pushed on, climbing higher and higher.

  "CAW?" the Piebalds offered.

  "No!" Sky barked, adding more gently between breaths, "No ... I can get to the top on my own, but thank you." They wanted to fly him up, but he wasn't about to put the Piebalds in any more danger just to save himself. They'd done enough, more than enough. Nobody else was going to die for him. ''I'll meet you at the top."

  Cawing and yammering petulantly, the Piebalds swooped away-all except for Fred, who flew at his side the entire way, cawing encouragements whenever Sky began to slow. By the time Sky reached the top and moved out of bow range, his whole body trembled and he thought he might fall from pure exhaustion. The Piebalds landed on the narrow branch and flapped about to hold him upright while he struggled to pull himself together.

  Looking down, he saw the first few hunters gathering around the base of the tree, watching him. Dozens more waded through the waters, across the ice, and up the muddy beach, followed by even more emerging from the bogs and swampy woods, until finally hundreds of hunters surrounded the base of the Bolger tree.

  Sky stared down at them all, wondering if Bedlam's waking nightmare had started up again.

  "This night really stinks, you know that?" Sky muttered in exhaustion. The Piebalds squawked in agreement and Fred nodded wisely.

  A few of the more senior hunters seemed to be arguing about what to do, but Sky wasn't planning to let them decide; this was his trap, after all.

  As the last hunter stepped onto the island, Sky pulled a small petrified Yule log from his backpack-something he'd carried with him ever since the Bolger incident last Christmas. He weighed it in his hands, took aim, and dropped it with an immense sense of satisfaction.

  The Yule log tumbled end over end, bouncing from branch to branch. It fell down and down, leaving small cracked bits behind until it finally shattered at a hunter's feet, as only a hardened sugary dessert named after a log could. The hunter looked up at him, and then back at the smashed dessert, obviously confused.

  A few of the bolder hunters began climbing, apparently incensed by the flagrant pastry attack.

  Sky put his Hunter's Mark on the tree and in perfect Bolger whispered, "Dinner's on," into the wood, causing the entire tree to tremble.

  The pine needles shivered and then shifted ever so slightly.

  The Piebalds launched into the air and darted away as fast as their wings could carry them.

  A low chattering started up, growing into a yawning buzz that sounded like a twenty-story hive of groggy bees. Tiny green wings sprouted from the pine needles, which weren't really pine needles but starving Bolgers angry at being woken from hibernation.

  And then, in a terrible swirling cloud, thousands upon thousands of Bolgers dropped from their branches and swarmed the hunters. The Bolgers fought over every scrap of Yule log and stung every bit of exposed hunter flesh they could find.

  Sky hunched down, making himself as small as possible. He was covered in mud , but with Bolgers, you could never be too careful. A swarm of passing Bolgers paused a few feet away, looking-Sky knew-for exposed flesh. He held his breath , waiting. Finally they swooped off, and he sighed in relief.

  The pine-needle-like swarms spun around like a green tornado, flinging hunters into the air. A few of the luckier Bolgers gobbled up their Yule-log winnings and grew larger and larger with each bite, until they looked like inflated balloons. Green, impish faces popped out of their bodies, followed by pointy
ears, stocky arms, a long needle nose, and bulbous grasshopper legs. These newer, fatter Bolgers sprang into the hunters and began knocking them down and stinging them with their noses.

  The hunters hacked and stabbed with their swords and knives, sending green pus everywhere, but the fat Bolgers pressed on even while they shrank. In return, the Bolgers poked and prodded the hunters in the behinds while smaller Bolgers licked up the pools of green pus, grew bigger, and leaped into the fray.

  It was gross even by Sky's standards, and he used weapons made out of garbage.

  The hunters fell back, sliding across the ice and splashing into the water, their faces green and swollen to twice their normal sizes from the Bolger stings. They looked almost like Bolgers themselves.