The Legend Thief

by The Legend Thief (mobi)

  Sky concentrated on the Bolgers until he felt his Hunter's Mark warm. Then he spoke softly in their language, his voice joining the buzz until the Bolgers backed away from the hunters and sped west in search of a Yule log that wasn't there. "You have thirty minutes to find the cure for Bolger venom before your body slips into hibernation mode for the rest of winter!" Sky yelled. "And when you wake up- if you wake up-I promise you won't like what you find!"

  The green-faced hunters stared up at him, silent and angry and very, very trapped.

  "If you leave now," Sky continued, "you can reach Malvidia at Arkhon Academy before it's too late. I happen to know she has the cure on hand. Thirty minutes-make it count!"

  The hunters fled. Crenshaw, who'd apparently escaped his trap, scowled up at Sky with a puffy green face, and then he too turned and ran.

  Sky watched them scramble away until every last one of them was gone. He'd just handed the Hunters of Legend over to Malvidia to do with as she pleased. He'd given her the ultimate bargaining chip- their very lives-and he'd shown he wasn't Bedlam by sparing them. Malvidia was horrible, but she always kept her word, and she'd promised to repay Sky for saving her life, hopefully by saving his. If she was on his side, he'd soon be rid of these hunters and the death sentence hanging over him; they might even gain some allies against Bedlam. Of course, if Malvidia wasn't on his side, these hunters would soon return, angrier than ever. And two of the thirteen Hunters of Legend- Morton Thresher and Chase Shroud, wherever they were-would lead the hunt this time.

  Whatever the case, Sky had done all he could. It was time to turn his attention elsewhere.

  He called the Piebalds back. The Bolgers would return soon. They hated leaving their tree, especially with winter coming on, and it wouldn't take them long to realize there were no Yule logs around. A Bolger's intelligence increased with size, and Sky had yet to discover a limit to how big they could get. But right now even the largest Bolger here was still too small to reason with, which was why he needed to get moving.

  It was time to find out what'd happened to his friends. It was time to return to Exile.

  Chapter 6: Indecent Descent

  But first he had to get down.

  "Can you guys give me a hand, er ... beak?" Sky asked, hanging from his perch on the Bolger tree. He glanced down at the island and the surrounding ring of ice with its grisly con­ tents. He shivered. He didn't think he could bring himself to cross that again-he honestly didn't. "And not to the island, either," he added, trying to keep the fear from his voice, "to my gear. It'll ... it'll save us some time."

  Fred narrowed his eyes-as much as a giant bird monster

  could narrow its eyes. The Piebalds were smart, but they had simple needs and short attention spans. And yet, there was something about Fred. He was different, more attentive, more complex, more connected-in a word: wiser. And that word was about as un-Piebaldish a word as Sky could imagine.

  "What? I'm not afraid," Sky stated unconvincingly under Fred's wilting stare. He was a better liar than he used to be, at least with creatures he didn't know, but he wasn't that good.

  Fred plucked at his feathers and remained silent.

  The other Piebalds flapped around Sky and snatched up his clothes. Fred watched, refusing to help.

  With a terrifying lurch, Sky fell from the Bolger tree, dragging the madly flapping Piebalds with him. As they plunged earthward, the thought occurred to Sky that he might be get­ ting too big for this.

  Before they dropped too far, Fred flew to the rescue, yanking at big chunks of Sky's hair.

  "Ow ow ow owwww!" Sky cried.

  Fred began to loosen his grip and Sky started to drop again. "No, no! Don't let go!"

  Fred's grip tightened and they leveled out, even rising a little.

  Sky gritted his teeth. "There's got to be a better way to fly."

  "CAW!" the Piebalds croaked.

  "Yeah?" Sky replied. "Well, the Darkhorn is terribly cool in the stories-I'm not sure I'd use the words 'terrifying yet stone­ cold awesome,' but you're entitled to your opinions."

  "CAW! CAW! CAW!"

  "What do you mean you've seen her around?" "CAW! CAW!"

  "She does? I knew the Darkhorn and Bedlam had a thing going, even if she is some kind of weird giant flying horse-to each his own, I guess- but that's a little exotic by any standard. And you say she doesn't cook you beforehand or use any spices?"

  "CAW! CAW! CAW!"

  "Gross. I'd never eat a Piebald that way."

  "CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW!"

  "It was a joke!” Sky yelped, smarting at a particularly vicious jerk from Fred. "I'd never eat a Piebald at all-you guys are like family to me, and I have a strict policy against eating family, especially without proper cooking and spices."

  "CAW! CAW!" squawked the Piebalds, sounding slightly mollified. Fred gave Sky's hair one more yank, apparently not as impressed with the apology.

  Sky's grin turned into a cringe, and not just because of the hair pull. He was putting on a good show of bravado, but he'd seldom felt more troubled. Bedlam's attack meant that he was nearby, maybe even controlling one of the hunters or watching from the shadows.

  The Darkhorn's arrival made matters even worse. She was not only Bedlam's bride, she was his harbinger, his front­ runner-the one he sent first into battles in stories like The Edge of Oblivion and Legend Most Legendary. She was a terror in her own right-a giant flying nightmare with a twisted horn of darkness (or many, by some accounts) jutting from her fore­ head. A fleshy glowing bulb that dangled from the horn could mesmerize victims and put them to sleep. Where Bedlam was the father of the Edgewalkers, the Darkhorn was their mother and the dreamer of Nightmares-literally her ·"horses of the night," born from her broken horns.

  Last year, Beau had told Sky that the Arkhon had once posed as the Darkhorn and attacked a hunter stronghold. In that conversation, Beau had mentioned that the Darkhorn could be captured with a dog-hair net. Why? Sky had no idea, but hunters believed it would work. Unfortunately, Sky was now fresh out of dogs, and dog hairs, and nearly out of his own hairs at the rate Fred was pulling.

  If the Darkhorn was in Exile, then Bedlam's army wasn't far behind-less than a day away, according to what Chase Shroud had told Beau, but how could an entire army get from Skull Valley to Exile without someone noticing?

  Sky took in his surroundings as the Piebalds left the island and its ice ring behind. They sailed over the unfrozen part of the swamp waters and started to descend toward the far shore, where he'd ditched his gear. The Bolger tree was one of the tallest in the Sleeping Lands, and from this height, Sky could see quite a lot, though Fred had to turn his head for him. To the west, he saw the Bolger swarms returning, looking angrier than ever. Southeast, the hunters sprinted through the swamps toward Arkhon Academy. He saw other things-dark things­ moving in the trees. The creatures of the night had stopped their mournful wailing, but Sky still shivered at the memory. The sooner he left this place, the better.

  And then to the east, he saw something flying low through the trees-not the Darkhorn, as he'd feared, or Bedlam's army swooping in, but something he'd almost forgotten about in his mad dash: the Marrowick from the bowling alley.

  They'd never figured out why the Marrowick had gone to the bowling alley in the first place, and now it was moving swiftly and sticking to the shadows as if hunting something just out of Sky's sight. Sky frowned. The timing of the Marrowick's strange behavior, occurring so close to the arrival of the hunters and Bedlam, was too odd to be a coincidence. Was the Marrowick somehow involved in all this? As much as Sky hated it, he knew that Exile would have to wait.

  "We need to hurry," Sky muttered, "before he gets away." Fred cawed and let go of Sky's hair, flying off to the east. "No, wait! Fred!" Sky plummeted.

  The other Piebalds squawked and tugged to no avail, and then let go entirely to save themselves, leaving Sky to plunge into the icy waters.

  He came up gasping for air, then paddled for shore. As he d
ragged himself onto dry land and collapsed to his hands and knees, he spotted his Core a few feet away.

  "CAW!" called out the Piebalds, landing nearby, but not too nearby.

  "Thanks a lot," said Sky, picking up his Core and putting it on.

  "CAW!"

  "Yes, the mud is all gone, but if I'd wanted a bath, I would've given myself one-and not in a swamp full of dead bodies!" Sky slammed a Cheez Whiz canister full of Fog into place.

  "CAW."

  "I know it's not your fault," said Sky. "Fred and I are going to have a long talk when he shows his face again."

  He pulled a Baggie full of crackers from his backpack and tossed several to the Piebalds. "Here, P-crackers-your favorite-made fresh at the lair four months ago."

  "CAW!" the Piebalds complained, dancing around the crackers.

  "I meant Pas in phosphorus! Of course they're not actually soaked in pee! That's preposterous!" The Piebalds leaped onto the crackers, snatching them up. Under his breath, Sky added, "As far as you know."

  He tracked down his other gear, reassembling it as he went. Last of all, he found his cloak sitting next to the broken Pounder. He surveyed the sliced tubing-cut by Crenshaw's knife-and decided, sadly, that he couldn't fix it.

  Sky pulled out his pocket watch, the only key to Solomon's prison he still possessed. One monocle he'd lost last year. He'd given the other to Crystal before the east cemetery imploded. He thought about her and the others and remembered some­ thing Phineas had told him years ago after finding him, crying and stuck in his own trap with a pair of woven branch pants wrapped around his head. After showing Sky how he could've broken free if he'd just thought it through, he'd said, 'We are hunters, Sky-tears are our lot. But we mustn't allow our sorrows to trap us. At night, we hunt evil in all its forms and we survive. There's plenty of time for tears in the morning, and often you'll find, when the light shines, the tears will come for entirely different reasons."

  Sky checked the time. Less than an hour had passed since he'd left Crystal, Andrew, Hands, and T-Bone behind, buried in the earth and in Nackles's hands. One lousy hour, and the night was still young. Part of him was afraid to return, afraid of what he might find.

  He sighed heavily. "Come on, let's find Fred and the Marrowick before something else decides to kill me."

  He set off through the swamp after the Piebalds, running northeast.

  ------------------------

  It took him some time and a few roundabout paths to find any trace of Fred and the Marrowick. And when he finally found that trace, it was confusing.

  He knelt down and examined a glob of soft Marrowick wax on the tip of a small gray feather. He rubbed the glob between his fingers, which caused them to tingle strangely. He stood and stepped carefully around the pools of wax and feathers that littered the ground.

  The Piebalds watched him quietly, perched on the surrounding trees.

  Ahead, the hill sloped upward into dry, uncharted terrain. He'd never gone this far into the Sleeping Lands before, both because it was a horrible place and because it was incredibly dangerous, even if you could talk to monsters. He wasn't even sure he was in the Sleeping Lands anymore since he hadn't seen a grave or a floating corpse for nearly fifteen minutes-a record for the night, by his estimates. When had his life gotten so odd that the absence of a dead body was more noticeable than its presence?

  He shook the thought away and turned his attention back to the feathers.

  "CAW?" the Piebalds inquired.

  "No, not the Darkhorn," said Sky, inspecting a broken branch covered in wax. "Though I suppose the Darkhorn could've attacked both of them. . .. Does the Darkhorn eat Marrowicks?"

  "CAW! CAW!"

  "I didn't think so," Sky replied, dropping the branch. "I suspect the Marrowick would give the Darkhorn horrible indigestion."

  Sky stared thoughtfully at the battleground, noting that the trail of feathers and wax seemed to veer off to the east. He reached out with his senses, but there was no sign of Fred anywhere. "Where are you, Fred?"

  The Piebalds squawked and cawed, gossiping amongst themselves about Fred and horror stories they'd heard about unprovoked Darkhorn attacks on innocent Piebalds. By the sounds of it, Piebalds were the Darkhorn's favorite food.

  As Sky continued surveying the grove, his eyes settled on an old oak tree and something sticking out of the trunk. When he reached it, he found a thick, gray hunter's arrow wedged deep into the bark. The shaft was coated in fine white powder that numbed his fingers in an all-too-familiar way-not the tingling of the Marrowick wax, but a numbing weariness that made him want to give up, lie down, and sleep.

  Dovetail.

  Last year the gargantuan Dovetail maze had poked him so many times, he couldn't help but recognize it. A little Dovetail put you to sleep so the plant could eat you at its leisure. A lot of Dovetail made you hallucinate. A little more and you never woke up.

  The arrow, though, was the wrong color for Dovetail-gray, not jet-black. And it was strangely gnarled and twisted, like a corkscrew-not at all like the sleek green-flame and glossy­ black arrows the hunters had shot at him.

  And yet it was definitely a hunter's arrow; it was too crazy not to be.

  Near the tip, Sky spotted a piece of torn cloak like those the hunters wore and a streak of fresh blood smeared length­ wise across the bark, pointing north. He backtracked, re-creating the scene in his mind: two hunters, one the shooter, the other the prey. The prey is shot-grazed by the looks of it-and flees north. And Fred and the Marrowick-how did they fit in? When Sky saw the Marrowick earlier, it'd looked like it was stalking something-one of the two hunters, possibly. Fred must've caught up to the Marrowick, and then ... what?

  Sky analyzed the angle of the arrow and found the likely s pot where the shooter had stood. The ground was covered in feathers and wax, which meant that Fred and the Marrowick had either attacked the shooter together, or that one had attacked the shooter and the other had defended the shooter from the attack. Either way, the prey had fled north while Fred and the Marrowick followed the shooter east.

  Sky scratched his head. What in the world was going on here? Sky reached out for Fred again. Nothing. He reached out further through the Edge, striving to touch Fred's mind and get a sense of his whereabouts. As he focused on Fred, the grove suddenly grew very, very quiet. Sky gave up his search and glanced at the Piebalds, wondering why they'd ceased their incessant gossiping. What he saw chilled him. Not a single feather moved, not an eye twitched. The Piebalds sat, tense and perfectly still, their beaks raised to the night.

  Sky looked up and saw a shadow streak across the moon, high above the thin and scattered forest-its gigantic wings blotting out the light. A blink, and then it was gone.

  Sky held his breath, afraid to move.

  Straight in front of him, he saw one of the Piebalds shuffle from one foot to the other.

  No . .. no, don't, Sky wanted to scream.

  The Piebald looked at him. Sky shook his head-No, he mouthed.

  The Piebald twitched nervously and began to spread its wings.

  No, no, no! Sky shook his head violently, willing the Piebald to stay in place.

  With a downward thrust, the Piebald launched into the air. "NO!" Sky screamed. But before he could even finish, a giant winged shadow-moving faster than he could track­ darted out of nowhere and snatched up the Piebald in its gaping mouth. Sky caught a glimpse of a twisted horn and a mesmerizing blue light dangling from it, and then the creature was gone.

  The grove erupted into chaos. Piebalds threw themselves from their perches, cawing and yammering madly in their frantic race to save themselves.

  The Darkhorn reappeared, swooping through the Piebalds, knocking aside trees and boulders that got in her way to get at her favorite food.

  Sky sprang sideways, dodging a falling tree. The Darkhorn hurtled over him, scooping up another Piebald. Sky reached for his Pounder, but the Pounder didn't work. He cursed Crenshaw, reached for his Fogger, and detached a
canister as the Darkhorn came in for another pass.

  He flicked it on and chucked it into the air, trying to hide not only himself, but the Piebalds as well. Before Fog could cover any of them, the Darkhorn apparently mistook the canister for a Piebald and swallowed it whole as she rocketed past.

  She screeched angrily, a high-pitched neighing that shook Sky to his bones.

  He scrambled for cover and reached for his last can of Fog, but before he could grab it, the Darkhorn dropped to the ground in front of him. She was massive and sleek and stood almost twenty feet tall. Thick Fog billowed from her mouth, swirling around her in strange geometries as she folded her wings to her sides. The glowing blue ball of light dangled from her mangled black horn, swinging back and forth.

  Her angry screeching suddenly changed into the most disturbingly beautiful sound he'd ever heard, like a thousand bro­ ken harps accompanying a thousand fallen angels. The sound pulled at him, dragging him close, step by longing step. And standing above him now was the most glorious woman, robed in light, her arms beckoning, beckoning. Strands of bright white hair swirled around her head and she smiled warmly, waving him closer.