Into the Infested Side

by Shane Hegarty

  “The sputumweed!” Hiss cried to the closing door. He then rose at Cornelius’s rear to meet Finn’s eyeline. “Next time you claim to know a Legend, try and make sure they are a little older than larvae.”

  “But I do know Broonie. And, if that was him, then...”

  “Where’s Estravon gone?” asked Emmie, looking back up the mound.

  Estravon was nowhere to be seen. His mutterings had stopped. Instead, the sounds of the forest were almost on top of them now, gleeful suddenly.

  “Something’s not right,” said Emmie.

  Cornelius whined.

  “We need to go to the tower now,” said Hiss. “The snow will be black soon. We have little time.”

  “We can’t just leave Estravon behind,” said Finn.

  They heard an angry shout. It sounded like Estravon. From the raised ground edging behind the hovel, an object came tumbling high through the air and embedded itself at their feet. Finn picked it up. It was a pen. A silver ballpoint. Where ink should be, there was blood.

  “Estravon, are you OK?” Finn called.

  In the sky, a dark shape crossed swiftly over them, low, a screech piercing the thin cloud. Both Cornelius and Hiss watched it pass.

  Hiss sighed as if pressed into doing something he didn’t want to.

  “Right, we will go and find the tall human. You two short ones stay here. Do not move under any circumstances. And while we are gone, boy, please stop bleeding.”

  The Orthrus bounded away, clearing the mound with an almost unbroken stride.

  From the forest on either side, the noise rose another notch so that the whoops and howls were almost deafening.

  Finn felt a trickle of blood run down his leg and pool along the rim of his armour at the ankle, where it dripped to the ground. He smeared at it with the back of his hand. Felt the soil beneath his feet weaken a little, as if it had been stirred.

  At the Hogboon’s hovel, windows were being shuttered. One by one.

  “What do we do?” Finn asked Emmie.

  “We could use some of these devices to fight,” she said, rummaging through her bag.

  “My dad’s taught me about setting up a defensive perimeter to hold out against attack,” suggested Finn. “We could try that.”

  The ground trembled again, soil bubbling at the small red splodges of crimson where Finn’s blood had dripped.

  “Or we could run?” said Emmie.

  “Running sounds good,” said Finn.

  They ran.

  In the forest behind them, the noise built to a crescendo. Howls. Shrieks. Screeches. Shouts. One long, ululating yekeyekeyekeyekeyekeyeke that cut through everything and echoed through the frozen woods.

  Noise, frenzy, tumult, hunger.

  Meanwhile, Finn’s and Emmie’s armour made a chorus of clanks and creaks and a dozen other sounds that were simply guaranteed to alert any Legend to their whereabouts.

  “I know this isn’t what you want to hear,” said Emmie, getting breathless under the weight of jolting steel, “but do you think you might actually—”

  “I really can’t just stop bleeding on demand!”

  He felt his waist, looked again at the blood on his hand. Behind him, the blot, blot, blot of blood on soil.

  They put some distance between themselves and the frenzy, or at least it sounded like that as they found themselves slowing in the dense, fossilised forest and heard only their own panting for the stale air. They crouched down by the wide sleek trunk of a tall tree, the two halves of their shared fighting suit knocking against it as they caught their breath.

  “I actually like this place,” said Emmie.

  Finn snorted a laugh through his heaving breaths, before realising she wasn’t joking.

  “It beats hanging around at home,” she grinned, “or sitting in the car, waiting for everyone else to get things done.”

  “Maybe we need to swap dads,” said Finn, then wished he hadn’t. “I don’t mean I want to leave my dad here or anything.”

  “I think that’s pretty clear. You jumped into a gateway to come and rescue him.”

  “To be honest, it sucked us into it.”

  “You teamed up with a Legend to go on a quest across the Infested Side.”

  “Yeah, but I’m still worried the Orthrus is just bringing us somewhere so they can do terrible things to us,” said Finn.

  “You’ve defeated Legends.”

  “Kind of run away from them mostly,” admitted Finn.

  “And all to save the last Legend Hunter.”

  “And get people killed.”

  “Oh, are you worried about Estravon? He’s probably boring a couple of Legends to death with rules right now.” She thrust her chin upwards, pursed her lips and spoke in Estravon’s unimpressed tones. “Actually, by order of the Twelve, your talons are contrary to rule 47-slash-Q of the Proper Use of Talons in Battle Laws.”

  “I will have to report you,” Finn added, doing his own impression of the Assessor. “Your talons will be replaced with the appropriate ones.”

  “And then—”

  “But only then—”

  “—will we proceed with the fighting.”

  A sound in the forest cut off the silliness, as if the soil was turning. Finn fell quiet again. “I hope Mam’s OK.”

  “Listen, we’ll be back home soon,” said Emmie, refusing to let him dwell on it. “I’m sure of it. We’ll be bored stiff in Mrs McDaid’s geography class before you know it, and we’ll hardly be able to believe we were ever here.”

  Finn inhaled deeply. “I just need to get my dad back.”

  “You will, Finn.”

  “All of this is my fault. I’m a walking disaster. I can’t even bleed properly.”

  “It really isn’t your fault,” Emmie insisted. “Why do you keep saying that? Why do you keep blaming yourself?”

  “He said I’d find him. He told me I would. I have to get him home. Or else it’ll all be my fault.”

  “You’re blaming yourself for something you haven’t even failed at yet.”

  Somewhere, the sound of stirring soil was growing, very slowly. It filled the silence between Finn and Emmie.

  “If I get my dad back, I’ll have proved myself. I’ll have done it and will have earned my Legend Hunter name,” said Finn, looking down at the shreds of what must once have been trees and branches and buds and life, but which were now just the crunchy carpet of a dying world. “If I do this, I think I’ll have the right to leave the Legend Hunter stuff behind. To do whatever I want with my life. No one could call me a coward for giving it up. Not after this. I’d have proved that and could choose what I want to do. They’d have to let me. I could be a vet, like I’ve always wanted. Do you see what I mean?”

  “You’d miss it really,” said Emmie. “I’ll miss it if I have to stop. This just feels so, I don’t know, right to me.”

  “At least you have a choice in how you feel,” said Finn.

  The noise came louder, closer. An approaching churning through the undergrowth. “I don’t think it’s safe here at all,” he said. “We need to go.”

  “Which way?” asked Emmie. “This forest is pretty dense.”

  Finn quickly pulled his now-saggy backpack round to the front, wincing as it brushed against the still-seeping cut at his waist, and fished out the radio. “I’ll try and call Dad again.” But there wasn’t so much as a crackle from it, just a gentle white noise. “Must be blocked by the trees,” he said.

  The growing noise in the forest sounded like roots stretching, awakening.

  “You don’t really like it here, do you?” Finn asked Emmie.

  “I actually do,” she said, with whispered enthusiasm. “It sort of grows on you or something. Do you not feel it?”

  “Not really,” he said, but didn’t have any more time to dwell on the subject. He noticed something else, a wriggle beneath the soles of his boots. “What about that? Did you feel that?” he said.

  “Nah.”

  The
soil felt loose beneath him, as if shifting away. As Finn stood up, he thought he saw something move in the trees ahead of them.

  “Did you see that?” he whispered to Emmie.

  “Yeah,” she said. A creature burst from the forest. Tall. Wolf-like but on two legs. Hair grew on welts, which in turn grew on bumps. It crashed straight into their path, howling. Even in the blur of its arrival, Finn recognised it immediately as a Grendel. He had read about it. Seen the drawings. A creature terminally annoyed. Never happy. Always looking for a fight.

  It had found one.

  They turned to run.

  Another Grendel appeared ahead of them, pink tongue lolling through grinding teeth, ears pricked at the top of its head. Its nose glistened at the end of its snarling snout. It stalked calmly from the trees as if it had been waiting for them, lips curling in anticipation.

  Finn and Emmie stopped, trapped between the two Legends. Emmie yanked her bag forward and pulled the pineapple device from it. She turned it hurriedly, trying to find an obvious trigger or switch. She found clasps on either side, bound at a split running through the centre of the device. She sprang them open and the pineapple fronds gently unfurled.

  “What does it do?” she wondered, fretful.

  The pineapple started to hiss, as if pressure was building within it and desperate to burst out.

  “I’ve no idea and I wouldn’t hold it any longer to find out,” answered Finn. Grabbing the device from her, he threw it to the ground between them and the approaching Grendels.

  Then Finn and Emmie ran in the opposite direction. The Legends hurdled the device to get to them. As they did, the pineapple weapon spluttered a faint wisp of powder from the thin line at its centre, then burst open with a violent phaamp – spraying a geyser of foam straight upwards into the Grendels’ trajectory.

  The Legends froze mid-leap, hanging for a moment in that pose before dropping either side. They thudded to the ground with their teeth bared, claws out, like toppled statues.

  Finn and Emmie had paused too as they turned to watch, but a nearby noise shook them alert again and they ran, bags jolting on their backs, crashing across the ground in whatever direction seemed easiest to cross.

  “This way,” they both said at the same time and ran in different directions.

  Finn realised what had happened and skidded to a stop just as another Grendel emerged from the thick growth, crashing between himself and Emmie, cutting them off from each other. When it steadied itself, it was facing Finn.

  It stretched a wicked grin to fully display its jaws – and, for the first time, Finn felt woozy, whether from fear or the blood still seeping gently from his cut, he couldn’t be sure. The ground was uneven beneath him. The Legend crept towards him slowly, as if sizing him up.

  There was a wolf whistle. The Legend turned to face it. “Over here, you fleapit!” shouted Emmie’s voice from among the dead wood.

  The creature turned towards it, ears pricked, pinhole eyes fixed on something. It took a moment for Finn to see a dull glint of armour, just an edge of it, crouched behind a wide tree.

  “No!” he shouted. “Ignore her – come here!”

  But it kept on moving towards where Emmie was hiding behind the glassy bark.

  “Emmie!” he shouted. “Emmie, it’s coming! Be careful.”

  Another Grendel emerged from the trees, and the two creatures closed in on her in a pincer movement. Then they stopped and Finn could see one of the Legends clawing at the armour. The top half of the fighting suit fell to the ground, empty and loose.

  A pineapple-shape rolled slowly from its open neck.

  The Legends’ brows furrowed. Then their eyes widened in realisation.

  Phaamp.

  Two more frozen Legends tipped over with surprised looks stuck on their faces.

  Finn found himself smiling widely. A grin that made cheeks ache that had had little practice in recent weeks. “Emmie!” he hissed as loudly as he could without actually shouting. “That was fantastic.”

  There was no response. He searched the trees for her. “Emmie. Come out, Emmie. They’re gone. It’s only me.”

  There was no sign of her.

  He looked around to see which way she might have gone. Splashes of colour caught his eye. Pages and glossy pictures, utterly out of place here. It was one of Emmie’s schoolbooks, open on the dark forest floor.

  History Now.

  Just ahead was another, shiny pages snagged on the undergrowth.

  Improve Your English 4.

  Books littered the way, making a paper trail for Finn to follow. Let’s Do Maths! Then a copybook, Emmie’s work scribbled through it, idle doodles in the margins. The red pen of a correction mark, Mrs McDaid’s writing. A tick. V. good.

  The trail of books ended at a large clearing, blasted stumps littering the ground as if the roof of the forest had been blown clean off.

  From the further edges of the ring of trees, Legends were pouring in, flooding towards the middle. And it took Finn a moment to see why.

  Emmie was trapped at the centre, pressed up against a blasted stump.

  Helpless. Surrounded by Legends.

  And, for the first time since Finn had met her, she looked very, very afraid.

  Finn watched as Emmie jumped on to the wide tree stump and rummaged through her schoolbag, then tipped it over in the hope that a last device would fall out. But she shook out only pencils and sharpenings, bits of food and wrappings, the incongruous materials of a whole other world, a whole other life.

  The Legends crowded in towards her, screaming through mouths rimmed with teeth, through heads rimmed with mouths, through necks rimmed with heads.

  “Emmie!”

  Finn stepped into the clearing. How odd she suddenly looked to him. Her school uniform exposed again, her bag covered in rough graffiti and doodles, all these normal things in a world on the far side of normality.

  She caught sight of him. “Finn! Help, Finn!”

  Above the clearing, there was a swirl in the cloud. The stirrings of a whirlpool.

  A screech, incoming, stabbing through the world, shredding the sky.

  Finn saw a serpent, wings folded along a coiled body, its fangs long curved needles in a mouth open to a grotesque width. Plummeting fast. Its body straightened and fully spread, its wings resembled umbrellas wrecked in the wind.

  It banked, levelled off, zeroed in on its target.

  The Legends heard it too, then reacted to the sight of it with a new urgency, picking up speed as they ran towards Emmie.

  She was the only one who didn’t see it. Her focus was entirely on the Legends that surrounded her, snapping, howling, fighting to be the first to get to her.

  She threw her empty schoolbag at an onrushing Legend.

  It ate it.

  “Finn!” she called again, distress making her voice hoarse.

  “Emmie!” Finn jolted forward. Helpless. Powerless.

  Claws raised, teeth bared, the Legends surged at Emmie.

  But the flying serpent got to her first.

  Emmie was gone so quickly, lifted and taken as if she weighed nothing. The serpent’s flight was unchecked as it snatched her in its teeth in one swift movement. The Legends on the ground had no time to react. By the time Finn called her name again, she was already halfway across the sky. “Emmie!”

  His voice fell uselessly short.

  She disappeared fast. At first, she was a kicking, flailing figure in the jaws of the flying serpent, its long teeth curving round her. Then she was in the clouds.

  Gone.

  “Emmie,” Finn repeated. But there was no shout this time, just a croaked exclamation of shock and heartbreak.

  After which, he hardly breathed, just stared, paralysed. When his lungs finally jolted into action again, a sensation surged through him that was as powerful as any he’d experienced in this place. Any place.

  Anger. Determination. A deep desire for revenge.

  It was fuelled by the energy build
ing within him again. The crackle through his arm. A surge in his chest. A force he could barely contain. Which he could not control.

  Finn picked up a sharp, petrified branch and used it to quickly hack at another until it snapped off. With one in each hand, he advanced from the treeline, wielding his improvised swords. Anger had taken over, shoving his cowardice into a corner of his mind.

  Swinging one blade, pointing the other, he summoned every training session, every minute of practice into this moment. Recalled every move he had learned, every punch and kick.

  “You took Emmie!” he shouted at the Legends. “You. Took. Emmie.”

  He was going to carve his way through them. Going to wreak his revenge on them. Going to take all of them on.

  Their attention was now fixed firmly on him. An array of Legends of such terrifying variety he couldn’t even focus on them.

  “Come on!” he screamed.

  A dozen Legends faced him.

  “Come on!”

  Maybe a couple of dozen. Snarling, ruthless.

  Actually, more like fifty, he realised.

  They had all turned towards him.

  Possibly a hundred Legends, now that he could see them better.

  Moving straight for him.

  He thought of all those moves he’d tried but failed to do. All those training sessions with his father that had ended in disappointment. Every punch he’d missed. Every kick that had gone awry.

  He knew exactly what he needed to do.

  Finn ran away.

  Blood still dripped from Finn, weakness fighting with his adrenalin and beginning to take over his body.

  In response to each step he took, the ground seemed to shift again, making his movements uncertain, as if the earth was grabbing at him. Behind him was the renewed splot, splot, splot of dripping blood.

  He felt the energy travelling through his body. He recognised it so well already. The same energy as when he had passed out before. The same force that had been building in him since touching the crystal in the Darkmouth cave. It was even more powerful now. Threatening to become overwhelming.