Chaos Descends

by Shane Hegarty

  “So,” Broonie had asked, looking for a foothold in the Hydra’s welted skin, “why not use him instead?”

  “Because the mother Hydra was there too, and she ate the Hogboon immediately.”

  The Wrangler had laughed at this, a wheezing guffaw through his teeth that made it sound like he might be about to keel over and die. He then shuffled off into a deep crevice, mumbling about needing to fetch something.

  A couple of Hydra heads clashed around Broonie. They seemed to bicker almost constantly. Most of them anyway. Two were particularly aggressive, repeatedly shunting aside or snapping at others. One had a scar right down its eye and seemed particularly irritated by the very presence of the heads around it, hissing and growling at any other head that came near it.

  Another had a white stripe down its crown, like a smear of paint starting at the base of its neck and ending at the centre of its forehead. This head liked to stare at Broonie with worrying intent, breaking off only to headbutt whichever one drifted closest to it, the sound of colliding skulls enough to send a ripple of fear to the very centre of his core.

  The heads fought over not just space, but control of the body they shared. At one point, Broonie realised that a particularly violent episode of juddering and bucking had been caused by a struggle between two heads for which one of them could scratch an itch first. They clashed fiercely, so much so that the other heads veered out of the way, pushing themselves at awkward angles to avoid the scrap as the two necks swung at each other, the heads crashed together, the fangs tried to stab from within their muzzles.

  And yet two of the heads – one with a long fang sticking out of the side of its mouth; the other with a tuft of blue hair on its crown – were dozy, unbothered, maybe even beaten. They hung, listless, from the body of the creature. Broonie wondered what had happened to them.

  As Broonie found his place, Gantrua continued to talk. Broonie tried to listen. He tried to hear past the thumpety-thump of his own heart, the scraping of the Hydra’s feet, the cracking of neck on neck as they jostled for position all around him.

  “Another thing about a Hydra,” said the Fomorian, “is that once a battle is done, it feeds on its pilot and then they get another Hogboon. It’s a sort of reward. You understand that the pilot is you, don’t you? And you are about to take this fearsome creature into battle. You deserve a front seat for the invasion.” Gantrua walked away with the headless Blemmyes Wrangler in tow, into the murk beyond as the door began to close around them. “You have, my Hogboon corpse,” he called over his shoulder, “so much to look forward to yet.”

  Now Broonie was alone in the cavern, with just a raging Hydra for company. The head with the white stripe kept staring at him.

  “You think you have it bad?” Broonie asked it. “Of all the indignities I’ve suffered in recent months, this is getting close to being one of the worst. And that’s saying something. I’ve been frozen and thawed, clobbered, starved, insulted, mocked, chained, kicked, kicked again, prodded, poked, beaten, kicked some more, and now I am here, staring you and death in the face. And you know what the worst thing about it is?”

  The stripy Hydra’s head kept staring at him. It licked its lips.

  “The worst thing is wondering just what’s next.” He yanked at his bonds. “I’m wondering what’s to come, wondering what’s out there still waiting to get Broonie, and wondering what is that scratching noise in the shadows down there?”

  It was getting louder and louder. A scratching deep within the darkness. It was starting to cause the Hydra to snort and snap.

  Broonie tried to see what was making the sound, craned over the beast’s back as it rose and fell, giving him intermittent glimpses of the floor below. The scratching came again, followed by some sort of hissing noise, as if air was being released from something. Or the sound that might be made by a …

  “… Snake!” exclaimed Broonie, seeing a green, arrow-shaped head emerge from the dark, a flick of its tongue, its eyes catching a glint of the weak light high above them. Broonie began to pull at his restraints, panic creeping into him. He hated snakes. Despised them. Because snakes in this world were not mere snakes, they were always something else. The snakes on a head. The snakes in a giant’s mouth. If there was one thing he had learned in his years in this benighted world, it was that there was a never-ending array of ways in which a snake could be attached to another creature.

  And he hated every last one of them.

  “Stamp on it!” he told the Hydra. It ignored him, its heads busy instead fighting or dozing or scratching themselves against the rock wall. Except for the stripy head. It just kept staring at him.

  “Stop panicking,” said a calm voice in the darkness. Thin. Nasal. And edged with fatigue as if life had dragged it through the dirt on too many occasions. “You will give everything away.”

  Cornelius emerged from the darkest shadows. A large ageing dog, apparently so low on energy it could just about muster the effort to push through the shadows. It walked fully into the light, and now Broonie could see the bright green of the snake attached to it as a tail. “The last time we met, we helped you escape to the Promised World. We saved you,” said the snake-tail, Hiss.

  “You did a glorious job too, as you can see,” said Broonie, from up on the Hydra. But he relaxed slightly. Rescue was at hand. A couple of heads swung past him, smashing like felled tree trunks. “How did you get in then?” Broonie asked when the Hydra settled.

  Hiss looked up, its body curving upwards towards the shaft of light high above them.

  “Ah,” realised Broonie, “the Quetzalcóatl. Those rebellious serpents. Causing trouble again. So, you’re going to get me out that way. We’re flying up, right?”

  “I am afraid not,” said Hiss.

  Broonie sighed. “Of course not. Why should it ever be so straightforward?”

  “You will be staying on the Hydra.”

  “Wonderful,” said Broonie.

  “We have conversed with the creature, used the power of suggestion, spoken as one multi-headed soul to another, and we have given it a few instructions,” said Hiss. “We were not entirely successful, in truth.”

  “Fantastic,” said Broonie.

  “We think it will be enough to delay it, however, from killing us and everybody else for at least a while longer.”

  “Of course,” said Broonie, resigned to whatever new twist of fate would befall him.

  The Hydra had calmed momentarily, its heads at peace briefly.

  “We have managed to subdue two of the heads,” said Hiss, flicking his tongue towards the noticeably dozy parts of the Hydra. “When the time comes, you will need to say one word. This single word will act as a trigger, waking the hypnotised heads, putting them at war with the rest. But you can use this word once and once only. Its power will be exhausted once you, and you alone, utter it. Say this word only at the right moment.”

  The doors to the cavern were opening again, a shuddering grinding of steel on stone, cracks of light breaking the seal into the cavern.

  “What’s the word?” called Broonie.

  Cornelius coiled and jumped, leaping on to the body of the Hydra, dodging swiftly through its snapping heads, climbing up its back until Hiss was so close Broonie felt the disgusting tickle of the snake’s flickering tongue.

  The snake said a word. Then repeated it. And, before Broonie could ask what that even meant, the Orthrus was leaping again, clasping on to the wall, and then into mid-air where it hung for a moment in what looked to Broonie like a death plunge before, from a crevice high up, a pair of wings unfolded, widened, swooped, and a serpent that had been waiting hidden in the dark caught the Orthrus just at the point at which a Hydra’s head was going to make a meal of it.

  And then it was gone, up to the ceiling and the circle of grey light from the world above, disappearing into the shadow, away from the oncoming Fomorian soldiers, led by the Wrangler.

  As the Hydra was led out, with Broonie trapped on top of it, the w
ord spoken by the Orthrus echoed inside his mind, distracted him from the pain of the chains stretching his limbs, tearing his skin. The final instructions of the Orthrus were clear.

  “Say this word only at the right moment.”

  He would. He would hold it in his head and use it as a weapon only when the time arrived.

  Now seemed as good a time as any.

  At which point, the Wrangler reappeared and began bounding up the side of the Hydra with an agility belying his bulk. “Gantrua tolerate whingeing,” he said, “but me, no. Hydra, no.”

  With that, he put a muzzle round Broonie’s mouth and, no matter how much the Hogboon screamed the word, it could not be heard.

  “Ssssggssssss!” he moaned. “Ssssggsssss!”

  And, on the ledge outside, Gantrua held the hourglass aloft, triumphant. The last drops of blood were falling. The battle was about to begin.

  Finn’s watch told him there were only ten minutes left until time ran out and Mr Glad returned.

  Slowly, like the fading of a rainbow, each of the scars left by Mr Glad had faded from Darkmouth’s air. What had not disappeared was the feverish excitement of the Half-Hunters staying in town. They were invigorated, almost delighted at this turn of events. If Estravon was right, Mr Glad would be able to return imminently. They had arrived as tourists, but would leave as warriors.

  And for those who had never seen action, only hearing of it from their parents or grandparents, all this death and uncertainty was making for a quite wonderful holiday.

  They scurried to wherever they had found a bed, or parked their camper van, or pitched their tent, and grabbed the very things they weren’t supposed to have brought in the first place.

  Weapons.

  They took them from their bags, their jackets, their ceremonial pouches. Pulled them from their boots, from their socks. One Half-Hunter, in full view of the hotel’s owner, Mrs Cross, produced a long baton from somewhere under his armpit, and, when she glared at him with a mixture of contempt and bemusement, simply shrugged, broke into a grin and ran back out of the door to join the flow towards the rendezvous at Finn’s house.

  There waited the members of the Twelve and their assistants, plus Hugo, Gerald, Finn and Emmie. Estravon was with them, clipboard in hand, still looking somewhat wounded that he’d been kept out on the basis that Gerald didn’t like his choice of trousers.

  The Half-Hunters crowded up the street.

  Finn stood alongside Estravon, their backs to the wall outside, which was tall and imposing and beyond which lay nothing but wasteland and rubble piled up from years of digging their house through the street.

  “How are you feeling?” Hugo asked Gerald above the noise.

  “Feeling?” replied Gerald, utterly disgusted at the very word. “I don’t have time for feelings.”

  Hugo turned to Finn. “I’m sorry if I was ever like this with you,” he said. “Please tell me I haven’t been.”

  Finn’s brain wasn’t able to come up with a lie quick enough for his mouth, and he ended up just kind of burbling a bit in response. Emmie turned to him. “Do you want me to say it?” she asked.

  “No need,” Hugo sighed.

  But Finn knew why his father had asked Gerald how he was feeling, because he could see his great-grandfather wince every now and again in some kind of pain, had noticed him grip his side once or twice to quieten some spasm or other. He seemed to be struggling with an injury, although Finn couldn’t be sure where he’d picked it up.

  Before Finn could dwell on that any more, Hugo stepped forward to silence the giddy throng. “The time draws close. The readings show the sky thickening with energy somehow, from somewhere. It seems to be forming most in the Black Hills there.” He pointed to the lumpen rim of hills surrounding the inland edge of the town. “The clock ticks down, and we will be ready.”

  He held up Estravon’s screen showing the countdown.

  Five minutes left.

  The crowd was practically riotous with the excitement.

  “You came here for a celebration, for a Completion, for a birthday party. Not to fight a battle.”

  A battle was all they wanted. Hugo had to calm them down.

  “We will have the Completion Ceremony,” he said. “We will have the party. But first, a battle must be fought.”

  The Half-Hunters were practically dancing with anticipation.

  “My father might be one of the ones they’re attacking,” Emmie said to Finn. “They can’t celebrate anything if he’s dead.”

  Finn didn’t like seeing this slavering for a fight either. He had been in battles, and knew that they shocked the bravado out of you very quickly. He knew they thought this would be easy. And Finn knew they were wrong.

  “We have a Desiccannon which will freeze Mr Glad or any other Trapped when they appear,” said Hugo. At the rear of the crowd, the weapon was mounted on the battered remnants of Hugo’s car. “And each of you has been handed a packet of crystal dust for your own personal protection.”

  Every Half-Hunter present rummaged through their pockets and produced the packets as proof.

  Gerald stepped forward. “Do not lose these,” he barked. “If you do, then you will be lost and we will not come and find you.”

  “We need to see what other weapons we have,” said Estravon, clipboard in hand. “In case the cannon doesn’t work for any reason. Step forward, please.”

  A woman approached. On her head she had a helmet that was too big for her, but looked ferocious. Spikes of various sizes stabbed out from it. It gave her the appearance of a mutant hedgehog.

  “What’s your name?” asked Aurora the Third.

  “I am Kate of the once-Blighted Village of Sinister, Surrey!” she bawled loud enough for Cedric the Ninth to rock back a little even if this Half-Hunter hardly reached his shoulders.

  “And what do you do now?” Aurora asked.

  “I fix washing machines.”

  “Snort,” snorted Gerald.

  “What weapon do you have?” asked Cedric the Ninth.

  She stayed rigid, silent.

  “It’s the hat, isn’t it?” Hugo suggested.

  Kate nodded and a spike shot out of the helmet, fizzing with a loud wheeee between their heads, causing everyone to duck, and embedding itself in the wall behind them.

  Estravon made a note.

  “Take that thing off your head before it downs an aeroplane,” growled Gerald. She did, but not carefully enough to prevent another spike whirring off uncontrollably and causing mayhem among the assembled ranks behind her.

  She was sent back into line.

  The next Half-Hunter approached, his fighting suit a rusty orange. On further inspection, it might simply have been rusty.

  “How times have changed,” complained Gerald to Hugo. “This lot are more a danger to themselves than any Legends. You have to put up with this?”

  Hugo gave a very small nod.

  “You have patience, I will give you that.”

  The Half-Hunter presenting his weapon was busy trying to find the switch on the very small egg-shaped device he was carrying and, when he did, it burst in his hand with a loud bang. He dropped it, shaking the pain from his hand, and whined as its goo ate into the concrete, desiccating a patch. “That was a family heirloom. I knew I shouldn’t have brought it.”

  That broke Gerald’s tolerance. “Right, this is ridiculous!” he cried out. “I fought at the Battle of the Little Big Horns, where we brought down Legends using only the horns of particularly small bulls—”

  Hugo stepped up, cutting Gerald off, drew in a deep breath, his chest filling his fighting suit. Finn could see the bruise on his neck from where he had been hurt during the earlier attack by Mr Glad. He was ready to deliver words that would carry them into battle, that would fill them with pride and determination and knock away their fear.

  Over the Black Hills edging Darkmouth was a silent roll of lightning behind the late afternoon cloud.

  On every wrist, in eve
ry pocket, of every Half-Hunter, alarms began to go off. Beeps. Chimes. Jingles. Music.

  Finn’s watch did the same. He pressed a button to silence the alarm. But he couldn’t quieten the suffocating tension taking hold of him.

  “It is time,” said Hugo.

  In the corridor of the seventh storey of the Liechtenstein HQ stood a little girl with pigtails in her hair and a very large vaporising weapon in her hands.

  “How did you get hold of that?” an assistant asked her, while a crowd looked on tensely.

  “That room,” she said and waved it around, causing everyone to gasp and duck for fear of having their head vaporised.

  “You need to put that back in the museum, OK?”

  She nodded sweetly. “OK,” she agreed and put the weapon down on the floor, much to everyone’s relief. “But can I keep this?” She pulled a grenade from her pocket, causing the corridor to scatter.

  It was Bring Your Kids To Work Day, and those assistants who had children had brought them to the office as they did every year. And the children were running wild, as they did every year.

  Lucien’s were there too. Elektra and Tiberius were seven and five years old and had been given bold warrior names in anticipation of how one day they would grow up to become bold warriors. Right now, they were seeing who could spin fastest on their dad’s office swivel chairs.

  Elektra won. “I feel sick,” she said, dizzy.

  “I want to win!” screamed Tiberius.

  “Seriously, Daddy, I’m going to be sick.”

  Lucien brought the wastepaper bin to Elektra and sat it on her lap.

  “Howdy,” said Axel, arriving in the office. “Who wants some sherbet dip?”

  Elektra, magically better now, grabbed a packet first, tore it open and shoved in her fingers to root out the unnaturally pink sugar within.

  “Put that skull down!” Lucien heard someone in the corridor outside shout. A kid went running by the door with a Legend skull on his head.