The Legend Thief (9 page)

Sky stepped forward and read the words etched into the stone:

Solomon Rose

Hunter or Legend

Star of the First Hunter

Keeper of the Light

Sky pondered vandalizing the statue, but at that moment, he heard the sounds of digging. He crept closer. A short distance away, he spotted a humble grave with a large rock at the head. Heaps of dirt
were
piled around the hole, with more dirt flying out all the time. Someone had rigged together an ingenious pulley system made of branches and vines that looped around a nearby tree.

A woman's head popped out of the hole and Sky ducked back, holding his breath. Her face was covered with dirt, but hidden beneath that
dirt,
Sky saw short brown hair, a grim face, and sunken eyes. After a moment the pulley creaked, the vines dropped into the hole, and she disappeared again.

Sky darted closer and dove behind the mound of dirt. Peeking over the mound, he saw the hunter attach vines to the coffin within. Blood stained her arm, and she'd wrapped a cloth around it to stop the bleeding; this was definitely his injured hunter.

He glanced at the rock to see who was worth digging up and was surprised to see the name Alexander Drake.

Sky glanced around nervously, remembering the warning from the inscription outside the grove:

Disturb their slumber

-
disregard
this sign –

and
join them six feet under,

with
maggots in thy mind

He realized that the grove had grown still-no eerie music, no wind, just the whispers of firefly wings as they flew around the monuments.

Sky ducked back down as the hunter stood and tested the ties.
Then she leaped from the hole with supernatural grace.

She grabbed a vine and pulled. Slowly the coffin rose into the air and then dropped to the ground with a thump.

Sky peeked over the mound again. He still had no idea who this hunter was or why she'd dug up Alexander Drake. Sky had one of Alexander's journals, which had helped him survive the Jack last year, and he owned the series
A Botanist's Guide to Botany: Botany Through the Ages,
also by Drake, which was every bit as tedious as it sounded and was really only good for hiding monocles.

And, of course, Alexander had trapped Bedlam alongside Solomon;
that,
Sky suspected, was the most important detail. Once again, it all led back to Bedlam.

The hunter flipped open the coffin lid and Sky peered in: The coffin was empty except for a gray sludge that filled the bottom. The hunter dipped a scarred finger into the sludge and then licked the sludge off her finger. She threw back her head and laughed.

She kicked over the coffin, spilling the sludge. Before Sky could decide whether to show himself or slip away to a safer hiding place, he noticed writing on the inside of the coffin lid: "With Hunter's Mark the buried dead shall shimmering blade hold in my stead."

Sky stared at the words, as if staring would force them to make sense.

"You might as well come out," said the hunter. "I know you're there."

Sky's heart froze in his chest.

"Come on, don't be shy-I won't bite," she promised.

Sky stood from the mound, dusted himself off, and stepped from hiding.

The hunter looked him over.
"
Ahh
.
I see. This is ... unexpected."

"Who were you expecting?" Sky asked, looking for a way out if things went bad.
As
he looked, he noticed the strange fireflies starting to swarm.

"An old friend," she replied. "Why'd you come here?"

"Got lost on my way to school," said Sky.

"Funny," said the woman, without laughing. "Grab the other side of this coffin, would you?"

Sky looked
around .
"Who, me?"

"No. The smart-aleck kid
behind
you," she said, picking up one side of the coffin.

Sky hesitated.

"Well, go on, pick it up," said the hunter.
"Unless you want that swarm of Porp-a-lorps to bury us."

"
Porpa-whats
?"

The hunter sighed in frustration. "Just pick it up."

Sky grabbed the coffin and struggled to lift it. It was just a thin pine box, not a true coffin. Still, it was heavy.

She raised her eyebrows. "And here I thought you were a hunter."

Sky dropped the coffin, walked over to the pulley, surveyed it, and then tipped it and rearranged the pieces into a sled in under a minute.

The woman grinned. "Nice sled."

"You have no idea who I am, do you?" Sky asked, pulling the coffin onto the sled.

The hunter snatched the coffin from the sled and put it on her shoulder, holding it with one arm. "No. Should
I ?
Are you like Esteban, where everyone should know your name because it's Esteban?"

Sky shook his head. "Who
are
you?"

"The only thing keeping you alive at the moment," the woman replied. "Now bring the sled and stay close to me-l might get tired. And while you're at it, tell me what you're
really
doing here."

The
Porpa-whatevers
swarmed around them, but for some reason none of them came close.

''I'm looking for my bird," said Sky, dragging his sled. "You might've seen him-gray feathers, goes by the name Fred, saved your life earlier.
Maybe."

The hunter glanced at him from the corner of her eye.
"The Marrowick yours, too?"

"I claim no affiliations," Sky replied.
"How about you?"
She smiled. "I claim all sorts of affiliations; doesn't mean they claim me."

"So you're not working with Morton to kill me?" Sky asked.

"Morton? You mean
Morton Thresher?"

Sky nodded.

"Good golly, kid, you don't aim low at all, do you?" she said, sounding impressed. "What'd you
do,
backtalk during one of his lectures?"

Sky felt flummoxed. "You really don't know what's going
on.?
"

"Been out of the game for a while."

They reached the edge of the clearing and the hunter set the coffin on its end and leaned against it, catching her breath. "A few things you should know before we make a run for it," said the hunter. "First, shove this up your nose." She offered him some moldy brown leaves.

"Barrow weed?" said Sky, recognizing the nasty leaves he'd used on Phineas last year.

"To keep Bedlam and the Darkhorn out of your head," she said. "Porp-a-lorps don't like it much either."

Sky shoved the barrow weed up his nose and the weird firefly things seemed to back off. It tickled.

"I really could've used this earlier. What are the side effects?" Sky asked. Phineas once told him things like this had a cost, like the black rutabaga that could make you jump like a Barrow Hag but gave you severe constipation and an inordinate amount of nose hair for a week.

"Ugly brown leaves hanging out of your nose isn't bad enough?" the hunter asked.

Sky shrugged.

"Not every monster secret has a side effect," said the hunter. "Of course, you might smell the color brown for a few hours after."

"Brown?" said Sky, perplexed.

"The next thing you need to know," the hunter continued, "is that until a short time ago, I was Bedlam-or rather, he was me. He trapped my mind temporarily, I'm embarrassed to say. 'Just sprinkle the dust on Bedlam's Chrysalis to find your answer,' she told me. 'Only Alexander's blade can free Bedlam; you'll be fine,' she claimed. Yeah.
Right.
Free his body maybe, but that dust worked perfectly well at freeing him to edgewalk right into my head."

"Wait,
you
freed Bedlam?" Sky asked, dumbfounded.

"Not on purpose. I was tricked," the hunter replied.
"By who?"

"Vulpine, Bedlam's sister," said the hunter. "The whole family is tricky. I thought she was okay-never steered me wrong before. Salt of the earth kind of woman ...
er
... plant.
Whatever she is."

"So let me get this straight," said Sky. "A plant
womanone
of Legend's daughters-told you to sprinkle dust on her trapped brother's Chrysalis-a Chrysalis that only a dead hunter's shimmering blade could open-and you actually did it?"

"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds kind of stupid," said the hunter. "Look, if anything happens to me, you need to get this coffin to Phineas T. Pimiscule. Got that?"

Sky stared at her, and a huge lump caught in his throat. "Phineas lived in the manor south of here," the hunter continued, "but he went into hiding nine years ago, so he might be hard to find-"

"Twelve years ago," Sky corrected, choking on the words.

"Excuse me?"

"Phineas went into hiding twelve years ago," Sky said again, fighting to keep tears from his eyes. "He died last year in the Jack."

"Last year? That's impossible ... I couldn't have
been .
..I mean, it took some time for Bedlam to raise his army, and I was locked in the Edge for a while, but ..." The woman shook her head. "You must be mistaken."

She threw the coffin over her shoulder and stormed off before Sky could reply.

He ran to catch up to her, dragging his sled.

The strange grove came to life around him, churning out its haunting tune. Only, this time the music was frenetic, disturbed, all sense of peace gone.

The hunter stopped at the edge of the grove and set down the coffin. She held up her hand for silence as Sky came up behind her.

Before he could comply, he caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. The woman staggered, a thick gray arrow sticking out of her chest.

She looked at Sky, eyes unfocused. Then she fell to the ground.

Sky dove behind the coffin. He scanned the surrounding cliffs but saw nothing.

He stared at the hunter for a moment, her chest slowly rising and falling. She lived, but for how long?

He cast his eyes around and spotted the Porp-a-lorps hovering a few feet away. He watched their shifting lights, heard the discordant sounds of the
grove ...

He focused on his Hunter's Mark and felt it warm. He spoke to the grove and his voice filled with music. The grove responded, and the Porp-a-lorps zoomed off to find and bury the shooter.

Sky caught a glimpse of a cloaked figure racing away. Then he stopped speaking and the music faded.

With a heave, Sky dragged the hunter into the coffin, fearing that he knew exactly who she was and that she might die. Then he looped the vines around his chest and started to pull, desperately hoping the coffin would float.

He'd hoped to sneak home and lay low until he found out what had happened to his friends and if Malvidia had worked out a deal to save his life. But there was no time for stealth now. Whether the Hunters of Legend planned to kill him or not, he was going home, even if it cost him his life.