Into the Infested Side

by Shane Hegarty

  “Did you bring any medical equipment in that bag?” asked Estravon, observing Finn. “Or did you think the crisp packet would bandage you up if need be?”

  “Stop it,” said Emmie.

  “Be very careful,” warned Estravon. “I am forced by the rules to accompany him, but not you. Don’t forget that.”

  Finn closed his eyes and let the energy relax within the fibres of his body, settle into every blood cell. He felt a calm washing through him, but it was almost instinctive, as if it was his mind’s way of fighting back at whatever was trying to take over.

  “Do you hear that?” Estravon whispered.

  They each listened, Hiss narrowing his eyes as he watched the humans.

  “No,” said Emmie after a few seconds.

  “Exactly. Nothing. It’s all gone quiet.”

  Just saying that seemed to break the spell. Unseen in the world around them, a hubbub grew again steadily, a low murmur.

  “Maybe Estravon’s right. Maybe we do need real food,” Emmie said. “If we find Broonie, he can get some.”

  “No, he cannot,” said Hiss.

  “We could at least try,” said Emmie, but Cornelius had already moved on again.

  Finn’s bag felt heavy on his back, his steel trousers dragged at his legs, but he reckoned he had enough energy to go with the Orthrus.

  They pushed through thick, hard reeds, which now reached to their shoulders. Estravon resumed his complaints about the damage it was causing to his suit. Then he complained that no one seemed to be listening to his complaints.

  Which wasn’t true at all. They were just ignoring them.

  Finn worked up the strength to walk alongside the Orthrus. He needed to ask it something. “Why did you look so worried back there, when I fell?”

  The snake was hanging low, swaying metronomically. It appeared to be trying to sleep. Without opening his eyes, Hiss spoke. “When we first met, why did you think we were a Shapeshifter?”

  “Because we met one at the cave where our gateway opened,” answered Finn.

  “And Finn killed it,” said Emmie excitedly, arriving alongside. “You should’ve seen him do it. He was merciless.”

  Cornelius stopped. Hiss looked as intrigued as a snake could. “You killed a Shapeshifter?”

  “No,” insisted Finn, hurt by the insinuation. “We just trapped it, left it tied up. I feel kind of bad about it, to be honest.”

  “I don’t,” said Estravon from behind.

  “The Shapeshifter was in a cave, yes?” asked Hiss, eyes open again. “Would it have been the Cave at the End of the World by any chance?”

  “Really smelly?” asked Emmie.

  “Golden goo and stalactites?” added Finn.

  “Stalagmites,” said Estravon.

  Cornelius gave the strangest laugh, a dog’s wheeze of amusement. “What my other half is saying,” said Hiss, “is that you put the Skin-Walker out of action. He feeds off new forms, you see. A touch of another creature is all it takes and he can become them.”

  “I touched it,” Finn recalled. “When I thought it was Mrs Bright.”

  “Then he shows them a vision of themselves,” continued Hiss. “He mimics them. Toys with them. It is how he gets his energy. And only then does he kill them. But that is irrelevant for now. What matters is not that you stopped the Shapeshifter, but what you stopped him from guarding.”

  “Which was?” asked Estravon.

  “That is the problem with you humans. You do not ever believe the answer could be falling at your small, oddly-shaped feet. What do you think is within those stalagmites that could be worth guarding? Something that could have great power?”

  Finn thought about it for a moment. “The stalagmites,” he said. “Do they contain crystals?”

  “Well done,” hissed Hiss, swaying as Cornelius moved forward again. “You disabled the very thing stopping you from getting home, then ran away without even realising it. You really are not the brightest snakes on the head of the Medusa, are you?”

  “I told you we should have stayed at that cave,” said Estravon, his anger boiling. “Standard rescue procedure dictates you stay with your gateway and await rescue.”

  “You ran away quicker than any of us,” Emmie told him.

  “The three of you ran quite a distance too,” said Hiss. “Now your biggest problem is not how to get back to those crystals so you can return to the Promised World, but rather who might get there before you. Because, without their guard, there is nothing to stop those crystals from being discovered and plundered.”

  “Why is it called the Cave at the End of the World?” asked Estravon.

  Hiss shrugged, or at least got the closest to shrugging a snake could manage. “No one seems to know. It certainly does not look anything like the actual end of the world and I have been there. Totally different place altogether.” Hiss paused and swung towards Finn, asking urgently, “Hold on, are you bleeding?”

  Finn looked at his waist, where the band of his fighting suit pushed up over his school sweater. There was a tear through to the skin and it was stained with fresh blood. “It happened when I fell, back when we were eating. I must’ve scraped it against a stone or something,” he said. “I don’t think it’s too bad.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” said Estravon. “I’m not having you dying over here, on my watch.” He paused. “The paperwork would be appalling.”

  “It’s just a scratch,” said Finn as Estravon bent to examine it. “OK, a big scratch,” he added once he saw a look of concern cross the Assessor’s face.

  “It’s not very deep. And it’s not very life-threatening, but it’s trickling blood all the same and you could get an infection if you’re not careful,” Estravon said, straightening up.

  “There you go,” said Finn, pulling his sweater back over the cut. “I told you it wasn’t serious.”

  Around them, deep in the reeds, came noises. Creeping. Listening. Tracking. Still refusing to show themselves.

  “You do not think it is serious?” said Hiss. “You are bleeding. You might as well waggle your fleshy behind at the creatures in those trees. You have to stop. You will drive them crazy.”

  “I can’t just stop bleeding,” said Finn.

  “At that rate,” said Estravon, “his blood will not coagulate until approximately—”

  “Shut up,” Hiss told him.

  The Orthrus started back into the forest, quickening its pace all of a sudden. Finn felt the molten lead of panic beginning to pour into his stomach again, that old familiar feeling.

  Cornelius growled.

  “You are right, we are almost there,” Hiss said to him, then spoke to the three humans. “It is just beyond these reeds.”

  “We’re almost at the tower?” asked Finn because the mountain still seemed a distance away, a dark shadow touching the edge of the snow-cap.

  “No. We will get there before the snow turns black,” said Hiss. “But that is not where we are going right now.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Finn.

  “We are taking a detour,” said Hiss. “To get something to stop that bleeding.”

  “Detour?” said Estravon. “No one said anything about taking any detours.”

  “The human boy says he knows the Hogboon called Broonie,” said Hiss and rose high enough to press his face to Estravon’s. “We need help, and Hogboons have ways and means to heal such cuts. So, we are going to see Broonie.”

  There had been dark moments in Darkmouth’s past, but its people had never come out to help.

  They had not come out to help during the Little Siege of 1783.

  They had not come out for the Somewhat Bigger Siege of 1784.

  Eighty years ago an ancestor of Finn’s, Leonora the Wild, misplaced her house keys and the people of Darkmouth didn’t even come out to help find those.

  But two of their young were missing, so the inhabitants of the last Blighted Village had come out to help this time. They walked the beaches, co
mbed the fields, poked through the ditches. Clara visited the school, addressing Finn and Emmie’s class with Steve, jittery, alongside her, in his fighting suit for some reason that no one really understood.

  “If any of you has seen them, please let us know,” she said kindly.

  The pupils sat in awkward silence, the seriousness of this weighing on them. Or most of them. The Savage twins watched with quiet amusement.

  “And if you do know where they are,” Finn’s mother said, “please let them know they’re not in any trouble.”

  Steve tutted loudly at that. Unable to keep quiet any longer, he stepped forward. “Listen. You’re all smart little beggars, right? This is serious stuff, not just a silly game. It’s Legend Hunter business. You wouldn’t understand, but this is about stopping you all being torn into little meaty chunks ultimately. So, you know, get on your phones or whatever and let’s get this sorted soon.”

  Steve stepped back, apparently satisfied. Clara stared at him in disbelief. Mrs McDaid fought to hide her displeasure. The children gawked.

  Class was let out early so pupils could join the long lines scouring the town, heads down, searching for clues. Finn and Emmie’s classmates grew as giddy as the adults were gravely serious. The Savage twins were particularly reluctant helpers, taking their place in the line with hands in pockets, joking throughout, even as Mrs McDaid informed them that this was a very serious matter and they should treat it as such.

  “Hold on, I think I’ve found Finn,” Conn said to Manus. “No, actually, it’s just a worm. It was hard to tell the difference.”

  “There are so many weeds here, he could be any one of them,” Manus said to Conn.

  “If I hear another word from either one of you, there’ll be a serious punishment for you both. There’s nothing funny about Finn’s special circumstances,” said a passing Mrs McDaid.

  The twins sniggered at that. As their teacher walked away, Conn spotted something colourful in the grass, a wristband snagged on a thorn, a vivid splash of primary colours against the green. He drew Manus’s attention to it.

  “I’ve seen this before,” Conn said. “On the Legend blunder’s wrist.”

  “I guess we need to do something with it,” said Manus.

  “You’re right,” agreed Conn. He ground the wristband into the undergrowth with his heel, where it couldn’t be seen. Then the twins moved on with the rest of the line.

  On the Infested Side, the stabbing reeds ended just as suddenly as they’d begun.

  Finn followed the Orthrus past them and emerged into a wide rolling expanse of hard scrub, pitted muck and stones. It looked as if the area had been smeared on to the landscape, a rough oval pressed into the glass forest that jutted high on three sides.

  At its centre, the ground slumped away into a wide bowl. A thin column of blue smoke rose from a dwelling cut into the earth to touch the uniform cloud pressed low on the world. The odour of a fiery hearth was welcoming above the pervasive putridness of the air.

  “Wait here and try not to bleed everywhere,” Hiss said to Finn. From the woods came a burble of whispers and muted shrieks. Something seemed to dart across the forest floor to their left. Something else leaped through branches.

  Against a world so devoid of colour and warmth, the deep red of Finn’s blood had a near extraordinary vibrancy. It trickled through the dirt on his fingers, dribbled down his hand and on to the armour, where it then ran at pace towards the ground. The little splashes of red were like blossoms on the dirt.

  “Sorry about the bleeding,” Finn said.

  “Not exactly your fault, Finn,” said Emmie.

  Estravon stood at their backs, watching over their heads as the Orthrus trotted towards the dwelling. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “We get to that tower, we get your father, we get back to the cave and all those crystals and then we get out of here. We’ve been too lucky for too long. About three hours forty-three minutes too long, to be accurate. And that includes a minute of anticipated luck I’ve added as a statistical margin of error.”

  Finn sighed. “Could you at least try and be a bit cheery?” he asked. “It’s not as if I don’t have enough worry in my head as it is.”

  “For a couple of people who’ve done very little but collapse and bleed and run into suspiciously helpful two-headed Legends, you’re very cocky all of a sudden.”

  In the glum light, a momentary darkness passed over them.

  Finn looked up at the sky and, while he saw nothing, he knew something had been there. The something with wings.

  Shuddering, he moved towards the hovel in the depression and heard voices. One of them was thin and kind of familiar.

  “Take those humans away from us now,” said that voice, “or I swear by the blasted nose of Great-uncle Ilfridus, I will bury you in ravenous biteworms.”

  “It is Broonie this, Broonie that from these humans,” said Hiss. “We will delay you for no longer than the beat of a hummingdragon’s wing. Just see him, give us some sputumweed for his wound and we will be on our way.”

  “Out of the question,” said the voice.

  “You hear that malevolence in the forest?” said Hiss. “They are waiting. Watching. They want the humans.”

  “Let ’em have ’em.”

  “Although this is hard to fathom, the soldiers in that forest are afraid of this child. They have heard rumours, a warning that precedes him. Their instinct draws them to him, but so far their biggest fight has been with their own urges to kill him. You do not want them this nervous on your mudstep. And you certainly do not want the boy hanging around.”

  Finn edged closer, peeking over the top of the roof, layered with flattened stalks, a column of smoke rising steadily. He could now see the Orthrus talking to a short Legend in rags, wearing a hat that was more holes than material and under which large green ears hung. It was a Hogboon, but Finn could not make out his face.

  “Leave us in peace,” the Hogboon begged.

  “We both know that some of those in the forest right now would not be pleased to realise that in your hovel are bags of scumweavels which, by the letter of the law, were theirs to begin with.”

  “I found those scumweavels.”

  “True, but you found them when breaking into their dwellings.”

  There was a momentary silence, then a sigh. “If Broonie comes out, you promise you’ll go?”

  “Add some sputumweed to the deal and we will leave. We have to stop the boy’s bleeding. I swear on the life of my brother.”

  Cornelius gave a disgruntled snort.

  Finn leaned forward a bit more, sending some dirt falling from the ridge. The Hogboon lifted his gaze so that Finn could see the face under the brim of the tattered hat. His nose was long, his ears longer and his skin a shade of green just a little lighter. There was a certain resemblance to Broonie, but it wasn’t him.

  The Hogboon called back into the dwelling. “Phlemooka, bring Broonie out to us. Just for a moment.”

  “Sausage,” said Cornelius, nodding at Finn to come down.

  Emmie scrambled down ahead. “I think it’s cute when he calls you sausage.”

  “Being considered meat can’t be good for anyone’s chances of getting out alive,” said Estravon, passing him next.

  Finn climbed down to join them, leaving a bright smudge of blood behind on the dirt, and came face to face with the Hogboon. The look he got in return was one of deep distrust laced with a certain curiosity.

  “Eugh,” exclaimed the Hogboon, nose wrinkled in disgust. “I heard about human ears, but to actually see them in the flesh. And those nostrils. Hardly big enough to fit half a toe into.”

  “I just want to register my opposition to this meeting, in the strongest terms possible,” said Estravon as he searched for something in his pocket.

  Another Hogboon stood at the door to the hovel. A female, she cradled rags from which Finn could just about see a small green face poking out. A baby Hogboon. And this must be its mother, Finn presumed. Sh
e had a face that while utterly strange appeared kindly.

  “Whaddya want, ye wartless uglies?” she rasped.

  The male Hogboon pointed at Finn, and the mother held the bundle towards him, using a crooked finger to reveal the infant’s face. “This is Broonie,” she said. “Now get lost.”

  “Oh, he’s so cute,” said Emmie, craning for a peek. The baby Hogboon sneezed on her.

  Estravon was muttering something about his camera.

  “I’m sorry,” said Finn, looking from the Hogboon to the Orthrus, “but that’s not Broonie. Or it’s not the Broonie we know. He’s much older than that.”

  “No, he is not,” said the father Hogboon.

  “Oh, he is,” confirmed Emmie. “I don’t know how old you two might be—”

  “You impertinent bag of skin,” said the mother Hogboon.

  “But he was much older. Like you. An adult Hogboon.”

  Estravon was still muttering. “It must have fallen from my pocket while we lay down...”

  “I don’t know who ye met,” the mother said, “but ye won’t find another Broonie this side of the Forest of Woe. Broonie is a unique name.”

  “She made it up,” said the father. “I wasn’t that keen meself.”

  “So, I promise ye that there’s only one of him in this world,” continued the mother Hogboon, “and ye’re looking at him. Now go away.”

  Estravon began to scramble back up the mound. “My camera,” he called down. “Did anyone see it? I only borrowed it from the office. I have to give it back. Otherwise there’ll be no end of forms to—”

  A screech carried through the air and everyone looked towards the forest. When they turned back, the mother and baby Hogboon had retreated inside.

  “You’re a portent of disaster,” continued the father, “and we could do without any disaster so early in the evening. It ruins the appetite.”

  Another howl from the woods, the growing sound of a forest ready to burst.

  The Hogboon disappeared back into his hovel, slamming the rickety door behind him.