Читать книгу Darkmouth - Shane Hegarty, Shane Hegarty - Страница 12

Finn walked home, the hood of his jacket pulled up to hide his face. The drizzle had cleared and the town was returning to normality – its own sort of normality at least. Not for the first time, Finn felt the pressure that came from knowing that the safety of this town would one day be entirely his responsibility.

Except now he’d been told the ‘one day’ was less than a year away, when his father would leave to join the Council. That revelation made it hard for Finn to even breathe.

He had grown up hearing stories of the world’s Legend Hunters, the defenders of each Blighted Village. The families in each town had passed down knowledge, techniques and weapons through generation after generation, each swearing to protect the people.

Except the world’s Legend Hunters weren’t needed any more. Their villages had grown quiet. The Hunters remained in their once Blighted Villages as a precaution – some even continued to train themselves and their children just in case – but most had moved on to other careers. That man stamping your ticket at the train station could be from a long line of Legend Hunters. So could that dance teacher, that weather presenter, that guy who’s come to fix your TV.

But not in Darkmouth. Finn’s family had been Legend Hunters as far back as the histories went. And as long as the Legends kept coming through, as long as they continued to attack Darkmouth, his family would be needed. As long as he was the only child of the only Legend Hunter, then Finn would be needed. And now that his father was moving up to the Council of Twelve, he would be needed to protect Darkmouth on his own.

Every bit of that responsibility weighed on him as he sulked home.

What made it worse was that he wasn’t ready. He had needed rescuing. Again. His third time on a hunt with his father. His third failure.

The first hunt, a few weeks ago, had been pure humiliation. The Legend in question had been a Basilisk, a particularly stupid, fat reptile with a beak. Basilisks were brought up to believe that a single stare was enough to kill a human being. When cornered, they stop, open their eyes wide and glare at an oncoming human. The only problem was that their stare was marginally less threatening than a baby’s giggle. A Hunter wouldn’t even break stride.

Only a particularly inexperienced or inept Legend Hunter could fail to capture such a creature. Finn happened to fit into both of those categories.

His father had strung the hunt out to show Finn how best to track a Legend using his own skills rather than any technology. “When their world meets our world, it creates a dust. Even the rain won’t wash it away. Follow those dust tracks. Know the streets. Go at an even pace …”

It was then that he noticed Finn wasn’t in his shadow any more. Instead, after quickly bagging the Basilisk, he found his son two lanes away, on his back, kicking his legs in the air like a stranded turtle. His dad’s fear had been that a Legend would fell Finn; instead, his son had been undone by the awkwardness of his own fighting suit and the not-exactly-famous fighting skills of a pavement.

There was an uncomfortable silence on the walk home.

The second hunt, just the previous week, had started well enough. Following a few modifications to his armour, Finn was even given his own Desiccator. His father stayed with him as they hunted the intruder. It was a small Manticore, with the body of a lion, the stubby wings of a dragon, a scorpion tail lined with poisonous darts and, most dangerous of all, an inability to shut up.

They moved quickly, Finn tracking the dust from the Infested Side, just as he had learned, until he cornered the Manticore in an alleyway. Then it all went wrong. When Finn tried to get his Desiccator the holster at his waist, he snagged his glove on his armour and couldn’t even raise his arm.

“Hold on a second,” he said to the Manticore.

This was a big mistake.

The first thing Legend Hunters in training are told about Manticores is: Never engage them in conversation. The Manticore will keep you there all day, talking almost exclusively in riddles. Bad riddles. You will eventually go quite mad.

Luckily, as the Legend opened its mouth to respond with a particularly devastating riddle, Finn’s father desiccated it.

He and Finn again walked home in a deeply awkward silence.

And then, of course, there was today.

In less than a year, Finn would be expected to Complete and become a full Legend Hunter. Among the criteria to even be considered were three verified, successful Legend hunts. Being cornered by the Minotaur that morning had instead completed a hat-trick of calamities.

He had caught the look on his father’s face as he got out of the car outside school, the disappointment furrowing his brow. Now, as Finn walked home, he had a greater understanding of how deep that disappointment ran. He faced two possibilities.

Either he would fail so spectacularly that he couldn’t become Complete, thereby preventing his father from being the only Darkmouth Legend Hunter in forty-two generations to bag every Legend Hunter’s dream job.

Or he would somehow succeed and be left with the responsibility of defending Darkmouth, and every soul in it, alone. Finn couldn’t decide which was the best outcome.

Or, more accurately, the worst.