Rise of Allies (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 4) (48 page)

Jake and Maddox headed for the river—but they were missing someone.

“Come on, Og!” the Guardian called. “Here’s your big chance to show us what you’ve got. Time to put those muscles to use!”

“Go, Og!” Archie cheered him.

The lonely Troll Boy looked delighted at the chance to be a part of the monster hunt (instead of being the monster himself for once). Og dashed after the two young, would-be heroes. Jake tossed him a loop of rope. Maddox glanced at him in amusement, then loosened his throwing arm like an athlete before the javelin competition.

As they approached the river, they glanced at each other, signaling for silence. Then they crept stealthily down the grassy banks below the bridge to the water’s edge.

Jake had a loop of rope ready in his hand, just like Tex had used to catch the dracosaur.

Their plan was simple, really. Jake was to lasso Nuckalavee and hold him in place just long enough for Maddox to plunge the spear into his side.

Of course, things rarely went according to plan—unless you were Archie and tested it a hundred times in advance, working out the flaws. Jake’s style ran more along the lines of flying by the seat of his trousers, but it usually worked for him.

He hoped it worked tonight. After finding out he may have just singlehandedly started a war between the Dark Druids and the Order, he did not think he could take another disaster.

“I don’t see him,” Jake whispered, scanning the flowing current through the night vision lens of his telescope.

He squinted, trying to find the outline of those long, horse-like ears he had spotted before amid the reeds.

Og sniffed the air, trying to scent the beast. “Oh, Nuckalavee, where are you?” he rumbled in a low-toned singsong.

His acute Guardian senses on high alert, Maddox cocked his head, hearing a ripple of water that did not quite fit with the river’s blend of soft, steady rhythms.

Jake shook his head. “Maybe we’re too—”

“Shh! I hear something.” Maddox paused. Jake listened, straining his ears. “It could be just one of the naiads splashing but I’m not—”

A trumpeting roar cut off his words as Nuckalavee suddenly charged.

His glistening bulk rose out of the current and barreled toward them, churning the river into whitewater as he came.

“Steady!” Maddox bellowed, dropping to one knee and bringing up his crossbow with a smooth motion.

Jake’s pulse slammed in his ears. The cry of fright died on his lips. Nixie had said the water-horse was horrible, but her warnings fell short of the sheer horror of the monster charging at them.

Skinless Nuckalavee was a nightmare, twelve feet long and as tall as Jake at the withers.

Its open mouth was huge, maybe two feet wide, its jaws unhinged in a most unnatural manner; its legs as thick as tree trunks as it came crashing up the muddy bank straight at Jake; its small, piggish eyes gleaming scarlet in the darkness. The moonlight flashed on its vicious-looking tusks as it stampeded toward him.

Still, what left Jake standing there frozen in shock for a split-second was the impossible horror of a creature living without skin. Despite the darkness, the scarlet hue of Nuckalavee’s exposed, pulsating flesh and striated sinews was obvious.

Jake felt queasy, staring at it.

“Rope, Jake, rope!” Maddox shouted, letting fly an arrow and hitting Nuckalavee squarely in the side.

The beast hardly seemed to feel it. It did not slow down but turned slightly toward Maddox with an angry snort.

Jake hurled the lasso, already sure the effort would fail. Even if he got the rope around Nuckalavee’s neck, he could no more stop the charge of that demonic water-bull-horse-hippo-thing than he could have stopped a train.

He tried, anyway, throwing the loop of rope at the beast.

Unfortunately, Jake was no cowboy and had not made the loop wide enough. Instead of falling neatly around Nuckalavee’s neck, the rope only just slipped over the beast’s wide-open mouth.

Jake pulled the lasso, snapping Nuckalavee’s jaws shut. The jolt nearly ripped his arms from their sockets when the monster shook his head in fury.

“Little help!” Jake yelped.

“Og, get the rope!” Maddox bellowed.

The half-troll was suddenly there, leaping to Jake’s side and taking up the rope in both of his huge gray hands. While Jake’s muscles were no match for the wrath of Nuckalavee, Og’s brute strength was another matter.

He pulled backward with all his might, skidding down onto his haunches in a mighty tug-of-war with the beast. Monster versus monster.

Given that Nuckalavee now seemed intent on rushing at Maddox, eager to gore him, Jake was suddenly grateful to have the half-troll on their side.

Og stopped Nuckalavee several feet away from Maddox, who had just set his crossbow aside in favor of the javelin.

Nuckalavee shook his head in rage, as if a bee had got into his ear. Maddox blinked off the fleeting shock of surely seeing his life pass before his eyes, then threw his spear at the beast.

Of course, his aim was true. He was a Guardian, after all. With a wicked zing, the spear sliced through the air and plunged into the flank of Nuckalavee, who let out another roar, only slightly muffled by the lasso around his snout.

The beast’s bellow loosened the lasso a bit. Nuckalavee still could not unhinge his jaws like before, but he was working to be able to open his mouth wider.

“Hold him, Og,” Maddox ordered. “Steady!”

The boys backed away as they watched the creature swing his horrid, skinless head about and take the handle of the spear into his mouth, pulling the blade out of his own side.

“That’s not good,” Maddox murmured.

With one stomp of his front foot, Nuckalavee cracked the spear like a twig.

“Hey, you!” Og yanked on the rope to get control of the beast—but to the horror of all three, the rope snapped.

Jake gasped.

Maddox uttered a curse as Nuckalavee looked at him again, his red eyes glowing with wrath. The frayed end of the rope now dangled from his head like horse reins dropped by a clumsy rider.

Steam fairly came from his nostrils as Nuckalavee homed in on Maddox.

To his credit, he did not look anywhere near as terrified as Jake felt in that moment. Maddox glanced down to check his footing as he took another cautious step backward, reaching down slowly for his crossbow.

Nuckalavee lowered his head and pawed the ground like a bull getting ready to charge.

Jake feared his ally was doomed if he didn’t do something quick. He spotted a large boulder at the river’s edge and was suddenly inspired, levitating it from several feet away.

Moving slowly, wary of the black-haired boy with all the sharp objects, Nuckalavee cornered Maddox by the base of the bridge.

Though still unarmed, Maddox stood his ground, his hand inching toward his crossbow. Obviously, he was afraid of making any sudden movements with the creature so near.

But the second Nuckalavee roared at Maddox, Jake sent the boulder flying.

It hit Nuckalavee in the back.

Trumpeting another furious bellow at the interruption, the bogey-beast whirled around, forgetting about Maddox for a moment. Instead, those glowing, piggish, malevolent eyes focused on Jake.

Nuckalavee charged. The earth shook as the water-horse stampeded toward Jake like he wanted to pound him into dust beneath his thick, webbed hoofs.

Jake flung a bolt of telekinesis at him, but Nuckalavee was four thousand pounds of furious Scottish legend.

The monster broke right through the wall of telekinetic energy Jake flung up with both hands. If it had been built of brick, he doubted it would have held.

I’m going to die,
he thought as Nuckalavee’s massive bulk bore down on him.

But suddenly, Og leaped onto the beast’s back and grabbed the trailing end of the rope, yanking Nuckalavee’s head to the side, like a horse under bridle.

“Hold on, Og!” Maddox shouted.

Og did. Astride the water-horse, the half-troll clung to Nuckalavee with his knees and one over-long arm. With his other hand, Og clutched the single rein and refused to budge as Nuckalavee began bucking with redoubled fury.

Jake and Maddox watched in open-mouthed shock as Og attempted to break Nuckalavee like one of Tex’s mad cowboy friends in a hideous monster rodeo.

“Yee-haw,” Jake breathed.

But Nuckalavee had no plans of giving up anytime soon. Before they could think what to do to help, the skinless wild bronco bolted off across the fields with Ogden holding on for dear life.

That quickly, they were gone, swallowed up by the darkness far across the fields.

The girls came running down to the waterside with Archie, having seen them bolt past.

“Is anybody hurt?” Isabelle shouted.

“We’re fine! Did you see that?” Jake exclaimed.

Archie’s head bobbed. “Og rode off on Nuckalavee!”

“Come on, we need to go after him.” Maddox shouldered his crossbow and started marching up the slope.

“Are you daft?” Jake retorted. Maddox stopped and turned in surprise. “We’re never going to catch them! We don’t even know which direction they went. And even if we could, what then, exactly? Your weapons had no effect. My telekinesis was practically useless. If Og hadn’t been there, we would both be dead. Our only hope is for Og to stay on the beast’s back long enough to tire him out. Breaking Nuckalavee might be the only way.”

“
Breaking
Nuckalavee?” Nixie cried.

“Well, he’s a water-horse, isn’t he?” Jake shot back.

“He’d better not fall off,” Maddox said uncertainly. “Because if he does, that beast will flatten him.”

“Are you two sure you’re all right?” Isabelle insisted, glancing from Maddox to Jake and back again.

The boys nodded.

“I still think we should try to help him. We can’t leave him out there to face Nuckalavee alone,” Maddox said.

“He did better against the beast than we did,” Jake answered with a shrug.

While they all stood peering into the darkness, their backs to the water, trying to spot Og and Nuckalavee, nobody noticed the three-foot whirlpool that began turning in the river.

Maddox was the first to glance over his shoulder, feeling a prickle of danger on his nape. “Everybody,” he said calmly, “get away from the water.”

They did as he said, rushing back from the bank, even as Dani asked him why.

He didn’t have to answer. For at that moment, Jenny Greenteeth rose straight up out of the river, standing atop a waterspout.

This was the first time most of them had beheld the drenched, gray-haired hag with her muddy gown, gleaming eyes, and long, tiger-like fangs dripping with algae.

“Oh, dear little witch, how we’ve missed you!” she hissed at Nixie. “Enjoy your journey through the paintings? I hope so. It’ll be the last trip you ever take!”

Nixie started to lift her arm to throw the potion, but Jake reached over and stopped her discreetly. “Not yet. You can’t throw that in the river. It’ll poison the naiads,” he whispered. “Wait till she comes up onto the land.”

“
Well,
look at you with all your pretty friends. Why wasn’t I invited to the party?”

“They’re not my friends,” Nixie started to say automatically.

“Oh, yes we are,” Jake declared, moving in front of Nixie, bristling.

Maddox did the same.

“I warned you about this.” The hag floated forward atop her spinning column of water. “Their deaths will be on your head.”

Just then, a whimper from inside Archie’s contraption made Jenny Greenteeth look over toward the drive. When she saw the Boneless in the cage, she let out a shriek of furious disbelief.

Leaping off her waterspout onto the bank, Jenny Greenteeth zoomed past them, moving with the same weird, supernatural speed Jake remembered from the art gallery. In the blink of an eye, she was up on the graveled drive beside the cage.