Shane Hegarty - Darkmouth

“What’s your dad’s nickname then?”

Finn paused before answering. “Hugo the, erm, Great.”

“The Great?”

“Yeah,” Finn mumbled. “He did a couple of things when he was younger. Kind of great sorts of things.”

“What, like fighting Legends?”

“That. And more. He never shuts up about it.”

“So, when will you get your nickname?” asked Emmie.

Finn’s hands were rammed into his pockets, his shoulders tight. “I have to do a thing called a Completion first. It’s a big ceremony.”

“When?”

Finn didn’t respond, but instead walked on towards the very end of the long corridor, the wall now empty of portraits on one side, but with doors still lining the other (T1, A4). Emmie tried one, but it was locked. At the end of the corridor was a large steel door with a wooden sign that read ‘Library’. Finn hesitated for a moment and turned to head back the way they’d come. “And this concludes our tour,” he said, with forced jauntiness.

“What’s in there?” asked Emmie, still standing at the library door.

“Nothing much,” said Finn unconvincingly. “Let’s go and see what food’s in the kitchen. I’m starving.”

Emmie hovered there a couple of moments longer. Finn watched her, listening to the noises from inside. The faint sounds of feet moving around, the squeak of a chair. She moved a little closer. From deep within came what sounded like a shriek.

“Come on. Race you to the kitchen,” said Finn.

Emmie hurried after him.

“Hit me.”

Finn punched his father in the face.

“Hit me again.”

He hit him again.

“Put some anger into it.”

Finn had anger in reserve, but he had to drill deep below his exhaustion to get to it. He concentrated hard, summoning it from the depths, and swung again. His father hardly flinched. Instead, he pulled off his soft padded headgear.

“Come on, Finn, this is only training. When I was your age, I was—”

“—already fighting Legends five times my size,” Finn panted. “You’ve mentioned it once or twice before.”

He dropped his tired arms. His father gave him a dig to the chest.

“Hey!” Finn protested.

“Don’t drop your guard. Now kick me. Aim for the crotch.”

Every Friday night, one of the rooms off the long corridor would host Finn’s often futile attempts to learn how to roll over and get up again; or to shoot at a target; or to leap; or to dodge; or to leap while dodging. This room was T2, a training room bare but for the soft mats on its floor, a mirror running the length of one wall and a box of simple gym equipment containing various items of padded gear that allowed Finn to hit his father wherever he was ordered to.

He stretched out and kicked. His father grabbed his leg and wouldn’t let go, so that Finn was left hopping on one foot, completely at his father’s mercy.

“I’ve seen ducks kick harder than that,” said his dad.

Finn had been training since he was very young, so it wasn’t that he couldn’t do any of these things. It was worse: he could almost do most of them. He could half roll, and just about jump to his feet. He could kind of shoot, nearly leap, more or less punch and semi-dodge. He had strengths; it just happened that they were usually closely followed by his weaknesses.

“Let’s try the Wrigley Manoeuvre, Finn. It’s a simple way of not just avoiding an onrushing Legend, but of turning defence into offence.”

“That’s the same guy who ended up being known as Wrigley the Headless, right?”

“Yes, and that’s why we have to make sure to do it right. Now take this seriously, Finn. It might save your life.”

His father demonstrated the move, darting across the room, then sliding and returning to his feet, facing Finn, with his hands raised in an attack position. “Now you try it.”

Finn followed his dad’s lead, but compared to him he had the dexterity of a giraffe on ice. “I see what you’re doing. I get it,” he protested, breathing hard. “I’m just tired now.”

“Twelve-year-olds don’t get tired. When I was twelve …”

“That must have been some year. Did you save anything for when you were thirteen?”

“Look, Finn. In the classroom, you’ve the potential to be a very good Legend Hunter—”

“Well, bring the Legends to the classroom and I can tackle them there,” said Finn.

“If you were as quick with your hands as you are with your mouth, this wouldn’t be so difficult,” his father replied.

Finn sat on the ground, breathing hard.

“Stay fresh,” said his dad. “You can read a couple of entries in The Most Great Lives when we’re done here.”

“Ah, Dad, really?”

“You’ll be in there yourself some day.”

“So you keep saying. There won’t be much to say about me,” said Finn.

“That hasn’t stopped them before. Besides, they’re desperate for you to come through. No Completions, and no true Legend Hunter in years, mean no new edition of the book. No new edition, no profits. They’re badly in need of an update.”

Finn was well aware of this already, thanks to the publisher’s repeated letters.

“Looking forward to your Completion,” Plurimus, Magesterius, Fortimus & Murphy wrote. “How’s the training going?” they asked. “We don’t mean to rush you, but …” and so on. Finn spent a lot of time trying not to think about the queue of people lining up to be disappointed if he didn’t Complete. Nevertheless, his conversation with Emmie had reminded him he wouldn’t be the first family problem.

“Dad, what really happened to Granddad Niall?”

“No one likes to talk about it, you know that.”

“ I want to talk about it.”

“And I don’t. Now quit stalling and get up.”

Finn had almost got his breath back, but kept up the heavy panting to get a couple more moments’ rest.

“Maybe I won’t fight them when my time comes,” he said.

“What?”

“Maybe it’s the fighting that keeps the Legends coming, you know,” said Finn, a clamminess rising in him as he realised he was treading on thin ice. “Maybe talking to them isn’t such a bad idea.”

“Which bit of the ‘no one likes to talk about it’ is hard for you to understand?”

“Maybe we can learn something from it.”

His dad squatted down to stare directly at Finn, holding his gaze until Finn’s eyes began to want to jump out of their sockets and run away. Finally, his father spoke. “What my father did is not something I will ever be allowed to forget, no matter how hard I try. That’s all the lesson we need to learn.” He offered Finn a hand up. “Now let’s get fighting again.”

“Is this going to be needed, though?” asked Finn. “The gateways are dying out. They’ll be gone from here too eventually. Besides, we have Desiccators. Why do I need to learn this stuff?”

“You might have noticed that the Legends aren’t gone yet.”

“Then why do they keep attacking here and nowhere else?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

Finn took a moment to ponder this. “I think I’ve scared the bigger ones away.”

His father grinned at that, held out a hand and helped Finn to his feet. Then he jumped back. “OK, buster, wrestle me.”

Finn’s sigh of annoyance was lost in the clatter of an alarm rattling through the building. That noise had been the soundtrack to Finn’s life – the signal that a gateway had opened somewhere in Darkmouth.