Hercufleas by Sam Gayton Read Free Book Online Page A

street lamps lining the shore. The ground was a brown haze beneath them. Hercufleas made out Ugor’s enormous dark shape. He heard Artifax clucking softly over the body of Prince Xin.
    They only had a few seconds before they hit the ground. Hercufleas scrabbled about in his mind, trying to cobble together a plan. Greta looked at him desperately. She couldn’t speak, but he knew what she was asking. She was begging him to save her. To be her hero.
    â€˜Stay as high as you can, for as long as you can,’ he said. ‘I’ll get help.’
    Greta shook her head.
Don’t leave me.
    â€˜I have to,’ he said. ‘I can’t fight Ugor. He’s like a giant compared to me.’
    Tears leaked from her screwed-up eyes.
    â€˜I’ll get help,’ he said. ‘Stay here. Don’t—’
    And then Greta ran out of breath again, and they fell.

13
    U gor snatched Greta by her brambly hair. She kicked and flailed, trying to put the flyte to her lips again. He tore it from her grasp and crushed it to bits. Hercufleas tumbled off the end of the instrument, an invisible dot in the night. He landed headfirst in Onk-Onk’s left nostril. The pig sniffed, and with a yell Hercufleas was sucked up its snout.
    There, at the end of a long tunnel packed with gunpowder and bogeys, he had an idea.
    Before his brain could tell him what a stupid, reckless and dangerously explosive idea it was, Hercufleas rolled himself into a ball, shut his eyes and bit down as hard as he could.
    Onk-Onk sneezed.
    With a bright blue flash, a gigantic force shoved Hercufleas in the back. He shot out of Onk-Onk’s snout at well over a thousand miles an hour.
    Straight into Ugor!
    There was a
clang!
like a blacksmith’s anvil. The barbarian stumbled backwards, his armoured breastplate dented and cracked. Hercufleas felt as if he’d been hit with a sledgehammer. He fell on the ground, winded and dazed.
    Above him, Greta stood blinking in confusion, wondering how she was still alive. Then she spotted a little brown pebble on the beach stagger to its feet.
    Her hero.
    â€˜Urggh…’ said Ugor. ‘Bad Onk-Onk… Why you break Ugor’s best armour?’
    Greta had a fraction of a second to escape. She grabbed Hercufleas with one hand and her axe in the other, and ran. Ugor staggered to his feet in a daze.
    â€˜Back to the house-hat!’ gasped Hercufleas in her palm. He lay there thinking of his fleamily and how he would never, ever go adventuring again.
    But Greta ran to the shore, where a beautiful white bird stood over the body of Prince Xin. Behind her, Ugor jumped on Onk-Onk, who squealed as he charged towards them.
    â€˜Stop!’ urged Hercufleas. ‘You’re going the wrong way!’
    In one leap, Greta was on Artifax’s back, nestling between his little wings.
    â€˜Go!’ she said. ‘Go!’
    Artifax twisted his long neck round to stare at her, head cocked.
    â€˜GO, Artifax!’
    Then the bird saw Onk-Onk rushing up from behind, and suddenly they shot forward like an arrow from a bow. Down the shingle they flew, towards the waves. Ugor roared and cursed but Artifax outran his shouts. In a matter of seconds he had reached a jetty. He ran on, right to the very end, right to where there was no more jetty, only waves.
    They didn’t stop.
    Or sink.
    Faster than the wind, Artifax splashed across the water like a skipped stone. When Hercufleas looked back towards Avalon, the lights of the island had already vanished into the mist.
    It was pitch dark upon the lake. The only sounds were the
splish-splish-splish
of Artifax’s feet and the howl of the wind through his feathers. And at that moment it struck Hercufleas – with as much force as he had struck Ugor – that nothing would be the same again.
    The house-hat, the exotic blood, the boingy-boing room – all of it would have to end. Mr Stickler hired out villains. He was not an agent just of