Luka skystorm's Arc

Chapter 9 of 9

Luka held the sealed sword against his stone hand and hovered by the broken window. The curse was caught inside the blade now. But the mansion was awake. Doors banged open below. A man in a fine coat stormed onto the terrace, pointing up at the falcon. "That's my sword, thief!" he shouted. Greg. He waved his arm, and the grass shook. Something big was coming. Awstom stood in the yard, calm, watching the trees. "The gorilla," he said. "It comes when Greg calls." He said it like he had seen it before, and it did not scare him. The boy had helped Luka break the window, but he had his own reason for being here. His stolen map. He looked at Luka's frozen hand, then at the blade. "Fly. I'll take the ground." The spiked gorilla crashed through the hedge. Its metal tail swung high, the spikes catching the light. It ran straight for the wall below Luka. Greg pointed at the sword. "Get it back! Cut him down!" The tail whipped up toward the falcon's belly. Luka jerked the reins. The bird lurched sideways and the spikes tore only air. Luka's dead hand could not grip the reins well. The sword hung heavy in his cape. If he dove to fight, the tail would gut the falcon. If he fled, Greg kept his mansion and Luka kept the curse. He clicked his tongue and the falcon climbed. "The tail," Awstom called up. "It's the only weapon. Break that and the beast is just a beast." He grabbed a loose stone from the wall and hurled it. The rock cracked against the gorilla's shoulder. The beast spun toward the boy, tail lashing. It forgot the falcon. Luka saw his chance. He did not need his grip. He needed weight, the same trick as the window. He looped his good arm through the reins and drove the falcon down at the gorilla's back, where the metal tail joined its spine. The sealed sword led the dive, tied fast in his cape. The blade struck the joint between spikes and metal. Bolts snapped. The heavy tail tore loose and dropped into the grass with a clang. The gorilla howled and clutched at its bare back. Without the tail it could not reach the sky. Luka pulled up hard. Below, Greg screamed at his broken guard. Awstom was already moving toward the mansion doors, quick and sure, while the beast thrashed. "Go," the boy called. "I have what I came for to find." He slipped inside the open house. Luka gripped the sealed sword against his stone hand and flew clear over the trees. He had kept the blade. He had caught the curse. But his hand was rock, and the answer to that lived somewhere under Greg's house, where Awstom had just gone alone.