at school thinks it’s a bit strange not to have a surname, but it would feel strange to me to have one. Finn Smith, Legend Hunter. Doesn’t quite work, does it?”
“Suppose not,” said Emmie quietly.
It occurred to Finn that he had never asked her an obvious question. “What’s your surname anyway?”
“Er, Smith.”
“Oh.” Finn felt heat flush through his face.
“Don’t worry about it. I can blame my dad for that one,” said Emmie, who didn’t seem too bothered and was already scanning paragraphs of text framed beneath each painting.
She read from one.
“Conor Red Skull, Darkmouth, Ireland. Active during the late seventeenth century, he once went four days without sleep while tracking down and slaying two dozen Legends who had entered through three simultaneous gateways. It is said that he was so stained with blood it never properly washed off his skin. He earned his Hunter name due to his inability to spend any time in the sun without getting burned.”
“Each portrait has an entry like that,” said Finn. “It’s taken from The Most Great Lives, which is this book we have to read while training to become a Legend Hunter. Books actually. There’s a lot of them and they’re about all of the Legend Hunters throughout history.”
“Does that mean you’ll be in a book one day?”
“Um. Yeah, maybe. When I become a proper Legend Hunter,” said Finn.
“Cool.”
Finn flushed again, the heat prickling his face. Emmie moved on, eventually stopping at the second to last portrait. It was of a man who looked about as furious as it was possible to get. Across his lap was a simple rifle and behind him was a row of shelves lined with jars, whose labels the artist hadn’t bothered to add detail to. On a small table beside him was a miniature tree, leaning away from him at a sharp angle.
The nameplate on the frame read Gerald the Disappointed and the text below was particularly lengthy, going into some detail about the many adventures of his early life, including his rescue of a family of Legend Hunters hemmed in on the Scottish island of Iona; the year in which he staved off 154 Legend invasions of Darkmouth; his world-renowned bonsai collection; and how he once single-handedly felled a massive three-headed Cerberus, armed with just a single rock (“… albeit a very pointy rock,” The Most Great Lives clarified).
Finn hovered patiently while Emmie read. Finally, she spoke. “Nice nickname. Suits the face.”
“That was my great-grandfather,” replied Finn. “I never knew him.”
“Bet he was a barrel of laughs.”
“He trained my father. My dad says he was pretty fierce.”
“Why did he have to train your father? What happened to your grandfather?”
Finn gestured towards the last portrait. This man wore armour but no helmet, and was the only one in any of the portraits who was not holding a weapon. Instead, he was surrounded by scientific instruments and scraps of paper. He didn’t look particularly confident or aggressive. His chin wasn’t held high and his eyes were pointed down, as if he was meek or maybe even a little afraid.
“That was my granddad, my dad’s father.”
“Niall Blacktongue! Excellent name.”
“Not really,” said Finn, downbeat.
Emmie read the entry aloud. “Niall Blacktongue was the first Legend Hunter to try and talk to the Legends, to reason with them and attempt to understand why they wanted to come into this world. He died. No one likes to talk about it.”
That was it. Nothing else.
“I don’t get it. What happened to him?” asked Emmie.
“He died,” Finn responded haltingly. “No one likes to talk about it.”
There were two empty frames at the end of the row, with nameplates ready and waiting, but nothing engraved on them just yet.
“Who are those for?” asked Emmie.
“They are to remind us of our responsibilities to all of the Hunters who have gone before, all of these people along the wall. You only get a portrait when you’ve passed the role of Legend Hunter to someone else or if you, eh, well, die.”
“Wow, that must be pretty scary.”
“Well, you know, it’s our way of life, I suppose. That first empty frame’s for my dad.”
“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.
