AUTHOR'S NOTE: If you feel like supporting the author, Henry Rider and the First Hunter’s Hammer is for sale on Amazon in print and on Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Henry-Rider-First-Hunters-Hammer/dp/B0F9TLXM27/ref=sr_1_1?crid=380K2FMFN3475&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rpT8SPLM8scQraYatm3qiT4DtqX_WtvxmT5C4ck1LpDdlB-nRJK6bdCNvjc3KPjEyPJyEQX5BSmv2MB4C6D4Sw.mlHqPxcRBn-4H2sCWBpuhRYClvWLY8xHqV2dqfC_kd4&dib_tag=se&keywords=henry+rider+and+the+first+hunter%27s+hammer&qid=1751745480&sprefix=henry+ri%2Caps%2C807&sr=8-1

Chapter Thirty Two

I stared at the thing in my hand, uncomprehending, my brain feeling like it was short circuiting. My eye twitched, screaming at my brain that something was wrong. I couldn’t really be seeing what I was seeing. Opisthia’s hammer was…well…

It wasn’t a hammer.

“I AM A HORSE AND I AM NAMED GEORGE AND I AM SO VERY HAPPY TO BE OUT OF THAT ROOM AND I WANT TO GO AND DESTROY SOME EVIL WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”

It took me a few more seconds to come to terms with what I was seeing. The hammer…George, whatever…actually was a horse. Kind of. It was one of those toy horses that kids played with a couple million years ago. The ones that were just sticks with stuffed horse heads on the ends. A hobby horse, I think they were called. He was one of those, except the stick was six feet long, and the horse head on the end was as big as my entire torso and made of a pitch black, obsidian-like stone. A silver mane extended from the back of its neck, forming a short axe-like blade, and two rubies were set into its eyes. I stared at them, and they flashed with an angry red light.

“HELLO WHAT IS YOUR NAME I ASKED YOU THAT AND YOU DID NOT ANSWER ME BUT MY NAME IS GEORGE AND I AM A HORSE AND ALSO A HAMMER BUT MOSTLY A HORSE AND I THINK I LOVE YOU WHAT IS YOU NAME?”

“I’m…Henry?” I said, my eyes open so wide that they felt like they would pop out of my skull.

“HELLO HENRY IT IS NICE TO MEET YOU MY NAME IS GEORGE AND YOU ARE MY NEW BEST FRIEND CAN WE GO DESTROY SOME EVIL NOW I LOVE DESTROYING EVIL AND I HAVE BEEN IN THAT ROOM FOR SO MANY YEARS!”

This was it. I had finally gone insane.

I looked at Ethan and Jade, and they were staring up at…George…with expressions that almost perfectly matched mine.

“Okay, so,” I said slowly, “I’m not the only one hearing the decapitated horse talk right now?”

They shook their heads.

That was good. It meant all three of us had gone insane at the same time. At least I wouldn’t be lonely when they threw me in the loony bin.

“Go, Henry!” Opisthia said, gesturing toward the door. “George may be difficult to control, but he has more than enough power to take care of whatever is out there.”

I shook my head, the sudden dose of reality—delivered to me by a possessed hand puppet—snapping me out of my shock. I looked at him and Ichabod, then at Blurry, who was still standing in the center of the vault as if absolutely nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “What about…”

Opisthia chuckled darkly. “I may not be as strong as I was in life, but I am far from helpless, Rider of Henries. I will keep this one right here until you return.”

I gave Blurry one last hate-filled glare, and then forced myself to turn and sprint for the door. Opisthia was right. I had no idea how this day was going to end, but for now I was still the Hunter. That meant that when someone was in trouble, it was my job to help them, no matter what it cost me.

Even my family.

Together, Ethan, Jade, and I burst out of the Vault of Vulgar Humor, crossing the bridge that led to the next platform. We had a good view from here, but what we saw didn’t fill me with warm, fuzzy feelings. Clear on the other side of Jah Beryge, I could see a ring of tie-dyed monks gathered on the entrance platform, surrounding what could only be described as a pile of maiam pudding.

I had to pause to stare at it for a few seconds. Over the past four years, I'd fought maiam's in every shape and size. Going head to head with twisted monstrosities straight out of your darkest nightmares was just a normal day at the office for me. It had gotten to the point where I'd thought there was nothing that could surprise me anymore.

This great big glob of greasy grimy grossness proved me wrong.

The disgusting thing writhed and undulated in the center of the platform. It was pitch black, like a mound of living tar, but a mouth, two empty eye sockets, and a big, round, bulbous nose formed a rudimentary face near its top. Every few seconds, a long, inky tendril would grow out of its goopy mass, lashing out at the monks surrounding it.

I had to hand it to the brotherhood: for a group whose ancient, top secret clubhouse had never been infiltrated, they reacted to the threat surprisingly quickly. Each of them down there carried either a staff or a wand, and the platform was lit up like a rave as bolts of light blasted the slime maiam…slaiam? They blasted the slaiam nonstop from every angle.

The slaiam roared in pain as its semi-liquid skin rippled from the impacts. They were doing a good job keeping it in one place, but it didn't look like they were doing any real damage to it.

“We need to get over there,” I said, pointing, as if there was any way they could miss it. “They aren’t going to be able to hold that thing off for—”

As if to prove my point, a tentacle of goop shot out from the slaiam’s central mass. The monks all reacted with trained swiftness, leaping nimbly out of the way…except for one. He moved just a hair too slowly, and the flailing black limb grabbed hold of him. The other monks nearby tried to grab him, but now that the slaiam had him in its grasp, it didn’t intend to let go. It reeled him in as he kicked and screamed for help, but there was nothing anybody could do. Less than a second later, he was pulled inside the maiam, his cries immediately snuffed out.

The slaiam grew still for a second, seeming to huddle in on itself—and then it grew even bigger.

“Oh, damn,” Ethan whispered in horror.

“HENRY HE SAID A BAD WORD SHOULD I SMITE HIM?”

I ignored the talking horse and set off at a run. “Come on! It’ll take us at least five minutes to get over there, so we have to—”

“I CAN GET YOU THERE FASTER HOLD ON TIGHT!”

Before I could respond, George shot forward just like he had when he’d burst out of his room in the Vault of Vulgar Humor, only this time, he brought me with him. I’m not too proud to admit that I let out a little scream when I suddenly found myself flying above Jah Beryge, with nothing but the Sea Betwixt far, far, far below me.

“What are you doing?” I demanded as we streaked through the sky.

“I AM TAKING YOU TO THE EVIL SO THAT I CAN DESTROY IT ALSO IT IS VERY PRETTY OUTSIDE TODAY AND THAT CLOUD LOOKS LIKE A WALRUS FIGHTING A CAPYBARA!”

“Stop it!”

“OKAY!”

Just as quickly as we’d started, we came to a dead stop in midair. We didn’t hit anything, but going from about a hundred miles per hour to zero in less than a second felt like flying face first into a concrete wall anyway.

Then we began to fall.

“HENRY!” I heard Ethan and Jade yell from somewhere below—no, make that above me.

“Stop it!” I yelled again as we plummeted toward the sea. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!”

“I HAVE ALREADY STOPPED IT!”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!”

“I DO?”

“Just get me back up there!”

“OKAY!”

And just like that, we were shooting upwards again. We reversed course so suddenly that my shoulder was nearly yanked out of its socket. How I even managed to hold on, I had no idea. I caught a split-second glimpse of Ethan and Jade as we streaked past them, staring at me wide eyed with disbelief, but then George changed course and we were flying toward the battle again.

Suddenly, I understood why Opisthia forced people to go through those Trials before being allowed to use his stupid hammer. He wasn’t just testing to make sure they possessed the qualities of the Hunter, he was making sure they were strong enough to control George.

And I was failing spectacularly.

We reached the entrance platform, flying just a few feet above the ground. We were going so fast that my body was horizontal to the floor, both of my hands grasping George’s handle for dear life.

“Look out!” I yelled.

The monks leaped out of the way, letting us pass without running them over, but only barely. We roared up to the slaiam, and then George changed course again, flying straight up into the air. There, we paused for a couple of seconds. I could feel every eye in Jah Beryge staring at me. Even the slaiam seemed confused by my dramatic, and ridiculous, entry.

And then we rocketed back down, George’s head carving a path straight through the slaiam’s gelatinous body, until he slammed into the floor hard enough to shake the entire platform. Cracks spread out from the point of impact, and the slaiam freaking exploded!

“YES HELLO IT IS I GEORGE THE HORSE WHO IS ALSO A HAMMER BUT MOSTLY GEORGE!” George announced to the crowd. “I HAVE BEEN LET OUT OF MY ROOM TO DEFEAT THE EVIL AND ALSO MEET MY NEW BEST FRIEND HER NAME IS HENRY AND I LOVE HER!”

The slaiam now coated half the platform, including the door to my house—which, I realized with a jolt, was standing wide open. I could make out my entryway from here. Every surface, from the floor to the ceiling, was covered in thick, sticky slime.

Bratwurst and broccoli, I thought. Mom and Dad are going to make me clean all that…

Oh. Right.

Before I could dwell on that depressing thought, though, the inky puddle George had created began to bubble like a cauldron of witch’s brew.

“Uh, George?” I said.

In the blink of an eye, a roughly Henry-sized blob rose up out of the muck and threw itself at me. My reflexes took over, and I swung George, splattering the big black ball across the floor a second time.

I blinked in surprise. That had felt…good. Incredibly good! I could tell just by holding him that George should have weighed a ton. Like, a literal ton. But instead, he was light as a feather, and that made swinging him feel as easy as pulling an oar through water. He wasn’t completely weightless, but I already knew that I could swing him harder, faster, and longer than—

“THERE’S ONE!” he yelled, yanking me to the side to smash it before I even knew it was there.

A pit formed in my stomach. That couldn’t be good.

I turned to the monks. “You need to get out of here!”

None of them moved. They were all staring at George. Not that I could blame them, I guess. Given how long Opisthia had said it’d been since he’d last chosen someone to wield his hammer, I was willing to bet that none of them had ever seen George in their lives, much less known he was a horse.

Another blob of ooze formed, even bigger than the first, but this one didn’t come for me—it lunged for the monks! I started charging my shoes with magic, hoping I would be able to jump over there in time to save them.

Instead, George surged forward entirely on his own, rising up and slamming down into the ground. He splattered the blob, making another crater in the floor.

“Go!” I yelled. This time, they obeyed, sprinting for the nearest bridge.

Suddenly, I was jerked around in a circle, and George took out another blob. His shiny black snout SLAMMED down into the floor, and more cracks spread out around him. Then, before I could regain my balance, we surged across the platform toward where even more blobs were forming. He took them all out one by one, without any input from me at all, and every strike added to the cracks in the floor. Dread squeezed my chest. George wasn’t just a weapon with a mind of its own, he was an incredibly powerful weapon who didn’t even need me to go on a rampage.

“George, stop!” I yelled, digging in my heels as he tried to drag me across the platform again. It didn’t do any good. I would have had more luck trying to take a hyperactive elephant for a walk.

BOOM BOOM BOOM! Three more blobs were squashed, and three more holes were driven into the floor.

“I SAID STOP!” I screamed at him.

“I CAN’T STOP THERE IS STILL EVIL HERE FOR ME TO DESTROY DO YOU LIKE ICE CREAM?”

“If this is going to work, then you need to start doing what you’re told!” I yelled as another five blobs were taken out. “And yes, I like ice cream!”

“THAT IS GOOD BECAUSE ICE CREAM IS NOT EVIL AND WE SHOULD NOT DESTROY IT IN FACT I THINK IF YOU DON’T LIKE ICE CREAM THEN YOU ARE EVIL!”

“George, you need to slow down before—”

“BUT THERE IS EVIL TO BE DESTROYED…” BOOM! “…AND YOU ARE VERY SLOW…” BOOM! “…AND I AM SO EXCITED TO BE DESTROYING EVIL AGAIN…” BOOM! “…SO PERHAPS YOU SHOULD WORK ON GETTING FASTER!”

He wound back for another swing, and I heaved in the other direction. It took every ounce of my strength, but I managed to divert his attack—but only barely.

“Nuh uh!” I snapped. “That is not how this is going to work. I am the Hunter, and you are my hammer. I decide when and where to swing you, and you do as you’re told!”

“THAT SOUNDS BORING AND I DO NOT WANT TO DO IT HAVE YOU CONSIDERED NOT BEING BORING?”

All around us, the slaiam puddle was still bubbling, with blobs rising up out of it every few seconds.

“Have you noticed that this isn’t working?” I yelled. “We need to come up with a plan!”

WHAM WHAM WHAM! Three fewer blobs, three more holes. By now, it looked like I had taken a jackhammer to the platform. Every time George struck it, the entire thing would shake a little harder than before.

“THE PLAN IS TO SMASH THE EVIL UNTIL IT NO LONGER NEEDS SMASHING!”

By the whoopee cushion in the sky, was this how Ethan felt every time I did…well, anything? No wonder he had chosen Jade, I thought with a pang of unwanted self-awareness.

“Just beating on this thing over and over isn’t going to do anything!” I insisted. “It’ll just keep coming back!”

“I AM A HAMMER AND SO I HIT THINGS REALLY HARD!” George argued. “IF HITTING SOMETHING REALLY HARD DOESN’T WORK THEN YOU JUST AREN’T HITTING IT HARD ENOUGH!”

I was reminded of that old saying. When all you are is a hammer, everything looks like a maiam, or something like that. I needed to find a way to get this crazy horse under control, and I needed to do it fast, or else…

He crashed down into the floor again, and my eyes widened when a huge section of the platform collapsed, plummeting down into the Sea Betwixt.

“George, seriously, you need to stop!” I yelled as even more blobs began to form around us. “This thing is obviously hammer-proof!”

“THERE IS NO SUCH THING IF HAMMER DOESN’T WORK THEN YOU JUST AREN’T USING ENOUGH HAMMER!”

“You’re going to get us both killed!”

“THAT REMINDS ME OF SOMETHING OPISTHIA USED TO SAY HE WOULD SAY GEORGE YOU CRAZY RAGING IDIOT YOU ARE GOING TO GET US KILLED BUT I NEVER GOT US KILLED EXCEPT FOR THE PART WHERE HE’S A PUPPET NOW BUT HE ISN’T ACTUALLY DEAD SO IT DOESN’T COUNT!”

I felt like I was going to be sick. What had I gotten myself into?

He slammed into the floor again, and another chunk of the platform fell out of the sky. I glanced nervously at my door. What would happen if the entire platform collapsed? Without the Escher Cube, that door was my only way home. If the platform went away, would the door disappear? I liked Opisthia and the Brotherhood—Ichabod notwithstanding—but I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life here!

Not that I was going to have much choice in the matter, I suppose. But that still didn’t mean I wanted to lose my only way out of here.

George kept doing his thing, drilling hole after hole into the floor with the energy of a woodpecker on the mother of all caffeine rushes. I fought against him with each involuntary swing, but even when I pitted every ounce of my strength against his, I could barely even slow him down.

My arms burned. My fingers were numb. I considered dropping him, but at this point I don’t think it would have mattered. He was like a machine—a badly programmed machine that only cared about fulfilling its basic purpose, no matter what the cost. And the worst part was, he hadn’t hurt that stupid freaking maiam even a little!

Up and down, up and down he went, smashing every blob he saw as they rose out of the increasing number of puddles all around us. I could feel the slaiam reaching up to wrap little tendrils around my feet, but then George would yank me over to the next blob, nearly dislocating my ankles each time.

It occurred to me that at this point, I was probably the only one who was still in danger here. Not from the maiam, but from my own stupid hammer! I needed to figure out how to slow this tidal wave of destruction down before he—

“Cogito et creo!”

My heart leapt with relief when a bright white light erupted above me, and George finally, finally came to a stop. What looked like a glowing glass ball had formed around his head, making him look like some kind of horse-flavored lollipop. More importantly, it was holding him in place.

Ethan was standing at the foot of the nearest bridge, his spellhammer shining as brightly as the sun. Jade was at his back, her arms wrapped protectively around him as he fought to maintain the spell.

“WHAT IS HAPPENING WHY CAN’T I MOVE THERE IS EVIL THAT NEEDS DESTROYING AND I DO NOT APPRECIATE THIS LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER!” George roared in outrage.

“Oh, thank teriyaki,” I said, loosening my—

“Henry!” Ethan yelled. “Do not let go of him!”

I wrapped my hands back around his stick. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s…really strong!” Ethan’s voice was strained, his face red. “I can’t…hold him like this…for long!”

Sure enough, I could feel George jerking back and forth in impotent rage as he tried to break free of the spell.

And it was working.

“ANYTHING THAT STOPS ME FROM DESTROYING EVIL MUST BE EVIL!” George roared with all the logical prowess of a drunk kindergartner.

He bucked so hard that I was nearly sent flying.

“AND I MUST DESTROY ALL OF THE EVIL EVERYWHERE!”

“Henry, do something!” Jade shouted.

But it was too late. The ball around his head shattered, flinging shards of glass everywhere that vanished before they hit the ground. Ethan fell to his knees, exhausted, and the horse-shaped hammer spun around to glare at him with his ruby eyes.

“I WAS RIGHT YOU ARE EVIL I KNEW IT AS SOON AS I HEARD YOU SAY A BAD WORD AND NOW ME AND MY NEW BEST FRIEND HENRY ARE GOING TO DESTROY YOU SO PLEASE HOLD STILL!”

Terror flooded my veins, but there was nothing I could do to stop him from launching us into the air again. We stopped about a hundred feet above the platform, and I could feel him getting ready to guide my unwilling arms into another one of his ground-shattering attacks. I looked down at Ethan. He was too tired to stand, and Jade was desperately trying to drag him away. It wouldn’t matter.

“Ethan, you have to wish yourself out of here!” I screamed down at them. That would only leave him with one more wish before Jade disappeared forever, but it was still a better option than being squashed like a bug beneath an asteroid. If he heard me, though—if he was even still conscious—he didn’t listen.

“DYING WILL MAKE HIM SORRY THAT HE WAS EVIL AND HE WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN!”

“George, stop!” I yelled up at the horse instead. “Ethan’s not evil! He’s my friend!”

“EVIL PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE FRIENDS ONLY ACCOMPLICES!”

“Please!”

“DON’T WORRY HENRY I WILL DESTROY THE EVIL AND THEN WE CAN GET ICE CREAM BECAUSE I KNOW YOU LIKE ICE CREAM!”

He reared back. I had less than a second to think of something. After seeing what he had done to the platform, I knew that one attack was all it would take to turn Ethan into a fine red mist. But what could I do? I couldn’t control him, and I was the one holding the stupid thing! He was…

I paused.

He was like a dog. A hyperactive dog who had been let out for his first walk in hundreds of years. I couldn’t even begin to imagine all the energy he had stored up inside him, ready to be unleashed the only way he knew how: by destroying evil. How did you stop a misbehaving dog—or in this case, horse?

“George!” I yelled as loudly as my vocal cords would allow, “You are A BAD BOY!”

George surged down toward Ethan…

And then he froze.

“WH…” he said. His voice still boomed, but it somehow sounded meek and wounded at the same time. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

This was my chance, and I wasn’t going to get another one. Doing the only thing I could think to do, I tightened my grip on George’s stick, and kicked my legs to send us into a front flip.

“LEAVE MY FRIENDS ALONE!” I yelled, and hurled him down toward the entrance platform as hard as I could.

Down below, the slaiam had fully reformed itself, and it was looking greedily at Ethan’s stockpile of laughter. But the moment it started to ooze in his direction, George slammed into the very center of the platform.

A heavy BOOM echoed through Jah Beryge, and a mushroom cloud of dust erupted from the point of impact. In an instant, the entire platform buckled, and chunks of rock as big as houses rained from the sky like the world’s most intense hailstorm.

The slaiam howled as the ground disappeared from underneath it, and it went plummeting down, down down, until…

SPLASH!

It landed in the Sea Betwixt, staining the salty ocean waters like an oil spill. The waves stirred the inky mess, constantly breaking it apart, spreading it further and further, until it had no hope of ever reforming itself. Eventually, even the dark spot would disappear. I had no idea if that killed it, or if I'd just condemned it to an eternal watery limbo, and frankly I didn't care because I was too busy falling to my own death.

“Come on, Globber ol’ buddy,” I muttered, taking the sticky hand out once again. “I know we've all had a really, really long day, but I need your help one more time!”

I whirled around in midair and threw him up toward the bridge. With the pillar nearly half a mile away, that was the only thing in reach. If he couldn't grab onto that, there would be nothing else to break my fall. I watched, biting my lip anxiously as he streaked up toward the crumbling marble ledge, and…

Came up just short.

Well, I thought as I gave myself up to gravity's embrace, I can't pretend like I don't deserve this after everything I've—

Jade's hand shot out and grabbed hold of Globber.

“Yes!” I couldn't help but squeal as my journey downwards abruptly ended, and I boinged back up toward Jah Beryge.

A minute later, I was safe and sound on solid ground again. Jade was standing next to Ethan, who had lost consciousness after his struggle against George. Seeing him lying there, blissfully blitzed out, I suddenly realized just how exhausted I was as well.

“Wake me up in a year,” I said, falling to my knees. “Actually, you'd better make that three.”

But before I could collapse face down on the floor, Jade grabbed me by my arm. “Henry, you can't go to sleep yet!”

“Huh?” I asked, my brain already halfway to dreamland, where a picnic of cupcakes and chocolate breakfast burritos waited for me on top of a cloud. “Whannut?”

“Look!”

She pointed frantically out across Jah Beryge, and I followed her gaze—and was instantly on my feet, wide awake again.

“Oh, cheeseburger milkshakes!” I yelled.

I hadn't realized it before, but the destruction George had wrought didn't end at the entrance platform. More cracks were spreading across the connecting bridges, sending those platforms falling down into the sea as well. And the platform at the far end, which was rapidly crumbling to pieces right before my eyes…

Was the dungeon.

“AESOP!”


NEXT CHAPTER 2/18/26