Rise of the Wither, Book 1: New Danger Read online

King or something, we can handle it. We beat Draugr, and that was with much worse equipment than we have now.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t have monster spawners,” Steve pointed out.

  “You don’t know that,” she said. “He might have. Like I said, that army of his had to come from somewhere. Oh!” she looked as though she had just understood something. “What if that was one of his spawners? I mean, who says someone else had to make it? What if he made it and it’s just been sitting there this whole time?”

  That was a new possibility, and potentially a very comforting one. Steve considered it carefully.

  “But…if that were so, wouldn’t the cave have been stuffed with zombies?”

  “Maybe it only activates when someone gets close to it,” she suggested. “Or needs some kind of trigger.”

  “Well, maybe,” said Steve. That would certainly be a relief if it were true.

  “But, let’s just keep our eyes open for a while,” he added.

  She snorted.

  “I’m not the one wandering around in the dark all day.”

  The next day Steve didn’t go into the mines. For one thing, like he had told Alex, he wanted to keep his eyes open for a while. But also the discovery of the two saddles had given him an idea, and he was eager to try it out.

  In the field outside town was a small herd of black and white horses. Steve had often watched them grazing and had wondered whether it would be possible to ride one. Now, with his new saddles in hand, he was determined to try.

  Steve approached the herd cautiously, leaving his armor off and his hands empty. He didn’t want to do anything that might spook them. They glanced his way, then went right back to grazing.

  He moved closer. Again the horses glanced at him, but didn’t seem particularly concerned. They were now within six blocks of each other.

  Selecting a fine coal-black stallion, Steve suddenly decided to throw caution to the winds and just go for it. He covered the remaining distance at a run and jumped onto the horse’s back.

  For a moment, he thought it had worked. The horse shifted under him, as though confused by the unfamiliar weight on its back. Then it moved a few steps…and suddenly bucked hard, sending Steve flying into a clump of grass. He landed hard, flat on his back.

  Groaning, he sat up. The horse was looking at him. It shook its mane, snorted, and turned its back to resume its grazing.

  Okay, thought Steve. So that’s how it’s gonna be?

  He got up, dusted himself off, and jumped right back on the horse. A moment later, he was again lying in the grass. Again and again, Steve tried to mount the stallion, and again and again he was thrown off. The horse didn’t try to run away, but it wouldn’t let him stay on its back more than a few seconds at a time.

  “Look,” said Steve, getting up after his fifteenth attempt. “I can keep this up all day. I’m a miner; I’m used to repetitive, hard work. But sooner or later, you’re gonna have to let me on, so you might as well give in now.”

  The horse snorted.

  “Okay, if that’s how you want to play it…”

  Steve sprang onto the horse’s back once more. He braced himself to be thrown off…but nothing happened. The horse shook its mane and shifted a little, but it didn’t try to throw him off.

  He’d done it.

  “That’s more like it!” Steve exclaimed.

  The horse snorted again.

  Now came the moment. Steve opened up his inventory and saw, just as he’d expected, that it had expanded to include the horse. He took out one of the saddles and put it on the horse.

  Immediately, he felt the shift. The horse had accepted the saddle, and with it, had accepted him as its master. Excitement flooded him, and he had to exercise great self-control to stop himself from galloping off right that minute. First, he needed to get used to the feel of controlling and guiding the horse.

  “Okay, let’s see here…” he urged the horse forward, slowly. It clopped along the grass, navigating easily among the rolling field. The horse could take shallow hills without so much as breaking step, and even walking moved much faster than Steve could on his own two legs.

  Suddenly, Steve’s reticence gave way and he decided once more to abandon all caution. He let the horse have its head, and suddenly he was going faster than he had ever gone.

  At first, Steve tried to hold on tight, fearful that the horse might try to throw him off. But before long he was too caught up in the exhilaration of speed to give any thought to safety. The horse raced across the field and into the shadow of the mountains like an arrow, and Steve whooped and shouted for delight as he was borne along with it. Near the foot of the mountains he turned left and they galloped alongside them. The ruins of Draugr’s castle loomed empty and desolate overhead, but Steve was past them in an instant and going far, far out towards lands he had never seen. Blocks seemed to zip past them as if blown by a Creeper as they passed the mountains and the field and found themselves running over sand and dodging in between cacti.

  They came to a river, and Steve urged the horse onward. They’d jump it, he knew they would, and then keep on, deeper into the desert and beyond that…who knew?

  They reached the banks and the horse sprang forward…and plunged into the warm, flowing water about halfway across. Steve was thrown from the saddle at impact, and both of them scrambled to the surface and back to the near shore.

  “Sorry,” Steve told the dripping horse as it surged from the river. “I guess I got a bit carried away.”

  The horse snorted and lay down beside him, panting.

  “You’re something,” Steve went on. “We’ll have to practice, though; get used to how you work. And I suppose I should find a name for you, shouldn’t I?”

  The horse gazed at him with proud eyes.

  “Something powerful, something grand…” Steve thought. Then he looked at the sky in the direction of the village.

  “How about ‘Stormcloud’?” he suggested.

  The horse snorted, which Steve decided would do for a sign of approval.

  “Glad you like it,” he said. “The reason I mention it is that it looks like we might have a little rain on the way back…”

  It was considerably more than a little rain. By the time Steve and Stormcloud had made it back, the village was in the midst of a tremendous thunderstorm. Lighting had even set a few of the trees on fire, and Alex was working with the villagers to make sure none of the huts suffered the same fate. Steve left Stormcloud in the palace courtyard and went to assist them.

  As he approached the gates, however, he saw a dark figure gliding toward them. For a moment, he thought it was one of the villagers who had been caught outside. But then he saw that the figure was wearing a purple cloak and had a pointed hat on her head.

  “Who’s there?” he shouted over the wind and the rain.

  The figure turned her ugly, aged face toward him and smiled.

  “Hello, dear,” she said. “You must Alex’s friend. My name is Luinda. Would you kindly give me some shelter from this storm?”

 

  Sopping wet and more than a little confused, Steve watched the old woman warm her hands at the fireplace in the palace dining room. Alex, her fair hair plastered about her face, was also watching the old woman and looked, if anything, more puzzled than he was.

  “Thank you, dears,” said the old woman. “Such an awful night to be caught traveling.”

  “Yes,” agreed Alex. “So…no offense intended, but why were you travelling?”

  “Why, to see you dear, of course!” said Luinda. “Why else?”

  “Okay, but why? I’m not saying I’m not glad to see you, but it’s just sort of unexpected.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Steve. “But, who are you again?”

  “She’s a witch,” Alex explained. “I freed her from Draugr’s dungeon when I was in there looking for you.”

  “Witch indeed!” said Luinda indignantly. “I told you, dear; I am merely someone
who knows certain things worth knowing.”

  “Right, sorry,” said Alex quickly.

  “The reason I am here,” the witch went on. “Is that I received word that you dealt with that no-good skeleton. And a good job too! So, I’ve come to offer you my gratitude for rescuing me from his dungeons.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Alex said. “You’ve already done so, remember? You gave me those potions.”

  “Yes, yes, but I wanted to do more,” said Luinda. “You see, that’s not all I’ve heard. I also understand you faced the one they call Herobrine, yes?”

  Steve and Alex looked at each other. They weren’t likely to forget him. After all, the Ghost in the Machine had come very close to killing both of them and destroying the world in the process.

  “Yeah, we met him,” Alex muttered.

  “I’m curious; how did you defeat him? Is he, in fact, dead?”

  Steve shook his head.

  “I don’t know if he can die,” he admitted. “I mean, during the battle he seemed to take damage, but it never added up to anything. And them, when I was inside the Cube, I noticed that he didn’t seem to have any health or stamina meters. So, no, we didn’t kill him. I just sent him to the Far Lands. Far into the Far Lands. As I told Alex, Even if he can get out of there, it’s gonna take him a while.”

  Luinda nodded.

  “But a while is not forever,” she said. “Be it a year, two years, or ten, you may rest assured he will return. And what will you do then?”

  Steve and Alex didn’t even try to answer that. There was no answer. They had defeated Herobrine by a fluke of luck, and they both knew