“Uncle Laine?” I whispered.
“Hello, sweetie,” he said. “Welcome to the Monster Crushers.”
Beside him the other four hooded Swords pulled off their hoods one by one. I felt like I was going to topple over. One was the waitress from the café who had given me the dirty look, introduced as Liz Boden; another was the quiet, bespectacled manager of the grocery store we went to, Steven Hale. He nodded in greeting. One other I didn’t recognize, a tall man with cropped, strawberry-blond hair and a wispy goatee, Laren Elvitan, who turned out to be from the Under Earth, and the last one hesitated with her hood.
“As I mentioned, whenever someone in Riverfield finds a tunnel, they have a choice,” Eldon explained, looking over the gathered Swords. “To maintain the secret, or to join the Swords and help protect both worlds. Four have joined from Riverfield, including some of our best—a rare incident, to have so many surface humans from one area. Your uncle has been a Sword for twelve years.”
I just stared at my uncle in disbelief. “Why did no one tell me?”
“We always conceal our identity when someone from Riverfield is being trained,” he said. “Just in case they flake out and tell someone. We only tell them when they become a member.”
I noticed the last Sword still had her hood on. She was just giving me a familiar, mean little smile. I stared at her for a second, my eyes widening. It couldn’t be.
The girl pulled her hood off.
It was Allison Black.
Chapter Twenty-One
I sat at the large, rectangular wooden table in Arnwell’s mess hall, still completely stunned. Eldon had invited me to stay for a meal to celebrate my official naming as a Monster Crusher. It didn’t really seem like something to celebrate, but I did want to know more about the Swords and why people from my town were a part of it.
Specifically the dour, raven-haired girl who terrorized me at school.
“I stumbled across a tunnel twelve years ago while I was hunting,” Uncle Laine was telling me, while also drinking from a big flagon of mead. “Tripped over the edge completely by accident. Did some digging around to find out what it was and then pulled the hidden door right open. Probably should have gone home, but I was curious, so I set off down the tunnels. I was about a half kilometre down when Eldon popped out of the shadows right behind me and snatched the crossbow.”
Eldon was sitting at the head of the table, listening with a wan smile. He had finally removed his cloak and now wore a simple beige tunic that was open enough at the top to reveal the lines of his muscular chest. Allison was sitting a few seats down from Uncle Laine, shooting me occasional condescending looks as she picked at a plate of roasted lamb. I still didn’t understand how such an awful girl could be a Sword.
Especially one of my Swords.
“So Eldon explains everything,” Laine continued, “and of course I didn’t believe a word of it until he took me farther down and showed me Derwin. He told me what was happening in the Under Earth and that my home was in danger too. So I decided to join, and I’ve been here almost every day since, whenever I can manage. Of course I’ve been doing late nights since you moved here…I train after you go back up, usually. But yeah, been a Sword for a long time now, that’s for sure. Had some close calls too. Worked with the last Riverfield Monster Crusher—the chap who lived in your house. He…died six years ago. Paul the Imp Chaser they called him. Nice kid. He was actually eighteen…bought the house himself with his inheritance. Parents had died, you see. He had something to prove maybe and went charging after those imps. Couldn’t stop him.”
“Was he the last one?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Laine said gruffly. “Started to think we weren’t getting another one. Eldon let me do some other work in the meanwhile. Scouting and guard work and so forth. That’s what led to the last close call.”
“Your uncle was captured four months ago,” Eldon said, glancing at me. “On a mission to scout the monsters’ movements. He was held for a few days, and he just barely managed to escape.”
I looked at my uncle in amazement. “Did they hurt you?”
“No,” he said softly. “Well, a bit, but mostly they were waiting.”
“For what?”
He shrugged. “The troll, I’m guessing. They kept saying the king was coming.” He took another big swig of mead. “But one of them got a bit too close one night, and I managed to kick out its legs and kill it. Used its sword to cut myself free and then took off for Arnwell. They hunted me right through the night. Not my best night ever.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t understand. If you knew about all this, why did you tell Dad to move to that house? You knew it was the Monster Crusher’s house.”
He shrugged again. “I had a hunch that you might find the elevator.”
“You wanted me to find it?” I asked incredulously.
I saw some of the other Swords scowling.
“We needed a Monster Crusher,” he said. “And I knew you had it in you.”
I rubbed my forehead. “But why didn’t you just move there?”
“Tried,” he said. “Didn’t work. The spells prevent the wrong people from living there. First the bank wouldn’t approve the mortgage. Then the private companies turned me down. I tried to just go in and open the panel, but it wouldn’t even budge. Not for me. Not for any of us.” He looked around the room. “All four of us from Riverfield tried. Allison actually talked her parents into buying it, but they couldn’t get approved either.”
Allison pushed her plate away, looking sour.
“Of course, he didn’t tell us who he had found to move
