Bacca and the Skeleton King Read online

  Drooler’s knees knocked in terror as the full extent of his predicament became clear. Because he was a zombie, and his flesh was mostly dried up, this produced an actual knocking sound when his kneebones connected. It was like somebody playing just one note on a xylophone, over and over again. This made the Spirit of the Taiga chuckle.

  “But …” the wolf continued, stifling further laughter. “I think perhaps the witches have finally presented a gift that is worthy of one of my favors. Dragon Eggs are the rarest of the rare. They cannot be mined or made. To obtain one usually means tangling with the Ender Dragon. Yes, all in all, I think this is a suitable gift.”

  The Spirit of the Taiga picked up the Dragon Egg and turned it over again and again, like a child playing with a new toy. Drooler realized that he was perhaps not about to be eaten by a giant wolf. For the first time in many hours, he began to relax.

  “mmmmSo, erm, what happens next?” Drooler asked. He was thinking at that moment that he’d like to return to a shadier biome before the sun came up. “Should I go back and tell the witches the good news? I could ask them the favor they want you to do. They didn’t tell me what it was.”

  “Oh, I already know what the witches want,” the wolf said in a sinister voice, never taking his eyes off the egg. “They’ve already made that abundantly clear. I may need to check with them regarding a few details, but the request is straightforward enough. Tell me, would you like to know what it is?”

  “mmmmOkay,” said Drooler, hoping that it was something good.

  Then the Spirit of the Taiga leaned forward across the altar and whispered into Drooler’s rotting ear. The zombie’s eyes went wide. He couldn’t believe what he had heard. In his wildest dreams, he had never imagined the witches could want anything like that!

  As Drooler started to think about the implications—and the awful consequences for him—he began to wonder if being eaten by a giant wolf might just be preferable to the future that awaited.

  It sure looked like a place where witches would live.

  It was square hut with walls made of dark wooden planks. There were no windows. A single chimney of grey stone bricks stuck out of the slanted roof. But the most striking feature had to be the legs. Technically, they were stilts. They extended down from the base of the house, lifting it high off the ground. Looking closely, Bacca saw that they were made from a mix of polished diorite, polished granite, redstone, and gold blocks. The combined effect of this color scheme was to make the stilts look a whole lot like chicken legs, right down to the equally chicken-y looking feet.

  “mmmmDo you think it can walk?” Dug whispered.

  “I guess we’re going to find out,” Bacca said.

  The hut did not walk away as they approached, but there also didn’t seem to be a good way to knock on the door. Bacca could jump high, but not that high. Even with a Potion of Leaping, Bacca guessed he would still be several feet short.

  “Hey!” he called, looking up at the door and cupping his hands to his muzzle. “Are you witches home? Come out and talk to us!”

  There was no response.

  “mmmmMaybe they went to the store or something?” Dug offered.

  “Maybe,” Bacca said. “But maybe not.”

  Bacca took a few steps back from the hut, and reached into his inventory. He pulled out a bow enchanted with Infinity and Flame. Bacca nocked an arrow and took aim.

  “mmmmYou’re going to burn their house down?!” Dug asked in alarm.

  “Relax,” Bacca said with a smile. “I’m just going to get their attention.”

  Bacca fired several flaming arrows in a cluster at the center of the witches’ front door. Dug looked on, curious. He had never seen anybody do anything like this. When Bacca finished firing, Dug realized that the arrows were in the shape of a “B.” Dug thought it was a clever touch.

  “It’s important to sign your work,” Bacca explained.

  “mmmmI see,” said Dug with a grin.

  “Hey witches,” Bacca shouted, putting his bow away. “I know you probably don’t want to talk to us, but you should come out anyway. You might want to have a look at your door.”

  There was no movement from inside, and the flames began to spread.

  Dug opened his mouth to moan something, but Bacca silently put up his paw, as if to say: “Just give it a moment longer. Something’s going to happen. Probably, something pretty cool.”

  He was right. Only a few moments later, a very large and very annoyed-looking witch opened the door.

  “Ahh!” she cried. “What have you done? My beautiful door!”

  She took a bucket of water out of her inventory and quickly doused the flames.

  “Hello,” Bacca said. “Now that I have your attention, my name is Bacca, and this is Dug. We need to talk to you about something very important.”

  “That’s what you think,” the witch said, and slammed the door again.

  Bacca sighed and nocked another flaming arrow. He shot it at the door, but the door did not catch on fire. It was now too wet.

  “I guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way,” Bacca said.

  “mmmmWhat’s the hard way?” Dug asked.

  “I’ll show you,” Bacca told him. “You can help with it.”

  Bacca took out Betty. Dug copied Bacca, and took out his own axe. Unlike Bacca’s diamond weapon, Dug’s was stone and enchanted with Unbreaking.

  “Does your axe have a name?” Bacca asked his zombie apprentice.

  “mmmmNo,” Dug said. “But if we’re going to do what I think we’re going to do, then I will name it Chicken-Chopper.”

  Dug pointed to the legs holding up the witches’ hut.

  “I like the name, but let’s look for a solution that’s constructive, not destructive,” Bacca said. “That’s an important part of being a good crafter.”

  Instead of turning Betty loose on the legs of the hut, Bacca went over to a clump of tall spruce trees nearby and started chopping. Dug joined in. Soon, they had had enough blocks of spruce to craft a whole pile of planks. And after crafting those planks, they used their axes to begin carefully breaking them down into wood sticks.

  Bacca noticed again and again what a skilled crafter his young zombie friend was. The sticks that Dug created were perfectly straight and very strong—seemingly much stronger than normal spruce sticks should have been. They could have made fine fishing poles, rails, fences, or any number of valuable objects.

  “How are you at making ladders?” Bacca asked his star pupil.

  “mmmmThey say I make the best around,” Dug answered.

  “Oh really?” Bacca said. “That’s high praise. Show me. We need a ladder that stretches all the way up to the witches’ front door.”

  Dug nodded and got to work. He stitched the spruce sticks together to form a long ladder with many rungs. Bacca watched him closely. Every stitch was true. Dug seemed to have done this many times before. He held up the finished product for Bacca to inspect. Bacca had never seen a finer ladder. It would probably hold ten or twenty iron golems at once.

  “Not bad,” Bacca said. (Inside, he was thinking: Holy cow! This kid is good!)

  Bacca took the ladder and attached it to the right front chicken leg so that it reached all the way up to the witches’ door.

  “mmmmThey’re going to be mad we chopped down their spruce trees,” Dug said as he and Bacca began their climb.

  “I hope they’re going to be very, very mad,” Bacca said. “Because mad people—especially mad witches—tend to make mistakes.”

  “mmmmMistakes like telling us where the Bonesword is?” Dug asked.

  “Now you’re catching on,” Bacca said.

  They climbed the ladder to the front of the hut until they were face-to-face with the front door.

  Bacca raised a paw to knock on the door, then hesitated.

  “Have you chatted with witches before?” he asked Dug. “Like, have you ever really gotten to know one?”

  The zombie shook
his head no.

  “mmmmMy only experience has been fighting with them.”

  “Witches are mean and self-centered,” Bacca explained. “That comes across when they’re throwing potions at you, but also in conversation. They’re also quick to get angry, and even quicker to get paranoid and suspicious. That’s what we’re going to count on today. Remember, the objective here is not necessarily for us to win and for the witches to lose. The objective is to get the Bonesword back.”

  “mmmmSo what do you recommend?” Dug asked.

  “I’d put away the axe, for starters,” Bacca replied.

  Dug placed his axe back into his inventory.

  “Good,” said Bacca. “For the rest of it … just follow my lead. The good thing about covens is that it means there’ll be several witches. We can also use that to our advantage. Watch and learn.”

  Dug didn’t immediately understand how more witches was less of a problem, but he decided to take Bacca’s word for it.

  Bacca rapped hard on the witches’ front door.

  “Hello, witches!” he cried. “Any chance we could have a word with you? We’re right here outside your door!”

  Moments later, the door opened and a powerful Potion of Harming sailed through. Only lighting-quick reflexes saved Bacca from a nasty splash and several hearts of damage.

  “What’s the big idea?” Bacca asked in an annoyed voice. “I already told you, I just came by to talk. And it’s about something important.”

  Silence followed. Bacca peered inside the doorway. Despite the impressive chicken-legs, the interior was very much like other witch huts. The ceiling was low, and the layout was a single square room. It was filled with various witch-y amenities, including burbling cauldrons for brewing potions and tables filled with exotic ingredients. Beside the door was an umbrella holder containing exotic looking broomsticks. Of course, the thing that really drew Bacca’s eye was the witches. There were three of them in total. They were very large. Their tall, pointy hats stretched so high that they rubbed against the ceiling of the hut. They did not look happy to have visitors. All three had potions of harming cocked and ready to throw.

  “Let’s try this one more time,” Bacca said. “My name is Bacca. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”

  At least a couple of the witches had. He saw them flinch when he said his name.

  “Good,” Bacca said, taking a careful first step inside of the hut. “Glad to know my reputation precedes me. My awesome, awesome reputation.”

  “Why are you here, and what do you want?” growled a witch. “Speak quickly. We’ve no time for chatting.”

  “Yes, you’re interrupting important witch business,” said the second witch.

  “Why shouldn’t we just obliterate you with potions right now?” demanded the third.

  “Well,” answered Bacca, “then we wouldn’t be able to work together anymo-”

  Bacca put his paw to his mouth as though he had accidentally said something he shouldn’t have. His eyebrows lifted, and he glanced back and forth quickly. He looked like someone who realizes he has just made a horrible mistake.

  The effect upon the witches was instant. They glanced around the room nervously. It was clear that none of them knew quite how to proceed.

  Witches were naturally distrustful of crafters (and zombies, for that matter), but that they were especially distrustful of other witches.

  “What do you mean, ‘work together’?” one of the three asked cautiously.

  “Oh nothing,” said Bacca. “I must have misspoke. I certainly didn’t mean to imply that I have been working with one of the members of this coven. That we’re practically old friends at this point. Or that I’m going to ask about the Bonesword. Oops! I did it again!”

  Bacca put us paw up to his mouth in mock embarassment.

  This time, the witches could not contain themselves. They physically moved away from each other, forgetting about Bacca and Dug almost entirely. They moved to different sides of the hut. Their hands still hovered over their potions, ready to draw, but now it looked as though they might target each other inside of their visitors.

  “Who told him about the Bonesword?!” cackled one of the witches, turning to her colleagues. “Was it you? Was it YOU?”

  “I didn’t tell him!” said another witch. “It must have been her!”

  “I didn’t tell him either!” insisted the last witch. “But he couldn’t have heard it from somebody else! Who else knows?”

  The three witches glared at one another for a tense moment. Bacca did not want the witches to actually start throwing potions, if only because he needed them to tell him where they’d put the Bonesword. If they melted one another, he’d back to square one.

  “Ladies, ladies,” Bacca said, striding confidently to the center of the hut. “There’s no need to argue about this. Forget I said anything. I don’t know where I even got this crazy idea that I’m secretly friends with one of you.”

  Bacca winked at Dug, who watched in fascination from the doorway.

  “The important thing,” Bacca continued, “is that we trust each other going forward. And that you don’t spend any more time worrying about which one of you told me all about holding onto the Bonesword for Drooler.”

  Dug would have said it was physically impossible for the witches to look any more alarmed. Dug would have been wrong.

  The witches’ faces screwed up into masks of mistrust, betrayal, and deep-seated anger. Their eyes narrowed to evil slits. Dug guessed the only reason they had not yet fired was they were choosing between two targets.

  “He doesn’t just know about the Bonesword!” howled a witch, cocking her potion. “He also knows about Drooler!”

  “In that case,” another witch said, “he probably also knows about the Fortress of Confusion.”

  One of Bacca’s hairy eyebrows went up just a tic.

  “That’s right,” Bacca said confidently. “The Fortress of Confusion. I know all about that too. It’s the place where … um … where …”

  Bacca snapped his fingers as if trying to recall something.

  “Where we put the Bonesword when Drooler told us to get rid of it,” said one of the witches.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Bacca said.

  “Well, technically, it’s where we told the bat to put the Bonesword,” another witch clarified. “Incidentally, I hope he makes it back okay. That fortress is dangerous, and he’s my favorite pet. Though I’d never let him know.”

  “Yes, the bat!” said Bacca. “I knew all about him too. And this fortress … Which is located … ?”

  The witches looked at Bacca.

  “In the stone beach biome to the west, beside the ocean,” said one of the witches. “But everybody knows that.”

  “Yes they do!” said Bacca. “Of course they do. In fact, anybody who said they didn’t would probably be messing with you.”

  Bacca gave Dug another wink and nodded to the door. They had got what they came for. Now all that was left was to escape from this hut.

  Bacca began to creep toward the door.

  “Ladies, I think I’ve taken up enough of your valuable time. I can see that you’re not in the mood to chat, so my friend and I had better be on our way….”

  Bacca slowly moved closer to the doorway where Dug lingered. He expected one of the witches to fire at any moment. Instead, something very unexpected happened.

  One of the witches lowered her potion and said: “It occurs to me now that almost none of this will matter if Drooler is successful.”

  The other two witches thought about this for a second, then they too lowered their potions.

  “Hey, you know what … you’re right!” said a second witch. “Look at us, getting all hot and bothered about who told Bacca about the Bonesword. Pretty soon, the Bonesword will be totally meaningless!”

  Bacca didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Yes!” said the final witch. “The clock is ticking. The zombies are about to have much bigger prob
lems, aren’t they? Much bigger problems!”

  And the witches all began to cackle in unison. Cackling is like laughing, but it’s when witches do it. And like almost everything witches do, it is much more disturbing than what you’re expecting.

  The cackling didn’t stop as Bacca and Dug began to climb back down the ladder. Bacca thought it might even have gotten louder. It was hard to believe three people could make such a strange, scary sound.

  “mmmmBacca, what does that mean?” Dug asked as they climbed. “Why are they laughing like that?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” Bacca replied. “But I think it means we need to get our hands on the Bonesword as quickly as possible.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The bat’s name was Flappy.

  When your name’s Flappy, you’re probably a bat. Or possibly a chicken. Maybe a ghast.

  But bat is what you hope for. Bat is going to be at the top of that pecking order.

  Flappy had been raised by the witches since he was a baby. Sometimes one of the witches even called him her “familiar.” (This had always struck Flappy as odd, because the witches were actually quite distant and not really familiar with anybody.) Today, Flappy was running an errand for the witches. He ran errands for them all the time, but today’s errand was special, they had told him. Flappy wasn’t exactly sure what made it special, but he had to grant that it was more unusual and complicated than his ordinary work.

  Most of the time, the tasks assigned to Flappy involved fetching things. The witches would send him out into the Overworld to gather ingredients, presumably for potions they were brewing. Flappy had become expert at finding trace amount of glowstone dust, tiny bits of redstone ore he could grip in his claws, and he even knew where the best melons grew for making glistering melons (which, in turn, he’d learned made Potions of Healing).

  As Flappy flew higher and higher along the bleak landscape of stone cliffs, it occurred to him that he had never before been asked to deliver anything. His work started and ended with ingredient recovery. That was his wheelhouse. That was what he knew. But this was a new and strange request. This time he had to take something to a certain place in the stone beach biome and drop it off.