The Skeleton Horse

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  THE UNOFFICIAL ANIMAL WARRIORS OF THE OVERWORLD SERIES: THE SKELETON HORSE.

  Copyright © 2019 by Hollan Publishing, Inc.

  Minecraft® is a registered trademark of Notch Development AB.

  The Minecraft game is copyright © Mojang AB.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyponypress.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Special thanks to Erin L. Falligant.

  Cover illustration by Amanda Brack

  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5107-4135-5

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-4140-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  CHAPTER 1

  “Now, Jack!”

  As Gran removed her hand from the ocelot’s side, Jack carefully poured a trickle of apple-red splash potion onto the wound. Ella smelled the faint scent of melon as bubbles rose from the healing potion.

  The spotted tabby cat lifted her head, mewed, and set it back down with a sigh.

  “It’s okay, Lucky.” Jack nestled in beside her in front of the hearth.

  “Give her some space,” warned Gran. “An injured animal sometimes acts like a wild one.”

  But Ella watched as Jack carefully rested his hand on Lucky’s back. The ocelot was a tamed cat now—she belonged to Jack, just as she had belonged to his mother many years ago. As Jack leaned over to whisper something in her ear, she lifted her head to lick his hand.

  He can talk to her, thought Ella, just like I can talk to Taiga. From across the room, her grey wolf whined in response.

  “Now what do we do?” asked red-headed Rowan from her seat at the kitchen table. Her knee bounced impatiently.

  “Now we wait,” said Gran. “She’s carried that arrow for eight years. It’ll take time for the wound to heal.” Gran gestured toward the broken arrow she had pulled from Lucky’s side.

  Eight years since the Uprising, thought Ella. Since the day-night cycle stopped and hostile mobs roamed uncontrollably across the Overworld. Since our parents . . . died. She swallowed the lump in her throat. She and her cousins, Rowan and Jack, had lived with Gran ever since.

  Ella felt a cold nose nudge her hand. Taiga seemed to sense whenever she was sad, which was often these days. Because it’s all beginning again, thought Ella with a shiver.

  She glanced outside the kitchen window, where darkness lay like a heavy blanket. The day and night cycle had almost come to a stop, except for a tiny sliver of daylight that passed across the Overworld at high noon before shadows chased it away again.

  The beacon in the courtyard was on nearly all the time now, but hostile mobs grunted and groaned from beyond the mansion’s walls. If Ella cocked her head, she could hear them—moaning zombies and hissing creepers. It was all Gran’s iron golem could do to keep them at bay.

  When a hostile mob squealed, Taiga’s ears pricked. He let out a ferocious bark and raced toward the front door.

  Jack jumped up from Lucky’s side.

  “Don’t let him out!” cried Ella, lunging from her chair.

  Jack’s face fell. “I wasn’t going to!” he said. “I know better.”

  “Of course you do,” said Gran gently. “Taiga can go out when the sun comes up.”

  “Is it coming?” Rowan asked, craning her neck to see out the window.

  Ella shook her head. “Not yet.” But the clock on the wall showed the moon sinking low in a black sky.

  During the few minutes of sunshine that would be here soon, some of the undead mobs would burn. But the sun didn’t show itself every day. There had been so many clouds and storms lately!

  Ella stared at the clock, willing the moon on the clock to sink lower. Faster.

  “Taiga’s right to want to fight the mobs though,” Gran said solemnly. “We’ll all need to fight one day soon.” She finished weaving her long white hair into a tight braid, as if getting ready for battle.

  Ella’s stomach clenched. As she locked eyes with Rowan, she saw how excited Rowan looked about the idea of fighting mobs. Rowan was a warrior, like her father had been.

  Even Jack puffed up a bit from his spot on the rug. “I brewed a new potion,” he told Gran. “I’ll show you!” He reached for his backpack, which he always kept stocked with potions, just in case.

  Gran has been preparing us for this, Ella reminded herself. She’d been preparing them for the day when they would leave the mansion and head into the Overworld, summoning armies of animals to fight the undead mobs—just as their parents had done before them.

  I’ve been preparing for this too, enchanting weapons and armor, thought Ella. So why didn’t she feel as ready as Rowan and Jack seemed to be?

  As Taiga leaned into her side, she had her answer. Because fighting would put her wolf in danger. Fighting would put them all in danger, just as it had their parents. And our parents didn’t survive, thought Ella. She fought down the wave of panic rising in her chest.

  Beside her, Jack lined up his potion bottles like a colorful picket fence. “Potions of Slowing, Swiftness, Night Vision, Healing, Fire Resistance, Water Breathing . . . Wait, where’s my new one?” He dug deep into his backpack and produced a bottle filled with lime-green liquid. “Ta-da! Potion of luck.”

  Gran glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t know that one. Did you learn about it in your mother’s journal?”

  Jack nodded. His most prized possession was a dog-eared journal filled with potion-brewing recipes that his mother, a scientist, had left for him. “It gives you good luck,” he said. As he flipped through the worn pages of the journal to show Gran, Ella felt a twinge of envy. She had nothing left of her own mother except a faded photo.

  But Gran had said that Ella was like her mother—they were both wolf-whisperers. And both brave, when they needed to be. You’ll lead a great army of wolves one day, just like your mother did, Gran often said.

  Remembering those words made Ella sit up taller. But when Rowan leaped out of her chair, Ella’s heart nearly stopped. “What?” she cried.

  Rowan pointed toward the window. “Sunlight.” She breathed the word more than said it, and smiled.

  As the girls raced toward the front door, Gran called them back. “Take your jackets!”

  Ella sighed. She didn’t want anything to come between her skin and that glorious sunshine. But Gran w
as right—it would be chilly outside after hours of nightfall. She grabbed her purple jacket.

  “Be careful,” Gran warned. “Watch for spiders!”

  The hairy-legged mobs were the only ones that could scale the courtyard wall or drop down from the roof above. When they did, Rowan took them out with a quick arrow from her bow—and Jack was usually there to scoop up the spider drops for his potions.

  But today, as Ella glanced over her shoulder, she saw that Jack was staying behind with Lucky. The cat sat upright now, gently licking her wound. That meant Jack’s potion was working. Ella blew out a breath of relief and then hurried after Rowan into the courtyard.

  Taiga raced past Ella’s feet toward the obsidian wall, where a spindly vine ladder hung. Not long ago, Ella had been scared to climb it. But now, it offered her only view of the Overworld. And every day, that view changed. More hostile mobs roamed the hillsides. More burned-out barns and farm fields dotted the horizon. More death and destruction.

  As Ella hoisted herself up onto the wall beside Rowan, she sucked in her breath. “It looks like the Nether out there,” she whispered.

  Small fires blazed everywhere—remnants of the skeletons and zombies that had burned at the first hint of daylight. A few fires lined the base of the wall below. Had zombies been knocking against it, trying to get in? Ella shivered, grateful for the obsidian Gran had used to build the house and courtyard.

  Suddenly, Rowan grabbed her arm, jolting her to attention. “Look!” She pointed toward a plume of smoke on the hillside. A herd of zombies staggered through the haze. But they couldn’t have been zombies—zombies would have burned with the sun. Ella looked again. “Zombie pigmen?” she whispered.

  Rowan nodded. “There are more and more of them every day. More skeletons, too. And creepers. And Endermen. We have to get out there and start fighting back. I need to find my horse!”

  Rowan didn’t speak to wolves or ocelots, but she could communicate with horses. And one day soon, Gran said, Rowan would tame a wild horse of her own.

  Not soon enough, thought Ella, watching anticipation flicker in her cousin’s eyes.

  “I’m ready to fight,” Rowan said, more to herself than to anyone.

  “Me, too,” said Ella, trying to keep her voice from wobbling. “I can hear the wolves.” If she tilted her head toward the forest, she could hear the howling, just as she’d heard Taiga calling to her months ago. “They’re ready, too. They’re ready to fight.”

  A shadow of envy swept across Rowan’s face. Was she jealous of Ella’s “army” of wolves?

  “Gran said we have to tame horses first,” Rowan pointed out. “So that we can travel faster—and more safely. You’re going to have to tame a horse, too, you know.”

  Ella looked away. “I know that.” She’d ridden a horse before, but only on a saddle behind Rowan—brave Rowan who somehow knew how to tame and ride horses without ever having been taught.

  The thought of taming a horse sent a wave of anxiety through Ella’s chest. Every time she pictured it, the vision ended with Ella hitting the ground. She made a mental note to enchant some boots with Feather Falling, to break her fall. Then she changed the subject. “Can you hear your horse?”

  A slow smile spread across Rowan’s face. “I can hear him. He’s waiting for me.”

  Ella closed her eyes and listened, wondering if she’d be able to hear the horse, too. But she heard something else instead.

  A soft hiss, which grew louder with each passing second.

  She opened her eyes as the hissing creeper rounded the corner of the wall below.

  Then she ducked her head and gripped the wall—just in time.

  Boom!

  CHAPTER 2

  As Taiga barked and whined from the courtyard below, Ella opened her eyes. Gunpowder swirled around her like snowflakes.

  Rowan clung to the wall beside Ella. “Are you okay?” she asked, coughing.

  Ella nodded. She leaned forward just enough to be sure the creeper hadn’t blown a hole in the obsidian wall. It didn’t, she assured herself. We’re safe. But suddenly, Gran’s courtyard didn’t feel so safe.

  Taiga barked so wildly from below that Ella had no choice but to climb down. As she slid down the vine ladder, her hands burned.

  “Girls, are you all right?” Gran hurried toward them.

  “Just a creeper.” Rowan sounded bored, as if she were talking about an annoying silverfish. “At least it wasn’t super-charged.”

  Ella had never seen a super-charged creeper, one that had been struck by lightning. Just the thought made her legs feel shaky. As the sun sank in the sky and shadows spilled across the courtyard, her spirits did, too.

  “That settles it,” said Gran. “It’s time to hide our valuables and pack our things. It’s time to go—before it’s too late.”

  “Our valuables?” said Ella. The only valuable thing she had was pacing the ground in front of her, whining. She leaned forward to pull Taiga into a hug. “Yes, you’re coming, too,” she whispered into his fur.

  Click!

  The beacon suddenly lit up the courtyard, powered by a daylight sensor. But as the Overworld beyond plunged again into darkness, Ella heard the scuttle of spider legs climbing the wall. She quickly followed Gran back inside.

  * * *

  “Take only what’s most precious to you,” said Gran.

  “What won’t weigh you down.”

  Ella hoisted her backpack. It was heavy, yes. But what weighed her down most of all was sadness—the realization that even if they fought this great battle and actually won, they might still not have a house to come home to. Gran had just said so.

  “Our house is made of obsidian,” Jack protested, looking younger than he actually was. “Nothing could destroy it!”

  Gran shook her head. “That’s not true. The house has protected us for many years, but we’ve protected it, too. If we’re not here to keep the torches lit inside, mobs could spawn. Everything could be destroyed.”

  “My books,” Ella whispered. She hadn’t thought of them until now—an entire shelf in the Enchantment Room, devoted to enchantments that she might need someday.

  Gran shook her head again. “I’m sorry, Ella. We can’t take them with us—only the enchanted items we think we’ll need.”

  Jack threw his arm around her. “It’ll be okay, Ella,” he said. “I’ll find you more, just like the one I found hidden in the chest in the jungle temple.”

  He had found the book enchanted with Loyalty, which Ella had used to enchant the trident she was packing for their journey. But it would take a lot of chests in a lot of temples to make up for the number of books she’d be leaving behind. “Thanks,” she said. But it was hard to muster a smile.

  “Wait,” said Rowan, holding up her hand. “Can we hide the books? And other things? You know, like Jack said—the way treasures were hidden in the temple.”

  Gran hesitated. “We could . . . but there’s only room for a few things. I’ll show you.”

  As she led them down the cobblestone steps to the basement, Ella’s heart raced. The only room at the base of the stairs was Jack’s potion-brewing room. There wasn’t a chest in there. So where was Gran taking them?

  Halfway down the stairs, she stopped. She studied the wall, as if trying to remember. Then she pulled the pickaxe from her belt and pried one of the stones loose from the wall.

  As it gave way, Ella jumped backward, expecting silverfish. Instead, the stone hid an entryway—a dark tunnel.

  “Grab the torch,” Gran said to Rowan.

  Rowan reached up and took the torch from the wall. “Can I go first?”

  Gran nodded. “But be careful.”

  In a flash, Rowan disappeared into the tunnel. Ella held her breath, watching the flickering torchlight bounce around the tunnel. Then she heard Rowan call out.

  “Cool! Guys, get in here!”

  Jack climbed through next, and then Gran waved her hand toward the tunnel. “Your turn, dear,” she said
to Ella.

  Here goes nothing, thought Ella, putting on a brave face. As she started to crawl through the narrow corridor, cobwebs brushed against her skin and tickled her nose. When the tunnel opened up and she could finally stand, she sucked in her breath.

  Two chests rested against the back wall of a tiny room. Between them sat a strange block with buttons. Rowan had already flung open one chest and was pulling out books and photos. “My dad!” she said, holding up a photo of a man dressed in armor.

  But Jack studied something else. “What’s this?” he asked as Gran’s head popped out of the tunnel. He pointed toward the block between the chests.

  Gran’s eyes widened. “Goodness,” she said, “I haven’t

  thought about that in years. It’s a command block, something your mother was building. Oh, and Rowan, you found some treasures, too.”

  When she saw the photo Rowan was holding, Gran’s eyes welled with tears. “Wasn’t he handsome?” she said, reaching out to stroke the photo. “This is where we hid our most precious things before the last Uprising.”

  As Gran opened the other trunk, Ella stepped up to see what was inside. Something glittered—a diamond chestplate. And beneath that, a sack of apples.

  “Golden apples!” Jack cried. “And so many of them.”

  Gran nodded. “Your mother liked to craft those,” she said.

  “For healing zombie villagers?” asked Jack.

  Rowan scoffed. “There’s no such thing,” she said. “That’s just a rumor.”

  “It’s not!” said Jack. “Villagers killed by zombies can sometimes turn into zombie villagers. I read about them in Mom’s journal—she wrote down the cure. We should bring some golden apples with us.”

  He had said some, but Ella saw Jack put every last apple into his backpack. She stood on tiptoe to search the corners of the chest. Was there anything in there for her?

  Then she saw them—glistening white skeleton bones. “My mom’s?” she asked Gran as she reached for a bone. It felt smooth beneath her fingertips.

  Gran nodded. “For taming wolves,” she said with a smile.

  When Gran said the diamond chestplate had belonged to Rowan’s father, Rowan put it right on. It was big and loose, but as soon as she had tightened it around her waist, she beamed like the courtyard beacon.