She rushed towards me, kicking up leaves, her hands extended to rend my face or squeeze my throat. She was fast for a dead witch; very fast. But not fast enough.
With my left hand I drew the largest of my blades from its scabbard at my hip. This was not crafted for throwing; it was more like a short sword, with two razor-sharp edges. I leaped forward and cut Grim Gertrude's head clean from her shoulders. It bounced on a root and rolled away. I ran on, glancing back to see her hands searching amongst the pile of rotting leaves where it had come to rest.
Now for Kernolde. She was waiting beneath her tree. I saw that ropes hung from the branches, ready to bind and hang my body. She was rubbing her back against the bark, drawing strength for the fight. But I was not afraid - she looked more like an old bear ridding itself of fleas than the dreaded witch assassin feared by all. Running directly towards her at full tilt, I drew the last of my throwing knives and hurled it straight at her throat. End over end it spun, my aim fast and true, but she knocked it aside with a disdainful flick of her wrist. Undaunted, I increased my pace and prepared to use the long blade. But then the ground opened up beneath my feet: my heart lurched and I fell into a hidden pit.
The moon was high, and as I fell I saw the sharp spikes below waiting to impale me. I twisted desperately, trying to protect my body, but to avoid every spike was impossible. All I could do was contort myself so that only one spike speared into me, inflicting the least damage.
The least, did I say? It hurt me enough: the spike pierced right through my thigh. Down its length I slid until I hit the ground hard and all the breath left my body, the long blade flying from my hand to lie out of reach.
I lay there, trying to breathe and control the pain in my leg. The spikes were sharp, thin and very long -more than six feet - so there was no way I could lift my leg and free it. I cursed my folly. I had thought myself safe, but Kernolde had dug another pit - probably the previous night. No doubt she'd been aware of my forays into the dell and had waited until the last moment to add another trap.
A witch assassin must constantly adapt and learn from her own mistakes. Even as I lay there, facing my imminent death, I recognized my stupidity. I had been too confident and had underestimated Kernolde. If I survived, I swore to temper my attitude with a smidgeon of caution. If…
The witch assassin's broad moon-face appeared above and she looked down at me without uttering a word. I was fast and I excelled with blades. I was strong too - but not as strong as Kernolde. Not for nothing did some call her Kernolde the Strangler. Once victorious, Kernolde sometimes hung her victims by their thumbs before slowly asphyxiating them. Not this time though. She had seen what I had achieved already and would take no chances. She would soon put her hands about my throat and squeeze the breath and life from my body. I knew that I would die here.
She began to climb down into the pit. I was calm and ready to die if need be, but I had already thought of something. I had a slim chance of survival.
As Kernolde reached the bottom of the pit and began to weave her way towards me through the spikes, flexing her big muscular hands, I prepared myself to cope with pain. Not the pain she would inflict upon me; that which I chose myself.
My hands were strong; my arms and shoulders capable of exerting extreme leverage. The spikes in the pit were thin but sturdy; flexible, not brittle. But I had to try. From where I lay I could reach only the one that had pierced my leg, so I seized it and began to bend it. Back and forth, back and forth, I flexed and twisted the spike, each movement sending pain shooting down my leg and up into my body. But I gritted my teeth and worked away at the spike, until it finally yielded and broke, coming away in my hands.
Quickly I lifted my leg clear of the stump and knelt to face Kernolde, my blood running down to soak the earthen floor of the killing pit. I held the spike like a spear and pointed it towards her. Before her hands could reach my throat I would pierce her heart.
But the witch assassin had drawn much of her stored magic out of the tree, and now she halted and concentrated, beginning to hurl shards of darkness towards me. First of all she tried dread - that dark spell a witch uses to terrify her enemies, holding them in thrall to fear. Terror tried to claim me and my teeth began to chitter-chatter like those of the dead on the Halloween sabbath.
Kernolde's magic was strong; but not strong enough. I braced myself and shrugged aside her spell. Soon its effects receded and it bothered me no more than the cold wind that had blown down from the arctic ice when I slew the wolves and left their bodies on the snow.
Next she used the unquiet dead - the 'bone-bound' - against me, hurling towards me the spirits she had trapped in Limbo. They clung to my body, dragging my arm down so that it took all my strength to keep hold of that spike. They were strong and fortified by dark magic - one was a strangler, who gripped my throat so hard that Kernolde herself might have been squeezing it. The worst of them was an ab-human spirit, the ghost of one born of the Fiend and a witch. He darkened my eyes and thrust his long cold fingers into my ears so that I thought my head was about to burst, but I fought back and cried out into the darkness and silence:
'I'm still here, Kernolde! Still to be reckoned with. I am Grimalkin, your doom!'
My eyes cleared and the abhuman's fingers left my ears with a pop so that sound rushed back. The weight was gone from my arms and I struggled to my feet, taking aim with the spike. Kernolde rushed at me then - a big ugly bear of a woman with strangler's hands. But my aim was true. I thrust the spear right into her heart and she fell at my feet, her blood soaking into the earth to mix with mine. She was choking, trying to speak, so I bent and put my ear close to her lips.
'You're just a girl,' she croaked. 'To be defeated by a girl, after all this time… How can this be?'
'Your time is over and mine is just beginning,' I told her. 'This girl took your life and now she will take your bones.'
After taking what I needed, I lifted Kernolde's body out of the pit using her own ropes. Finally I hung her up by her feet so that at dawn the birds could peck her bones clean. That done, I passed through the dell without incident: the dead witches kept their distance.
Grim Gertrude was on her hands and knees, still rooting around in the mouldy leaves, trying to find her head. Without eyes it would prove difficult.
When I emerged from the trees, the clan was waiting to greet me. I held up Kernolde's thumb-bones, and they bowed their heads in acknowledgement of what I'd done; even Katrise, the head of the coven of thirteen, made obeisance. When they looked up, I saw the new respect in their eyes; the fear too.
Now I would begin my quest to destroy my enemy, the Fiend. The spikes in the pit had given me an idea. What if I crafted a sharp spike of silver alloy and somehow impaled the Fiend on it? What if it went right through his heart? And if that didn't work, there had to be some other way…
One day I will find a way to destroy him.
My name is Grimalkin. I am the witch assassin of the Malkins and I fear nobody.
ALICE AND
THE BRAIN
GUZZLER
My name is Alice Deane and I was born into the Pendle witch clans. Didn't want to be a witch, did I? But sometimes you've no choice and things just happen.
I remember the night my aunt, Bony Lizzie, came for me. Like to think I was upset, but I don't remember crying. My mam and dad had been cold and dead in the damp earth for three days and I still hadn't managed to shed a single tear - though it wasn't for want of trying. Tried to remember the good times, I really did. And there were a few, despite the fact that they fought like cat and dog and clouted me even harder than they hit each other. I mean, you should be upset, shouldn't you? It's your own mam and dad and they've just died so you should be able to squeeze out one tear at least.
I was staying with my other aunt, Agnes Sowerbutts. She'd taken me in and wanted to bring me up proper and give me a good start in life. Fat chance of that!
The day had been a scorcher and there was a bad summer storm
that night - forks of devil-lightning sizzling across the sky and crashes of thunder shaking the walls of the cottage and rattling the pots and pans. But that was nowt compared to what Lizzie did. There was a hammering at the door fit to wake the rotting dead, and when Agnes drew back the bolt, Bony Lizzie strode into the room, her black hair matted with rain, water streaming from her cape to cascade onto the stone flags. Agnes was scared but she stood her ground, placing herself between me and Lizzie.
'Leave the girl alone!' she said calmly, trying to be brave. 'Her home is with me now. She'll be well looked after, don't you worry.'
Lizzie's first response was a sneer. They say there's a family resemblance and that I'm the spitting image of her. But I could never have twisted my face the way she did that night. It was enough to turn the milk sour or send the cat shrieking up the chimney as if Old Nick himself was reaching for its tail.
'The girl belongs to me, Sowerbutts,' Lizzie said, her voice cold and quiet, filled with malice. 'We share the same dark blood. I can teach her what she has to know. I'm the one she needs.'
'Alice needn't be a witch like you!' Agnes retorted. 'Her mam and dad weren't witches, so why should she follow your dark path? Leave her be. Leave the girl with me and get about your business.'
'She's the blood of a witch inside her and that's enough!' Lizzie hissed angrily. 'You're just an outsider and not fit to raise the girl.'
It wasn't true. Agnes was a Deane all right, but she'd married a good man from Whalley, an ironmonger. When he died, she'd returned to Roughlee, where the Deane witch clan made its home.
'I'm her aunt and I'll be a mother to her now,’ Agnes retorted. She still spoke bravely but her face was pale, and now I could see her plump chin wobbling, her hands fluttering and trembling with fear.
Next thing, Lizzie stamped her left foot. It was as easy as that. In the twinkling of an eye, the fire died in the grate, the candles flickered and went out, and the whole room became instantly dark, cold and terrifying. I heard Agnes scream with fear; I was screaming myself and desperate to get out. I would have run through the door, jumped through a window or even scrabbled my way up the chimney - I'd have done anything, just to escape.
I did get out, but with Lizzie at my side. She just seized me by the wrist and dragged me off into the night. It was no use trying to resist. She was too strong and she held me tight, her nails digging into my skin. I belonged to her now and there was no way she was ever going to let me go. And that night she began my training as a witch. It was the start of all my troubles.
* * *
That first night in her cottage was the worst. Lizzie started off by showing me the crone she used as her servant. The old woman was standing outside the front door, leaning back against the window ledge, and didn't look too friendly.
She was old all right, but big and ugly too, with long grey hair hanging almost to her waist. She wore a dirty smock, but her short sleeves showed big, muscly, hairy arms that could easily have belonged to a man. Didn't like the look of her one bit. She just stared at me - didn't say a word.
'Her name is Nanna Nuckle and she's a very useful servant,' Lizzie told me. 'Only problem is, she can't go outside in daylight. So she sleeps then. Good at lifting big iron pots and at keeping disobedient girls in check, though. Best do as you're told, girl. She'll be watching you.'
Soon as we got inside, she locked me in a room without a window. Ain't many times in my life I've been as scared as that. It was so dark I couldn't see my hands in front of my face. Didn't smell good either. Something had died in there recently. Not sure if it was animal or human - maybe something in between. But it had breathed its last, slowly and in great pain. Didn't take much sniffing to work that out.
Sniffing is a gift. Born that way, I was. Always been able to do it. But I didn't know then that you could be trained so that it would become a powerful sense, almost as useful as the eyes in your head. That was the first lesson Lizzie gave me. Dragged me out of that stinky dark room well before dawn and took me outside. There were three small fires burning, and above each, a black bubbling iron pot with a wooden lid.
'Well, girl,' Lizzie said, that sneer on her face again, 'let's see how strong your gift is. In one of those pots is your breakfast. Find it and you'll eat well. Lift the wrong lid and you'll eat what's inside anyway. Either that or it'll eat you!'
After the storm the air was much cooler and, shivering with cold and fear, I stared at the three pots for a long time, watching the lids twitch and jerk as the water bubbled and the steam rose. At last Lizzie lost patience and gripped my shoulder hard, pushing me close to the pot on the left.
'Get on with it, girl, if you know what's good for you!'
I was scared of Lizzie and she was hurting my shoulder, her sharp nails pressing right into the flesh as if searching for my bones, so I did what she said. I sniffed three times.
Didn't smell good. Something wick in there, I felt sure; something alive when it ought to be dead; something thin and twiggy but still moving in that bubbly, boiling water.
Lizzie dragged me along to face the centre pot. Sniffed three times again and didn't like what was inside that one either. Something soft and squishy, it was. Something that once grew in the ground - but not fit to eat, I was sure of that. One bite of what was inside would boil your blood, make your eyes swell and pop right out of your head. Didn't want to eat that any more than what was in the first pot.
The third pot contained rabbit - tender, delicious pieces of it melting off the bone and almost ready to eat. One sniff and I knew that for sure.
'This one,’ I said. 'I'll eat rabbit for breakfast.' I lifted the lid to prove that I was right.
'That was easy enough, girl, but you're right - this morning you'll enjoy your breakfast,' Lizzie said. 'Now, let's see what's in the middle pot. What do you think it is?'
'Something poisonous. Just one mouthful and you'd be dead.'
'But what kind of poison?' demanded Lizzie. 'Can you tell me the ingredients?'
I shook my head and sniffed again. 'Maybe toadstools… not sure.'
'Lift the lid and take a look!'
I replaced the lid on my breakfast and lifted the one over the centre pot. Stepped back right away, I did. Didn't want to breathe in that poisonous steam. There were pieces of toadstool churning in the boiling water.
'Nine different toadstools in there,' Lizzie told me. 'By the end of the month, with just three sniffs you'll know everyone by name. You've a lot of work ahead of you, girl, but the gift is strong inside you. Just needs developing, that's all. Now try the third lid…'
This pot really scared me. What lay within? What could survive in that boiling water? As I hesitated, Lizzie dug her nails deeper into my shoulder, hurting me so much that, despite my fear, I reached for the lid.
As I slowly lifted it, Lizzie released me and stepped back. I got the shock of my life. Almost wet myself, I did. A small evil-looking face was watching me from within the pot. The head of the creature was just above the boiling water but I couldn't see its body. Suddenly it leaped straight at my face. I dropped the lid and ducked.
It went straight over my head. I turned and saw that it had landed high on Lizzie's chest, its ugly head nestling at her throat. It convulsed and burrowed down into her dress, hiding.
'This is Old Spig, my familiar,’ Lizzie said with a fond smile. 'He's my eyes, nose and ears. Doesn't miss much, does Old Spig. So you do as you're told, girl, or he'll find you out. And once he tells me, you'll be in real trouble. Then I'll teach you all about pain…'
That was my first sight of Lizzie's familiar. Mostly she was a witch who used bone-magic, but for Lizzie, Old Spig was well worth his keep. He was scary, and from that first time I set eyes on him I knew he'd give me trouble.
After tucking into that delicious rabbit I felt a bit better. And for the rest of that day all I had to do was a few household chores; it wasn't so different to what I'd been doing while staying with Agnes. I had to lay the cooking fire, wash t
he pots, pans and cutlery, and prepare a lamb stew for our evening meal. Nanna Nuckle didn't help; she stayed in her room all day because she couldn't stand daylight. She wasn't a witch, so I couldn't understand why this was. But when I asked Lizzie, she just told me to mind my own business.
Didn't do much cleaning though, except in my own room. It seemed that Lizzie liked the cottage to be dirty. Made her feel comfortable. There was one room I wasn't allowed inside - I reckoned it was the one where Old Spig spent most of his time, and I didn't like the sounds that were coming out of there. Couldn't hear Spig, but something was whining like it was in pain, so I kept well clear.
But, looking on the bright side, I'd survived Lizzie's first test. Old Spig scared me rotten, but apart from him, maybe living with Lizzie wouldn't be quite as bad as I'd expected.
'Are you brave, girl?' Lizzie asked me once I'd finished my work. 'A witch needs to be brave! I've got something in mind that only a really brave girl can cope with.'
I nodded at Bony Lizzie. I didn't want to admit that I was scared, but my teeth were chattering with fear, and she smiled at my discomfort as if it gave her pleasure. The sun had been down about half an hour and we were standing in her small front room, which was very gloomy. A single candle made from black wax was flickering on the mantelpiece, filling the corners with strange shadows.
'Are you strong, girl?'
'Strong for my age,' I told her, nodding again, my voice quavering.
'Well, all you have to do is go down into Witch Dell and bring me back a special jug. You'll find it buried close to the trunk of the tallest oak there. Dig where the moon casts the tree's shadow at midnight!'
My whole body began to shake then. The dell was full of dead witches. They came out at night, looking for blood.