The time passed slowly, but my mind raced. I was desperately trying to think of a way out of this. I still had my staff and my chain, but even if I could bind Lizzie again, what could Alice and I do against the buggane?
As it started to get dark, we heard a noise emanating from the tunnels. Had the shaman’s men found us? But as the sounds drew closer, they became more disturbing. I’d heard them before.
“It’s found us at last,” said Lizzie. “Certainly took its time.”
Now I could hear a snuffling. The buggane had arrived. Lizzie crawled to the center of the hollow tree, pulled out the stub of her black wax candle and said a word under her breath. It ignited just in time to illuminate the monstrous hairy head of the buggane as it protruded from the mouth of the tunnel. Its big, cruel eyes looked at us one by one, finally settling on Bony Lizzie. Rather than retreating, the witch shuffled forward on her knees and slowly stretched out her hand.
The buggane opened its mouth wide and growled, showing its two rows of teeth, but Lizzie’s hand continued to advance.
“There, there, what a good boy you are,” she said in a soft, husky voice. “What a handsome hairy thing you be, your coat all fine and glossy.”
Her left hand was actually touching the buggane now; she was stroking its hideous head just above its wet snout.
“There, there, my sweet,” she crooned. “We could help each other. . . .”
With those words, Lizzie raised her left hand and pierced her wrist with the long, sharp nail of her right forefinger. She positioned the wound above the creature, and drops of blood began to fall onto its snout. Suddenly, from between the sharp triangular teeth, a long purple tongue emerged and began to lick up the blood with an unpleasant slurping sound.
She was feeding the buggane, trying to make it her familiar.
“Good boy! Good boy! Lick it all up. There’s more where that came from. Now go back to your master and tell him exactly where we are. It’s time we had a little chat.”
The buggane slowly backed away into the tunnel, and Lizzie turned toward us triumphantly. “That’s a good start! Soon we’ll put it to the test. But our next visitor prefers the dark—so let’s oblige him!”
With those words she blew out the candle, plunging us into darkness.
It wasn’t long before a luminous shape began to form in front of the tunnel. It was the tall, gaunt figure of the shaman.
“I’ve found you at last,” he said, his cruel eyes looking only at Lizzie. “I’ll make you pay for leading me on such a merry dance!”
“There’s no need for harsh words between us,” Lizzie replied, a crafty look coming over her face.
“No? There’s another good man dead, plus five of my best dogs. I owe you for that!”
“How about what you’ve done to me?” the witch accused. “You stitched my lips together. No man ever shut me up like that before. I should kill you for that, but if we can settle it another way, I’ll let bygones be bygones—”
“It’ll be settled, all right. Within an hour I’ll show you what I can do. I’ll send the buggane—this time in its spirit form. I’ll start with your pet, the girl. By the end of the night she’ll be as good as dead. Next the boy. I’ll save you until the end so you’ll have time to dwell on what’s going to happen—”
“Suppose the buggane listens to me!” Lizzie shouted. “Suppose it whispers inside your head? Maybe then you’ll be ready to talk terms.”
The shaman scowled, and his lips curled disdainfully; then his image faded and disappeared altogether.
“Can you do that?” Alice asked out of the darkness. She sounded scared.
“Can’t make it whisper inside his head yet, but he doesn’t know that, does he? I said enough to make him think, though. You needn’t fear, girl. I’ve already done enough to keep it away from us. It won’t be sure what to do for a while yet. When Lord Barrule finds out it won’t do his bidding, he’ll be back, just you mark my words!”
Alice’s hand found mine again in the darkness, and I squeezed it in reassurance. After that nobody spoke for a long time. Lizzie’s strength was being put to the test. Could she really keep the buggane away from Alice? I wondered.
After a couple of hours, the image of the shaman began to form again.
“You’re soon back!” Lizzie crowed. “No whispering inside the girl’s head yet, is there, my sweet?” she said, turning toward Alice.
“Ain’t heard a thing,” Alice said.
“What do you want, witch?”
“Our lives and a safe passage from Mona. West to Ireland, across the sea to the Emerald Isle—that’s where we want to go.”
“What’s in it for me? You mentioned terms. So what do I get?”
“First you get to keep your power over the buggane. Longer I stay here, more likely it is to be mine. So it’s in your interests to get me off this island. Next I’ll give you the boy. Last thing I want traveling with me is a spook’s apprentice. Betting man, aren’t you? So make him fight his own dogs—to the death. That should be interesting!”
“No!” Alice cried.
“I won’t do it!” I protested.
“Shut your face, girl! Silence! You can both be quiet!”
And then Lizzie said a word under her breath, something guttural in the Old Tongue. My throat tightened, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. I managed to draw in a breath, although I still couldn’t speak. I’d always had some degree of resistance to the dark—being a seventh son of a seventh son had given me that—but I seemed helpless in the face of Lizzie’s dark power. I tried to stand, but my limbs didn’t respond. It was as if I were made of stone. I saw Alice start toward me, but then she too was gripped by some dark spell.
“In return, you pull all your men away from the area around here,” she continued, turning her attention back to the shaman’s spirit. “Call them back into the keep. Once the boy starts to fight, I’ll leave this tree, but only when I’m safely off this island will the buggane do your bidding again. Are we agreed?”
The apparition glared at the witch for quite a while without speaking, then gave just the slightest of nods.
Lizzie smiled. “Knew you’d see the sense of it. Rare thing, that. Not many sensible men about. Now send two more sensible men through the tunnels for the boy—that’s if you can find any. If they ain’t sensible, they’ll be dead! So no funny business.”
It was a matter of minutes before I heard the shaman’s men crawling through the tunnel toward the hollow tree. I was still holding hands with Alice, my left hand in her left hand, gasping for breath.
Lizzie lit her candle again and held it up as the first of the men emerged. He looked scared and stood, uncertain what to do. But the witch instantly took command.
“That’s the boy you’ve come for!” she cried, pointing at me.
They dragged me toward the dark entrance of the tunnel. My paralysis was passing, giving way to painful pins and needles, but I was still weak and unable to resist.
“Don’t forget his staff!” cried Lizzie. “Be needing that, he will! It’s dead dogs or a dead boy. One or the other, that’s for sure!”
CHAPTER XIV
Fight to the Death
THEY pulled and pushed me back along the claustrophobic system of earthen tunnels, until I heard the sound of barking in the distance and we finally emerged in the long room with the cages. I felt depressed and angry. After all I’d gone through defeating Lizzie and finally escaping, I’d been returned to the same point.
There were plenty of yeomen armed with spears and clubs, but only a few gamblers now sat on the straw bales. Lord Barrule was waiting in the middle of the room, standing on the blood-splattered sawdust with folded arms.
“If I weren’t a betting man, I’d take your life now, boy, and do it very slowly,” he said. “But for a good fight, you need some incentive, so I’ll still let you go if you win. This time, of course, you won’t be able to take your dogs with you—you’ll already have killed them. What do yo
u say?”
I hung my head, appalled at what I was being asked to do.
“Suit yourself—but I think you’ll fight anyway, in self-preservation. Who wouldn’t? Anyway, you’ll have time to think. I’m waiting for a few more people to arrive. Can’t pass up the chance to take their money—and it’s the taking rather than the money that’s important to me. And who do you think my money’s on this time?”
Again I didn’t reply. Their gambling fun would go on, and here on this spot there would be more deaths to add to all the ones they’d already witnessed. For how many years had the shaman and his cronies carried on in this way? I wondered.
“Most of the money will be on you because they saw how you defeated the witch. But I disagree. I’ve changed my mind because you’re too soft—I can see that now. If you couldn’t kill the witch, then you certainly won’t be able to kill your own dogs. They’ll rip out your throat. So I’m betting on the dogs, boy!”
The shaman walked away, and the two men dragged me to one side and forced me to squat down on the floor while we waited for the proceedings to begin. It took over an hour as, one by one, other gamblers entered the room and placed their bets. Who were these people—upright members of the local community who had this secret vice? Not all those present looked equally happy. No doubt most were afraid of Barrule and had little option but to join him here; others seemed as enthusiastic as he was, their faces eager.
Some of the latter walked over to assess the dogs; a couple even came to look at me.
“Make him stand,” one said. “Not injured, is he?”
“Up you come, lad!” commanded the yeoman. When I hesitated, he bunched his fist in my hair and dragged me to my feet.
“Will he be armed like last time?” another asked.
“That he will, staff and all! But that silver chain won’t be much use against the dogs!” The guard laughed, then pushed me to my knees again. “Get all the rest you can,” he advised mockingly. “You’re going to need it. Those teeth will be taking pieces of you soon—starting with the tender bits!”
The caged dogs were barking and whining, and I glanced over to where Arkwright’s three were confined. What was I going to do? How could I kill them? The mother, Claw, had saved my life in the past and, but for the dark power of the shaman, would be on my side rather than his, as would her pups. I had no illusions about what would happen if I did win. The shaman would not keep his word. He’d either kill me or devise some other gambling entertainment in which I would play a central and painful role.
I also found it hard to believe that he’d grant Bony Lizzie free passage from the island. He might pull back his men while she went through the bone yard and west toward the coast. But he’d hunt her down long before she reached the sea. Whatever her fate, poor Alice would share it too. If the Fiend didn’t find her first.
What of the Spook? Where was he? I wondered. I hoped for his sake that he wouldn’t attempt to rescue me. What chance did he have? And if he fell into Lizzie’s hands, he would die the slowest and most terrible death imaginable.
I’d been in many dangerous situations before, but this was one of the worst. I was caught between two powerful dark adversaries, a witch and a shaman, and could see no way to triumph over either of them.
My gloomy thoughts were interrupted by a clank of metal. The sporadic barking gave way to the odd whimper. Claw, Blood, and Bone were being released and dragged by their collars toward the center of the sawdust arena.
“On your feet, boy!” snapped one of my guards, tugging me up by my hair again.
As a hushed expectancy descended on the room, I was pushed forward to face the three dogs. I gazed down at them in sorrow. Their coats were matted with dirt, and they clearly hadn’t been fed in days. Not one of them could meet my eye. They looked abject and defeated before we started—though I knew that was the shaman’s doing. In a moment he would ready them to fight.
I noticed that this time there was no circle of spearmen. It was the witch that had worried them last time. The dogs would fight me to the death, and anyway, where could I possibly run to?
Barrule was seated on his wooden throne again, and I watched in dismay as he got to his feet and clapped his hands three times. Instantly the dogs were transformed: they locked eyes with me and began to growl, their jaws opening, ready to bite and tear. Their nervous handlers released their collars, and the three wolfhounds instantly leaped toward me like furies.
I whirled away as they attacked, swinging my staff to keep them at bay. I kept my blade retracted; there was no way I intended to employ it here. Blood and Bone came straight for me, and for the first time I used my staff to fend them off. I jabbed Blood in the neck and cracked Bone across the head, trying not to put too much force into either blow. But in that moment of distraction, Claw leaped at me from behind. The weight of her knocked me to my knees, and I almost let go of my staff. That brought a groan from some sections of the crowd.
I was up in an instant, whirling my staff again desperately, trying to fend off the three dogs. But they were brave hunters, trained by Bill Arkwright to hunt dangerous water creatures across the marshes north of Caster. If they could attack a water witch, despite the threat from her deadly talons, they would certainly not fear me. This was to the death. It was them or me.
Then I surprised even myself. With a click I released the retractable blade in my staff. It wasn’t a conscious decision: Something deep inside me had chosen not to die. Not here. Not now.
I was shocked at what I’d done. Could I really bring myself to kill these dogs? My head was suddenly filled with justifications for my instinctive act. . . .
I had work to do, the County to defend. Then a whole new terror gripped me. If I died now, I remembered, the Fiend would take my soul! I had to destroy him before that happened, or my fate would be an eternity of terror and torment in the dark.
All three dogs now attacked together, and before I could use my staff, they were upon me. Their combined weight brought me to my knees again. My staff was knocked out of my hand with the force of the blow. Bone fastened his teeth on my ankle; Claw had a grip on my shoulder; and Blood went straight for my throat. I thrust out my right hand to fend off those huge jaws, and the teeth closed around my hand, biting hard. I had to get up or I was finished.
But suddenly the dogs released me. Simultaneously I heard a gasp of fear from the audience and the lights in the long room flickered and dimmed. I moved into a crouch and picked up my staff again.
The torches were threatening to go out at any moment. In the gathering darkness, close by, a luminous spectral shape was starting to form. It was man shaped but at least twice normal size, and it was glowing an ominous bloodred.
I gazed at it in awe, but those feelings quickly gave way to shock and surprise. The figure was in the garb of a spook and was holding a staff in his left hand—a staff that was blackened and burned; so too was the left side of the face, terrible disfiguring burns, with one eye gone. The cloak was in tatters, the hands covered in blisters.
It was the ghost of Bill Arkwright!
CHAPTER XV
Thumb Bones
I’D last set eyes on Bill Arkwright the previous summer, in Greece, when he’d stayed behind in the Ord, volunteering to hold off a cluster of fire elementals while we made our escape.
We had assumed he’d made the ultimate spook’s sacrifice and died, and now we were proved correct. He’d been burned to death, as was now horribly plain to see. But what was he doing here? Had Bill Arkwright been trapped in the dark when the Ord had collapsed back through its fiery portal? Or was he in limbo, that fringe area between life and death where traumatized spirits sometimes linger for years before finding their way to the light?
At first I thought Arkwright’s ghost was looking at me. But no—his one eye was staring directly at the dogs. And although the room was emptying fast, filled with the cries of men driven close to insanity by fear, all three were wagging their tails with pleasure at the sight,
grim though it was, of their former master.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the shaman slowly rise to his feet and take a step toward us, a look of puzzlement on his face.
The figure suddenly stretched out its right arm and pointed directly at me, and then Arkwright’s voice cried out, filled with the power of command, echoing around the room.
“That boy is your friend, not your enemy!” he told the dogs.
The ghostly arm swung slowly to the right to indicate the shaman. “The man over there! That’s your true enemy! Kill him now!”
As one, the dogs surged forward and leaped at the shaman, their jaws open. He raised an arm to defend himself, his mouth wide in shock, but it was hopeless. All his power over the animals was now useless. The three wolfhounds dragged him to the floor and began to savage him, their teeth biting and tearing at his flesh. He screamed—and the long drawn-out sound could be clearly heard over the snarls of his attackers. I began to retch at the sight and sound of his agony.
As the ghost of Bill Arkwright slowly faded away, the torches guttered out, plunging us into total darkness. The dogs had finished their grim work and, but for their panting, there was silence. I knelt, utterly spent and shaking all over. After a while there was a noise from the tunnel. Someone was approaching. Was it the buggane?
Shakily I got to my feet, but the figure that emerged was Bony Lizzie, clutching her lit candle stub. Behind her was Alice.
“That went well, boy,” said the witch, staring down at the shaman, her face exultant. “Wasn’t as strong as he thought, was he? Doesn’t pay to mess with me! Well, waste not, want not—that’s what old Mother Malkin used to tell me.”
And with those words Lizzie placed the candle on the floor, then pointed at the two nearest wall torches, which obediently flared into life. Next she pulled a knife from the hip pocket of her dress and lifted the shaman’s left hand. I heard Alice groan, and we both turned our backs on the grisly sight as Lizzie took the thumb bones of her dead enemy.