“Take deep breaths, lad. Try to calm yourself. It’ll pass in a few moments.”
“But what if it doesn’t?” I demanded, coming to a halt and looking him right in the eye.
All at once the need to go and investigate became overwhelming. “I have to go!” I cried out. “I have to see for myself what’s wrong or I can never rest.”
The Spook stared into the trees for over a minute without speaking. Then he simply nodded.
Five minutes later we’d left the garden and were striding southeast. I was carrying both bags, as usual, as well as my staff. In addition to his own staff, the Spook had also brought a lantern, as dawn was still some way off. I didn’t know how far we had to go.
The source of my unease proved to be much nearer than I expected.
Years earlier, when I first met Alice, she had been staying in the area with Bony Lizzie and an abhuman called Tusk. Lizzie’s plan had been to rescue Mother Malkin from a pit in our garden, and also to kill my master, John Gregory. They had all been living in an abandoned cottage southeast of the Spook’s house. Of course they failed, and the cottage had been burned out by local people who were outraged by the proximity of a dangerous witch.
Now I could just glimpse that cottage through the trees, and the nearer we came, the more certain I was that this was the source of my fear.
The lantern light showed us the first of the dead bodies: a man lying on his back, his eyes wide open; rain streamed down his face like tears. Blades were still clutched in both dead hands, but they had availed him not. His throat was cut from ear to ear.
There were other bodies closer to the blackened walls of the cottage—maybe a dozen or more. Most were female, and almost certainly witches. They were armed with blades, some lashed to the ends of long poles in the Pendle manner. All had died violent deaths. Their wounds were fresh, and there was a lot of blood splattered on the grass.
All was silent, but I was drawn to the cottage. I led the way in, shaking nervously at what I might find there. The doors and windows had been burned out years ago and never replaced. All at once, in the gloom, I saw someone propped up against a far wall. At first I thought it was another dead body. Could it be Alice? The thought made me tremble with anguish.
My eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, but when my master came in behind me, the lantern illuminated a terrible scene.
I saw that it was the witch assassin, sitting in a pool of her own blood. She was breathing hoarsely, and her eyes were half closed. It was hard to tell whether she was conscious or not. Her body was covered in stab wounds that looked like open mouths.
She was still gripping a skelt dagger in her left hand. This was Bone Cutter, the blade I’d loaned her to help in her running battle with the Fiend’s supporters. Additionally, her left leg had been broken just below the knee. I could see a piece of bone jutting through the flesh.
Of the leather sack containing the Fiend’s head, there was no sign.
I just stared down at Grimalkin helplessly, feeling emotions surge through me. A torrent of terrible possibilities churned through my mind.
I had never imagined a situation where she would be bested in combat. How could this have happened? I wondered. The servants of the Fiend had been hunting her for a long time. They were numerous and relentless, and a number of them were very powerful—it was perhaps inevitable that they would finally prevail. She had put up a good fight, as the dead bodies scattered around the cottage showed.
My heart sank even further as I suddenly remembered that Grimalkin and Alice had been planning to use the Doomdryte. Was this where they had been hiding and preparing for the ritual?
If so, where was Alice now?
My thoughts were still racing and I couldn’t move. I stared dumbly as the Spook knelt close to the witch assassin.
“I’ll make a splint for her leg,” he said, coming to his feet, “but I can’t do much for her wounds—she’s lost a lot of blood. We’re close to the western boundary of Clegg’s farm. He has a cart. Run there and get him to bring it here. We need to get her back to Chipenden and a doctor. There may still be a chance to save her. Stop gawping, lad! Run!”
CHAPTER VIII
ONLY YOU CAN DO IT
SO I ran—but nothing proved to be straightforward. Clegg was a very sound sleeper, and he apparently lived alone. I woke the dogs all right, but it was a good fifteen minutes before the farmer came to the door, bleary-eyed and cantankerous, wielding a stick.
“What time do you call this to come knocking on my door fit to wake the dead? Be off with you, before I give you a taste of this!”
“My master, John Gregory, sent me. Could he borrow your horse and cart? There’s somebody badly injured over at the ruined cottage. We need to get them to a doctor.”
“What? Ye want my cart? Who’s injured? Nobody lives in that cottage. It’s a ruin.”
“Look, there’s been a fight. People are dead. But there’s one still alive and we can save her. We need your cart. Don’t worry—my master will pay you well!”
At the offer of money, Clegg led me to an outbuilding; he found it locked and had to go back to the house for the key. At last we dragged out the cart and harnessed it to a horse.
By the time I got the cart back to the cottage, almost an hour had passed. I expected the Spook to complain about my delay, but he said nothing. He’d made a fire and boiled water in a small pan he’d found in the kitchen.
After cleaning up Grimalkin’s wounds as best he could, he’d managed to push the bone back into place and had used two thin branches as rough splints on each side of the leg. He was binding them into position when I arrived. Grimalkin was still unconscious, her breath rasping through her open mouth. There were beads of sweat on her forehead, and her upper body twitched as if gripped by a fever.
The dagger lay on the ground beside her. I picked it up and tucked it into my belt.
Carefully we lifted her up into the cart and set off for the Spook’s house. Once there, we carried her upstairs and put her in my bed. Then my master sent me off to fetch the local doctor. Fortunately he was at home, and within half an hour was treating his patient.
When he took his leave, we walked him across the garden to the boundary, protecting him from the boggart. There he halted and shook his head. “By rights she should be dead,” he said.
“As you saw, she’s no ordinary woman,” the Spook replied.
“I’ve known you a long time, Mr. Gregory,” the doctor said. “The people around here owe you a lot. You’ve kept this village safe. The whole County is in your debt. So I won’t ask why you’re harboring a witch.”
“I have good reason. I wouldn’t do it if it weren’t absolutely necessary for the good of us all. Now I need your opinion. Will she live, do you think?”
“If she survives the night, she has a chance. But even then she won’t be out of danger. There’s the risk of infection. And if she does survive, life will never be quite the same for her again. It’s an extremely bad break. She’ll have a permanent limp. Anyway, I’ll come back tomorrow and see how she’s doing.”
Poor Grimalkin, I thought. Much of her potency as a witch assassin relied on her speed—that whirling dance of death was what made her so formidable. She would no longer be such a powerful opponent.
“Come back at noon,” the Spook instructed. “I’ll meet you at the edge of the western garden.”
With a nod, the doctor went off down the hill.
We decided that Grimalkin would have to be observed at all times in case she took a turn for the worse. The Spook sat with her for the rest of the day; I volunteered to take over at sunset.
I sat beside the bed, staring at her anxiously and wondering what had happened to Alice. Grimalkin muttered in her sleep, and sometimes gave a low groan, but she showed no sign of regaining consciousness. I felt helpless, but I did what I could, occasionally mopping the sweat from her brow or lifting her head and holding a cup of water to her lips—though each time this brou
ght on a fit of choking.
Her breathing was hoarse and irregular. Sometimes it seemed to stop for almost a minute; each time this happened, I thought she was dead. Then, about half an hour after midnight, there was a change. Grimalkin’s breathing became steadier, and then she finally opened her eyes and looked at me.
She tried to speak, opening and closing her mouth, but no words emerged. Then her face twisted with pain and she attempted to sit up, so I pulled the pillows into position behind her back and helped her upright. I held a cup to her lips, and this time she was able to sip without choking.
She stared at me for a long time in silence. At last I could hold back no longer.
“Alice?”
Grimalkin dropped her gaze, as though unable to meet my eyes. Then she replied with one word: “Lukrasta!”
I knew the name. Lukrasta appeared in the Spook’s Bestiary in the section that dealt with mages. He was supposed to have been the dark mage who had written that grimoire in the first place, taking dictation from the Fiend! Despite this, he had died while attempting the full Doomdryte ritual. He’d supposedly made an error and been destroyed.
“Do you mean the mage who died?” I asked.
“No! No! Not dead,” Grimalkin protested, struggling to speak, her voice very faint; I had to lean over the bed and bring my ear close to her lips. “When Alice opened the grimoire to begin the ritual, he appeared before us, right out of thin air. He took us by surprise. Blasted us with power. Later the Fiend’s servants attacked.”
“Where’s Alice?”
Grimalkin shrugged. “I was stunned. Befuddled. Far less than what I am . . . too many to hold off . . . didn’t see what happened to Alice . . . think Lukrasta has her.”
Alice was the prisoner of Lukrasta! What exactly had happened? I had to know.
Grimalkin began to cough, and I brought the cup to her lips again. This time she drank greedily, draining every drop.
“They have the Fiend’s head,” she continued. “They’ll try to return it to Ireland . . . reunite it with the body. . . . You have to go after them. Bring it back!”
“Which direction did they take? Did they go west?”
“I didn’t see—but, yes, I expect they’ll have gone west toward the coast. No doubt they’ll follow the river. . . . It’s up to you to find them.”
With the help of the kretch, a creature fathered by a demon, the Fiend’s servants had seized the sack from Grimalkin once before. They had boarded a boat north of Liverpool but had been thwarted by Alice, and Grimalkin had recaptured the Fiend’s head. Would they make for the same place again, or go north to the main County port, Sunderland Point?
“How many are left?” I asked.
“A dozen or more—certainly enough to have slayed me had they pressed home their attack. Others will surely join up with them later.”
I wondered what I could do alone. By now they could have reached the river estuary and headed south, or maybe crossed by the Priestown bridge and gone north. “They’ll probably have too much of a start on me,” I said. “They’ll have set sail before I can reach the coast.”
Grimalkin seized me fiercely by my collar and drew me close, so that our noses were almost touching. Wounded as she was, I could feel the strength in her grip. Her eyes blazed into my own.
“Only you can do it!” she hissed. “If they cross the sea to Ireland, then you must do the same. Follow them as far as is necessary! You’re not a boy any longer. You’re a man. You have the sword. Was Bone Cutter still in my hand?”
“Yes, it’s safe.”
“I know Alice gave you the other dagger, Dolorous. You have all three blades now, and the gifts from your mam. What’s more, you’re a seventh son of a seventh son. So go and do what’s necessary. Kill anyone who stands in your way, but bring back the Fiend’s head!”
CHAPTER IX
THE AMBUSH
GRIMALKIN collapsed back against her pillow, fighting for breath, her eyes closed. The effort had exhausted her.
I quickly left the room and went to find the Spook. As I expected, he was sleeping in his chair in the kitchen, close to the embers of the fire.
“My turn, is it, lad?” he asked, opening his eyes at the sound of my boots crossing the flags toward him. He thought I’d come to wake him for his turn to watch over Grimalkin.
I realized I had to make my mind up about how much to tell him. I decided to leave out any reference to Alice and Grimalkin’s use of the Doomdryte. He would have considered that unforgivable, and the greatest of follies. I just concentrated on the need to recapture the sack and its contents.
I shook my head. “Grimalkin said I had to go after those witches and try to recover the Fiend’s head.”
“The odds against you are very great, lad. You might well be going to your death.”
“It’s death and worse for all of us if those witches reunite the head with the body.”
I thought my master would protest more, but all he did was apologize.
“I’d go with you if I could,” he said sadly, “but I haven’t the speed for such a pursuit. You’d never catch them with me dragging at your heels.”
As quickly as I could, I prepared for my journey. I didn’t take my bag because it would only hinder me. I wouldn’t need my silver chain—I wouldn’t be taking any prisoners to bind in pits. Salt and iron would also be an unnecessary encumbrance. So I wore the sword and the two daggers in their sheaths and, carrying my staff, prepared to set off into the night.
The Spook was waiting at the door. He had a small parcel of cheese for me, which I stuffed into the inside pocket of my cloak.
“I fear for you, lad,” he said, patting my shoulder. “If anyone else were setting out alone after them, I’d think it a hopeless task. But I’ve seen what you can do.”
Then he did a strange thing: He shook my hand—something that happened very rarely, because nobody wanted to shake hands with a spook. Even when my dad and John Gregory had agreed on the terms of my apprenticeship, they hadn’t shaken hands. He’d certainly never taken mine before.
It made me feel strange. In one way it was as if he was treating me as an equal—a fellow spook rather than just the apprentice that he was training. Yet I felt a chill in my heart. It seemed like the end of something.
I headed west at a fast walking pace. When I came to the River Ribble, I had to make a decision: which bank should I follow toward the sea? Had they gone north or south? Soon the river would become too wide and deep to cross. If I got it wrong, I would have to go into Priestown, a place where spooks weren’t welcome, and cross the bridge there. It would mean several hours’ delay.
I found no evidence of tracks to the north, so I took a chance and crossed at the next ford, opting for the south bank of the Ribble. Then I pressed on, breaking into a jog. Those I hunted had over twelve hours’ start on me. Would they have made camp for the night? That was surely my only real chance of catching them before it was too late.
According to Grimalkin, there were over a dozen of the Fiend’s servants, with perhaps more joining them on their journey. But such a large group would draw attention, especially as many of them were witches. So would they split up into smaller units? After all, their main objective would be to get the Fiend’s head to the pit where his body was bound—in Kerry, in the southwest of Ireland. One person could do that. They could all converge later.
Soon after dawn, I had my first piece of good luck. Beside the path was a pond. The earth around it had been churned into mud by cattle, and there were a dozen or more fresh tracks . . . the majority clear imprints of pointy shoes.
I could find no trace of a man’s boot. I thought Lukrasta might be with the witches, Alice his prisoner, but I knew Alice’s tracks well and saw no sign of her either. That made my heart drop into my boots—I’d hoped that in following the witches I would also find Alice.
Half an hour later, I faced my first threat. But it wasn’t witches.
As I passed a farm, a big farmer su
ddenly stepped out from behind a barn into my path. He had broad shoulders and well-muscled arms, but a bulbous belly hung down over his leather belt.
“You a spook?” he demanded belligerently.
I nodded.
“Well, where were you last night when you were needed?”
He was angry and unreasonable, so I tried to placate him.
“On my way here,” I replied calmly.
“Well, you’re too late to be any use to me. There were witches here last night—dozens of ’em. Helped themselves to three pigs and most of my hens. What are you going to do about it? You owe me compensation. It’s your job to stop things like that from happening.”
Most people are nervous in the company of a spook. They think that we’re contaminated by the dark. But very occasionally we get angry reactions such as this. The man’s livelihood had suffered, and he wanted to take it out on someone. I looked young and I was smaller than he was, so I would do.
With a snarl, he stepped toward me, hands outstretched, intending to grip my shirtfront. I dodged to the side and ran toward the gate that led to the next field. I could hear his heavy boots pounding across the grass behind me. He was fast for a big man; he would catch me as I clambered over the gate.
I didn’t want to hurt him, but I had to do something. I spun quickly and rapped him twice with the base of my staff, one blow to his left shin, the other to his right forearm. He dropped to his knees with a groan, which gave me a chance to climb over the gate. I ran on, and when I glanced back he was still on the other side, shaking his fat fist at me.
Soon it started to rain, a cold wind blustering into my face from the west. If anything, this drove me on faster. I ran all morning, pausing to catch my breath only briefly. Twice I found the tracks of those I pursued. They were still together, and three or four new witches had joined the group.