The Spook’s Revenge: Book 13 (Spooks) (9 page)

They were scared.

I came to a halt and sheathed my sword and dagger, waiting for a minute to regain my breath and composure. Then I turned to head back through the trees and reclaimed my staff. My whole body was trembling, a reaction to the fierce fight and having taken three lives. I felt more and more nauseous, until eventually I came to a halt and was violently sick.

It was getting dark now, so I decided to rest for a few hours. I found a copse on high ground – a little knoll that would give me a good view over the surrounding countryside. After a while a half moon rose above the eastern horizon and I used its pale glow to search for my enemies. Nothing moved. I was exhausted and settled down with my back against the trunk of a tree and my staff across my lap.

After a while I dozed, then awoke, suddenly terrified that I was under attack. But still there was no threat and the moon was much higher. Each time I nodded off, my sleep was deeper and longer, until finally I had a strange dream.

It was one of those dreams where you know that you’re dreaming. I was back at the farm. Mam was facing me across the hearth, smiling from her rocking chair. She looked exactly as she had the night before I left the farm to begin my job as the Spook’s apprentice. Her skin was pale, but her eyes were bright; apart from a few grey streaks in her black hair; she looked far too young to have grown-up married sons.

‘I’m proud of you, son,’ she said to me. ‘Whatever happens, I want you to know that.’

‘I’m sorry, Mam, if I let you down. But I could never perform that ritual. I couldn’t sacrifice Alice.’

‘There’s no need to apologize, Tom. It was your decision to make, and what’s done is done. Maybe the Fiend can be destroyed in other ways. Nothing is certain. At the moment everything hangs in the balance. You must draw upon your strengths: some came from your dad, because you’re a seventh son of a seventh son; others came from me, for lamia blood courses through your veins. You are already aware of some of those gifts, but more will become apparent as you grow up. There is one you need now; one that would not normally have emerged for many years. But I reached out to bless you with it earlier. It is a gift that a hunter needs – the ability to know the location of his prey!’

Mam began to rock back and forth on her chair, smiling at me all the while. So I smiled back, hoping the moment would never end. But the dream began to fade. I could still see her smile, and I wanted to hug her, but then she was gone . . . I woke up to the sound of a distant cock crowing and the eastern sky pink with the promise of sun. The dream was vivid and real in my mind. My head was whirling with thoughts. Was it more than just a dream? I wondered. Could it really have been Mam talking to me?

If it was, she seemed to have forgiven me for not being prepared to carry out the ritual she had decreed. She had also used the word ‘hunter’ – I would receive the gift that a hunter needs. In the first year of my apprenticeship she had told me that one day I would be the hunter; then it would be the dark that would be afraid.

Mam had been giving me important information. She said she had reached out to unlock the gift. Somehow it all made sense. That was why, lying in my bed in the Spook’s house, I’d had the strange feeling that something was wrong. And, yes, I’d known exactly which direction to take. My new gift had led me to the cottage where Grimalkin lay gravely injured. It was lovely to think that I might really have been talking to Mam, and for a while I was filled with hope. But as the seconds became minutes, the dream seemed less substantial; soon I felt it was merely wishful thinking. What was I doing fooling myself and wasting time? I sat up and cursed myself for sleeping right through the night. The witches would be even further ahead now. Wasting no time, I ate half the remaining cheese and set off west again. This time I didn’t run; I would save that for later. My legs felt stiff, and I contented myself with a fast stride to loosen them up.

I thought about Lukrasta again. He had abducted Alice – Grimalkin had been unable to do anything to stop him. What had happened when he attempted the ritual with the
Doomdryte
? And more importantly, what might Alice be suffering now? I thought fearfully. I felt helpless. He could be anywhere, and even if I could find him, what could I hope to do against such a mage?

By late morning I was getting worried. I hadn’t found the witches’ tracks again; I was now crossing meadows and rough pasture rather than following lanes and tracks. This meant they could already have turned and headed for the coast. I estimated that I was presently about four miles from the sea, heading south, somewhere between Formby and Liverpool.

I came to a halt, filled with uncertainty. Then, very suddenly, there was a flash of light behind my eyes and a pressure on my forehead – and I knew precisely where they had gone. It was something very similar to the feeling I’d had back in my bedroom in Chipenden – the conviction that something was terribly wrong. Now I felt that certainty again. I knew where the witches were – the direction they had taken with the Fiend’s head. This was surely the gift that Mam was talking about in the dream – the gift that a hunter needs: the ability to track a prey without signs, to pinpoint its location.

They hadn’t gone west to the sea. They were continuing south and were passing east of Liverpool. Where could they be bound? In my mind’s eye I tried to conjure up the maps I’d studied in the Spook’s library, all of which had perished in the fire. Beyond Liverpool lay the County border, and beyond that, county after county – over two hundred miles to the south coast.

That made no sense at all. They needed a port on the west coast to take a boat over the Irish Sea.

I began to run again. Wherever they were heading, I would eventually find out because I could sense their location in my head. For a while they seemed to have changed direction and were heading east, but after a few hours they veered back towards the coast and continued south again.

I came to a wide river, which I guessed was the Mersey: as I forded it, I wondered how the witches had managed to cross over. One possibility was that they had witch dams in place; in Pendle these were used to temporarily hold back running water. They would have had to make a detour east to where the river was narrower. That explained their earlier change of direction. The delay meant that I was closing in on them once more.

After a while, in the far distance, I saw a walled city with a castle and the tower of a cathedral. We were beyond the County border now and, again drawing on my memories of the Spook’s maps, I guessed that the city was Chester – though I’d never travelled this far south over land. If that were the case, it also had a river called the Dee.

Sure enough, I sensed my enemies head east again, no doubt to use another witch dam. I simply forded the river, which meant that I was drawing near to my prey. Beyond the city the witches turned directly west.

Soon I saw mountains ahead, and glimpsed the sea in the distance to the north. We seemed to be following a coastal plain, a wide strip of flat land between the mountains and the water. And now I was on a track that eventually gave way to a wide road. It was muddy, so I slowed down and walked on the grass verge. The occasional cart trundled past, its wheels adding to the deep ruts, but nobody gave me a second glance.

Eventually I came to a large sign that had been nailed to two posts proclaiming:

CYMRU

I remembered that word from my master’s maps. It was in another language: the name for the country that we called Wales. I was entering a foreign land, with its own customs, language and – no doubt – dangers.

I sensed that the witches were no longer moving; they had made camp for the night. I had two choices. Catch up with them now and attack under cover of darkness, or wait one more night and rest to gather my own strength.

I decided on a compromise.

I would rest for a while and then press on. I moved some distance from the road and settled down as best I could. I didn’t have time to set traps for rabbits, so I finished off the rest of my cheese and drank some cold water from a stream. I intended to sleep for about three hours before setting off west again.

I awoke suddenly after just one hour, immediately fully alert. Although my physical senses told me nothing, I had a sudden flash of light inside my head and a pain above my nose.

Something was amiss. I sat up quickly and stared into the darkness. The moon was covered by clouds: I could see nothing and hear nothing. But danger was out there and it was creeping towards me.

I came up onto my knees and reached for the sword that I had placed on the grass beside me before lying down to sleep. My gift was telling me
precisely
where my enemy was.

A witch was crawling stealthily towards me; she was now less than ten feet away.

No, not the Destiny Blade
, I decided; a spook’s primary weapon was more suited to dealing with this threat. So, leaving the hero sword where it was, I seized my staff, released the blade at its tip, ran straight towards the witch and stabbed downwards, piercing her back directly over her heart and pinning her to the ground. She had no time to scream, but I felt her body twitch beneath my staff, and she gave a little gasp.

I knew instantly that she was dead: the inner certainty I had of where she was simply ceased. It went out like a light. I wondered if it was the soul or life force I could detect? Whatever it was, I knew that I’d put an end to her.

I fumbled for my tinderbox and lit the candle-stub I always carry. I looked at the dead witch, holding the light close to her face. I was almost certain that she was one of those who had fled after the attack the previous day. That made me wary. Perhaps the other one had come back too?

I listened, but could hear only the sighing of the wind. My new ability to sense things at a distance no longer alerted me to any immediate danger. Those I pursued were some way ahead; I knew that they had still not broken camp. Nevertheless I didn’t want to take any chances, so I extinguished the candle, gathered my things together, and continued steadily west.

Just before dawn I sensed that the witches were moving again, but by now I knew that I was within a few miles of them. They were still out of sight, but my objective was to get close without being detected, and then, once night fell, move in quickly. My new ability seemed to be refining itself and getting stronger as I used it. I felt certain that even in the dark I would be able to go straight to the leather sack containing the Fiend’s head, retrieve it quickly – fighting only if necessary – and then make my escape.

My only fear was the sea to the north, which was quite close now. At times I spotted big ships, their sails billowing in the wind. The danger was that the witches would rendezvous with one before I could intervene.

But they turned south, not north, heading inland towards the hills and taking me completely by surprise.

Less than an hour later, at the point where they left the road, I found their tracks. Puzzled, I followed them; I was no longer running, for I was exhausted.

How could they possibly manage to reach Ireland by heading away from the sea? I asked myself. It didn’t make any sense.

I was following a narrow road, just as badly rutted as the main one that had led westwards. Once again I walked on the grass to the side. The land was beginning to rise; I could see wooded hills ahead and high mountains behind, with snow atop the highest, even though it was still autumn.

After a while I found myself in a dense wood where most of the trees had already shed their leaves. I was wary of another ambush and moved some distance away from the road. It was just a precaution – I was confident that my new ability would provide me with an early warning of any threat. It was as if, like a witch, I could long-sniff future danger.

Then the trees gradually changed, until I was tramping through a forest of tall conifers. I reached the summit of a hill and saw that the land fell away before rising again.

It was then that I glimpsed something in the distance. It stood on the summit of the next hill, rising high above the trees at the end of the muddy road.

It was a dark tower, and the sight of it filled me with unease.

MY ENEMIES HAD
already disappeared inside, and now the Fiend’s head was in there too.

I studied the tower. Built from big blocks of grey stone, it was an impressive structure, perhaps twice the height and at least three times the girth of Malkin Tower, but square, with a flat top but no battlements. Strangely, high up on the side of the tower there was a wide balcony and a tall pointed door.

It had no moat, but any attacking force had only one point of access: a narrow flight of stone steps – two hundred of them or more – which led up a steep incline to a heavy metal door. There were arrow slits as well as windows in the high walls, and climbing those steps would be suicidal.

Hidden by the trees, I made a slow circuit of the building, keeping my distance, and was able to confirm that there was only that one door. Then, after setting some traps for rabbits, I made myself as comfortable as possible on the hilltop facing the steps, and watched and waited.