The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection Read online

  The moon was shining, bathing everything in its silver light. I could see across the farmyard, beyond the two hay fields and the north pasture, right to the boundary of our farm, which ended halfway up Hangman’s Hill. I liked the view. I liked Hangman’s Hill, from a distance. I liked the way it was the farthest thing you could see.

  For years this had been my routine before climbing into bed each night. I used to stare at that hill and imagine what was on the other side. I knew that it was really just more fields and then, two miles farther on, what passed for the local village—half a dozen houses, a small church, and an even smaller school—but my imagination conjured up other things. Sometimes I imagined high cliffs with an ocean beyond, or maybe a forest or a great city with tall towers and twinkling lights.

  But now, as I gazed at the hill, I remembered my fear as well. Yes, it was fine from a distance, but it wasn’t a place I’d ever wanted to get close to. Hangman’s Hill, as you might have guessed, didn’t get its name for nothing.

  Three generations earlier, a war had raged over the whole land, and the men of the County had played their part. It had been that worst of all wars, a bitter civil war where families had been divided and where sometimes brother had even fought brother.

  In the last winter of the war there’d been a big battle a mile or so to the north, just on the outskirts of the village. When it was finally over, the winning army had brought their prisoners to this hill and hanged them from the trees on its northern slope. They’d hanged some of their own men, too, for what they claimed was cowardice in the face of the enemy, but there was another version of that tale. It was said that some of these men had refused to fight people they considered to be neighbors.

  Even Jack never liked working close to that boundary fence, and the dogs wouldn’t go more than a few feet into the wood. As for me, because I can sense things that others can’t, I couldn’t even work in the north pasture. You see, from there I could hear them. I could hear the ropes creaking and the branches groaning under their weight. I could hear the dead, strangling and choking on the other side of the hill.

  Mam had said that we were like each other. Well, she was certainly like me in one way: I knew she could also see things that others couldn’t. One winter, when I was very young and all my brothers lived at home, the noises from the hill got so bad at night that I could even hear them from my bedroom. My brothers didn’t hear a thing, but I did, and I couldn’t sleep. Mam came to my room every time I called, even though she had to be up at the crack of dawn to do her chores.

  Finally she said she was going to sort it out, and one night she climbed Hangman’s Hill alone and went up into the trees. When she came back, everything was quiet, and it stayed like that for months afterward.

  So there was one way in which we weren’t alike.

  Mam was a lot braver than I was.

  CHAPTER II

  On the Road

  I WAS up an hour before dawn, but Mam was already in the kitchen, cooking my favorite breakfast, bacon and eggs.

  Dad came downstairs while I was mopping the plate with my last slice of bread. As we said good-bye, he pulled something from his pocket and placed it in my hands. It was the small tinderbox that had belonged to his own dad and to his granddad before that. One of his favorite possessions.

  “I want you to have this, son,” he said. “It might come in useful in your new job. And come back and see us soon. Just because you’ve left home, it doesn’t mean that you can’t come back and visit.”

  “It’s time to go, son,” Mam said, walking across to give me a final hug. “He’s at the gate. Don’t keep him waiting.”

  We were a family that didn’t like too much fuss, and as we’d already said our good-byes, I walked out into the yard alone.

  The Spook was on the other side of the gate, a dark silhouette against the gray dawn light. His hood was up and he was standing straight and tall, his staff in his left hand. I walked toward him, carrying my small bundle of possessions, feeling very nervous.

  To my surprise, the Spook opened the gate and came into the yard. “Well, lad,” he said, “follow me! We might as well start the way we mean to go on.”

  Instead of heading for the road, he led the way north, directly toward Hangman’s Hill, and soon we were crossing the north pasture, my heart already starting to thump. When we reached the boundary fence, the Spook climbed over with the ease of a man half his age, but I froze. As I rested my hands against the top edge of the fence, I could already hear the sounds of the trees creaking, their branches bent and bowed under the weight of the hanging men.

  “What’s the matter, lad?” asked the Spook, turning to look back at me. “If you’re frightened of something on your own doorstep, you’ll be of little use to me.”

  I took a deep breath and clambered over the fence. We trudged upward, the dawn light darkening as we moved up into the gloom of the trees. The higher we climbed, the colder it seemed to get, and soon I was shivering. It was the kind of cold that gives you goose pimples and makes the hair on the back of your neck start to rise. It was a warning that something wasn’t quite right. I’d felt it before when something had come close that didn’t belong in this world.

  Once we’d reached the summit of the hill, I could see them below me. There had to be a hundred at least, sometimes two or three hanging from the same tree, wearing soldiers’ uniforms with broad leather belts and big boots. Their hands were tied behind their backs and all of them behaved differently. Some struggled desperately so that the branch above them bounced and jerked, while others were just spinning slowly on the end of the rope, pointing first one way, then the other.

  As I watched, I suddenly felt a strong wind on my face, a wind so cold and fierce that it couldn’t have been natural. The trees bowed low, and their leaves shriveled and began to fall. Within moments, all the branches were bare. When the wind had eased, the Spook put his hand on my shoulder and guided me nearer to the hanging men. We stopped just feet away from the nearest.

  “Look at him,” said the Spook. “What do you see?”

  “A dead soldier,” I replied, my voice beginning to wobble.

  “How old does he look?”

  “Seventeen at the most.”

  “Good. Well done, lad. Now, tell me, do you still feel scared?”

  “A bit. I don’t like being so close to him.”

  “Why? There’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing that can hurt you. Think about what it must have been like for him. Concentrate on him rather than yourself. How must he have felt? What would be the worst thing?”

  I tried to put myself in the soldier’s place and imagine how it must have been to die like that. The pain and the struggle for breath would have been terrible. But there might have been something even worse. . . .

  “He’d have known he was dying and that he’d never be able to go home again. That he’d never see his family again,” I told the Spook.

  With those words a wave of sadness washed over me. Then, even as that happened, the hanging men slowly began to disappear, until we were alone on the hillside and the leaves were back on the trees.

  “How do you feel now? Still afraid?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I just feel sad.”

  “Well done, lad. You’re learning. We’re the seventh sons of seventh sons, and we have the gift of seeing things that others can’t. But that gift can sometimes be a curse. If we’re afraid, sometimes there are things that can feed on that fear. Fear makes it worse for us. The trick is to concentrate on what you can see and stop thinking about yourself. It works every time.

  “It was a terrible sight, lad, but they’re just ghasts,” continued the Spook. “There’s nothing much we can do about them, and they’ll just fade away in their own time. In a hundred years or so there’ll be nothing left.”

  I felt like telling him that Mam did something about them once, but I didn’t. To contradict him would have gotten us off to a bad start.

  “Now if
they were ghosts, that would be different,” said the Spook. “You can talk to ghosts and tell them what’s what. Just making them realize that they’re dead is a great kindness and an important step in getting them to move on. Usually a ghost is a bewildered spirit trapped on this earth but not knowing what’s happened. So often they’re in torment. Then again, others are here with a definite purpose, and they might have things to tell you. But a ghast is just a fragment of a soul that’s gone on to better things. That’s what these are, lad. Just ghasts. You saw the trees change?”

  “The leaves fell and it was winter.”

  “Well, the leaves are back now. So you were just looking at something from the past. Just a reminder of the evil things that sometimes happen on this earth. Usually, if you’re brave, they can’t see you and they don’t feel anything. A ghast is just like a reflection in a pond that stays behind when its owner has moved on. Understand what I’m saying?”

  I nodded.

  “Right, so that’s one thing sorted out. We’ll be dealing with the dead from time to time, so you might as well get used to them. Anyway, let’s get started. We’ve quite a way to go. Here, from now on you’ll be carrying this.”

  The Spook handed me his big leather bag and, without a backward glance, headed back up the hill. I followed him over its crest, then down through the trees toward the road, which was a distant gray scar meandering its way south through the green and brown patchwork of fields.

  “Done much traveling, lad?” the Spook called back over his shoulder. “Seen much of the County?”

  I told him I’d never been more than six miles from my dad’s farm. Going to the local market was the most traveling I’d ever done.

  The Spook muttered something under his breath and shook his head; I could tell that he wasn’t best pleased by my answer.

  “Well, your travels start today,” he said. “We’re heading south toward a village called Horshaw. It’s just over fifteen miles as the crow flies, and we have to be there before dark.”

  I’d heard of Horshaw. It was a pit village and had the largest coal yards in the County, holding the output of dozens of surrounding mines. I’d never expected to go there, and I wondered what the Spook’s business could be in a place like that.

  He walked at a furious pace, taking big, effortless strides. Soon I was struggling to keep up; as well as carrying my own small bundle of clothes and other belongings, I now had his bag, which seemed to be getting heavier by the minute. Then, just to make things worse, it started to rain.

  About an hour before noon, the Spook came to a sudden halt. He turned round and stared hard at me. By then I was about ten paces behind. My feet were hurting and I’d already developed a slight limp. The road was little more than a track that was quickly turning to mud. Just as I caught up with him, I stubbed my toe, slipped, and almost lost my balance.

  He tutted. “Feeling dizzy, lad?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I wanted to give my arm a rest, but it didn’t seem right to put his bag down in the mud.

  “That’s good,” said the Spook with a faint smile, the rain dripping from the edge of his hood down onto his beard. “Never trust a man who’s dizzy. That’s something well worth remembering.”

  “I’m not dizzy,” I protested.

  “No?” asked the Spook, raising his bushy eyebrows. “Then it must be your boots. They won’t be much use in this job.”

  My boots were the same as my dad’s and Jack’s, sturdy enough and suitable for the mud and muck of the farmyard, but the kind that needed a lot of getting used to. A new pair usually cost you a fortnight’s blisters before your feet got bedded in.

  I looked down at the Spook’s. They were made of strong, good-quality leather, and they had extra-thick soles. They must have cost a fortune, but I suppose that for someone who did a lot of walking, they were worth every penny. They flexed as he walked, and I just knew that they’d been comfortable from the very first moment he pulled them on.

  “Good boots are important in this job,” said the Spook. “We depend on neither man nor beast to get us where we need to go. If you rely on your own two good legs, then they won’t let you down. So if I finally decide to take you on, I’ll get you a pair of boots just like mine. Until then, you’ll just have to manage as best you can.”

  At noon we halted for a short break, sheltering from the rain in an abandoned cattle shed. The Spook took a piece of cloth out of his pocket and unwrapped it, revealing a large lump of yellow cheese.

  He broke off a bit and handed it to me. I’d seen worse and I was hungry, so I wolfed it down. The Spook only ate a small piece himself before wrapping the rest up again and stuffing it back into his pocket.

  Once out of the rain, he’d pulled his hood back, so I now had the chance to look at him properly for the first time. Apart from the full beard and the hangman’s eyes, his most noticeable feature was his nose, which was grim and sharp, with a curve to it that suggested a bird’s beak. The mouth, when closed, was almost hidden by that mustache and beard. The beard itself had looked gray at first glance, but when I looked closer, trying to be as casual as possible so that he wouldn’t notice, I saw that most of the colors of the rainbow seemed to be sprouting there. There were shades of red, black, brown, and, obviously, lots of gray, but as I came to realize later, it all depended on the light.

  “Weak jaw, weak character,” my dad always used to say, and he also believed that some men wore beards just to hide that fact. Looking at the Spook, though, you could see despite the beard that his jaw was long, and when he opened his mouth he revealed yellow teeth that were very sharp and more suited to gnawing on red meat than nibbling at cheese.

  With a shiver, I suddenly realized that he reminded me of a wolf. And it wasn’t just the way he looked. He was a kind of predator because he hunted the dark; living merely on nibbles of cheese would make him always hungry and mean. If I completed my apprenticeship, I’d end up just like him.

  “You still hungry, lad?” he asked, his green eyes boring hard into my own until I started to feel a bit dizzy.

  I was soaked to the skin and my feet were hurting, but most of all I was hungry. So I nodded, thinking he might offer me some more, but he just shook his head and muttered something to himself. Then, once again, he looked at me sharply.

  “Hunger’s something you’re going to have to get used to,” he said. “We don’t eat much when we’re working, and if the job’s very difficult, we don’t eat anything at all until afterward. Fasting’s the safest thing because it makes us less vulnerable to the dark. It makes us stronger. So you might as well start practicing now, because when we get to Horshaw, I’m going to give you a little test. You’re going to spend a night in a haunted house. And you’re going to do it alone. That’ll show me what you’re really made of!”

  CHAPTER III

  Number Thirteen Watery Lane

  WE reached Horshaw as a church bell began to chime in the distance. It was seven o’clock and starting to get dark. A heavy drizzle blew straight into our faces, but there was still enough light for me to judge that this wasn’t a place I ever wanted to live in and that even a short visit would be best avoided.

  Horshaw was a black smear against the green fields, a grim, ugly little place with about two dozen rows of mean back-to-back houses huddling together mainly on the southern slope of a damp, bleak hillside. The whole area was riddled with mines, and Horshaw was at its center. High above the village was a large slag heap, which marked the entrance to a mine. Behind the slag heap were the coal yards, which stored enough fuel to keep the biggest towns in the County warm through even the longest of winters.

  Soon we were walking down through the narrow, cobbled streets, keeping pressed close to the grimy walls to make way for carts heaped with black lumps of coal, wet and gleaming with rain. The huge shire horses that pulled them were straining against their loads, hooves slipping on the shiny cobbles.

  There were few people about, but lace curtains twitched as we p
assed, and once we met a group of dour-faced miners who were trudging up the hill to begin their night shift. They’d been talking in loud voices but suddenly fell silent and moved into a single column to pass us, keeping to the far side of the street. One of them actually made the sign of the cross.

  “Get used to it, lad,” growled the Spook. “We’re needed but rarely welcomed, and some places are worse than others.”

  Finally we turned a corner into the lowest and meanest street of all. Nobody lived there—you could tell that right away. For one thing, some of the windows were broken and others were boarded up, and although it was almost dark, no lights were showing. At one end of the street was an abandoned corn merchant’s warehouse, two huge wooden doors gaping open and hanging from their rusty hinges.

  The Spook halted outside the very last house. It was the one on the corner closest to the warehouse, the only house in the street to have a number. That number was crafted out of metal and nailed to the door. It was thirteen, the worst and unluckiest of all numbers, and directly above, there was a street sign high on the wall, hanging from a single rusty rivet and pointing almost vertically toward the cobbles. It said watery lane.

  This house did have windowpanes, but the lace curtains were yellow and hung with cobwebs. This must be the haunted house my master had warned me about.

  The Spook pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and led the way into the darkness within. At first I was just glad to be out of the drizzle, but when he lit a candle and positioned it on the floor near the middle of the small front room, I knew that I’d be more comfortable in an abandoned cowshed. There wasn’t a single item of furniture to be seen, just a bare flagged floor and a heap of dirty straw under the window. The room was damp, too, the air very dank and cold, and by the light of the flickering candle I could see my breath steaming.