Spook’s: Dark Assassin (The Starblade Chronicles) Read online

  I frowned. I knew that we were in great danger because of our presumption.

  As my eyes adjusted to the green light, I began to notice things. The leaves on the trees were curled and brown as if autumn was approaching; some had already fallen onto the grass. Alice had once told me how verdant and luxurious Pan’s domain was, but underfoot everything was parched and wilting. Was this the result of Pan’s clash with Golgoth, the Lord of Winter? Was he really so badly wounded, his power so diminished?

  Then, in the distance, I suddenly heard the sound of pipes. It was indeed the music of Pan in his friendlier form. I pointed towards the sound and led the way, with Thorne at my heels. I remembered hearing that music once before, far away in the distance; it had been enthralling, resonating with energy and power. Now it sounded weaker, even melancholy.

  Finally I caught sight of the god: he was still dressed in leaves and bark, and sat on a log playing his reed pipes – a pale boy with long green curled toenails, unkempt fair hair and pointy ears. However, his face was gaunt and there were dark circles around his eyes. The hand holding the pipes seemed to tremble.

  Alice had told me that when Pan played, birds flocked around his head or perched on his shoulder, while animals gambolled at his feet or stared up at him, enchanted by his music. But the only other creature present was a large black raven perched on a branch directly above his head. The god looked a shadow of his former self. No doubt this was a result of his clash with Golgoth.

  I’d expected him to scowl at us, angered by our presence, ready to shift into his other, more terrible aspect, but he merely nodded and lowered his pipes.

  ‘I’ve been expecting you.’ There was a note of sadness in his voice.

  ‘You knew we were coming?’ I asked, studying him.

  ‘There is little in the dark that escapes my attention. I sensed your approach, but I do not know what you wish of me,’ he said with a shake of his head.

  ‘Firstly, I must ask your forgiveness for this intrusion,’ I said politely. ‘If there is a price to be paid for that, I am happy to pay it.’

  ‘We will speak of that later, but for now simply tell me want you want.’

  ‘We have enemies in common,’ I told him. ‘On Earth I fought against them to the best of my ability, but now I am in a place where I can do nothing further.’

  ‘That is because you are dead, Grimalkin. It is the fate of all mortals,’ Pan said with a weary smile.

  ‘I have been informed that it is possible for a dead witch to return to Earth; it requires the cooperation of two gods to achieve it. Is this true?’

  ‘Is that what you wish for?’ Pan asked.

  ‘Yes. I wish it for us both. Thorne and I wish to go back. On Earth we could achieve much that would serve you as well.’

  ‘Well, such a contribution would indeed be useful for the fight ahead,’ Pan admitted. ‘My strength is returning only very slowly; all too soon I may have to face my enemies again. What you wish for is possible … though very difficult. And yes, I would need the help of another god. It will not be easy to find one willing to join with me. It could take time. Even if I do find a partner amongst those opposed to Talkus and Golgoth, there may be difficulties. I would have to make some sort of compromise. It might affect you directly and be unacceptable. Believe me, there are worse things than being dead and trapped in the dark.’

  ‘I can only judge that when I learn what the price is,’ I told him. ‘I thank you for listening and agreeing. Now I would like to ask you about something that puzzles me. Many of the dead here have marks or wounds that show how they died. I was slain by Golgoth, frozen solid and shattered into bloody splinters! Why am I then still whole?’

  ‘The dark has its own rules,’ Pan said. ‘Most souls take the shape that reflects the manner of their death. However, you are exceptionally strong, Grimalkin, and thus immune to the rule that applies to other denizens of the dark. Some, such as the girl beside you, arrive damaged but are then made whole again as a reward for some task carried out here.’

  He gave the faintest of smiles and came to his feet with difficulty, moving more like an old man with stiff joints and weak muscles than a boy.

  ‘You may wait here within my domain until things are resolved,’ he said, turning. ‘I have prepared a place for you. Follow me.’

  As Pan set off through the trees, the raven gave a raucous cry and flew off in the opposite direction. We followed the god. His pace was slow and he walked with a limp, but we did not have to go far. I’d expected the ‘place’ to be some sort of building; perhaps a tower or some other type of fortification.

  I should have guessed its nature.

  Ahead of us stood a tree of immense girth and height, set in a large clearing, its extensive boughs taking up every inch of the space available. It was deciduous, but its leaves contrasted with those I had seen so far; they were green and luxuriant, as if in the fresh new growth of spring. The tree was a gigantic, ancient oak, its trunk gnarled, the bark bulging with protuberances, but I saw that there was an opening in it, and steps leading upwards.

  Pan gestured towards the entrance. ‘One hundred steps will bring you to your quarters,’ he told us. ‘All you need will be there. But I give you warning: to me, all life is precious. Nothing will harm you, so tolerate its presence, wherever it is encountered.’

  ‘I will slay nothing that does not seek to harm me,’ I agreed.

  ‘That is all I ask,’ Pan replied. ‘That you should be tolerant.’

  With that, he turned and walked away into the trees. We both stared after him until he was lost from sight. I went through the doorway and began to climb the wooden steps that had been cut into the tree trunk. The hundredth step brought me to another doorway, and I stepped inside, Thorne close behind me.

  There were no windows or openings to allow us to see out, but the oval room was filled with a subdued green light that radiated from the walls. It contained only one item of furniture: a round table bearing a jug and two glasses filled almost to the brim with a dark red liquid. The metallic odour told me instantly that it was blood.

  To serve as beds there were two heaps of straw. We would be comfortable enough – I had experienced far harsher conditions on my journeys through the County and elsewhere; at least we would be warm and dry here.

  Then I noticed something that gave me cause for concern. Close to the ceiling was a huge spider’s web; the creature that had spun it was larger than my fist and throbbed threateningly at the centre. Beetles scuttled across the ceiling, and columns of ants wended their way over the floor. All these were Pan’s creatures.

  ‘Be careful where you step, child,’ I warned Thorne.

  I wondered if Pan would be angered by the accidental death of one of these small creatures. What a human might consider of little consequence he might view very differently. We needed to be careful. The gods were unpredictable, a law unto themselves.

  Thorne nodded in agreement and stepped carefully towards the table, where she lifted one of the glasses to her lips and drank deeply from the blood. Then she licked her lips and looked at me. ‘You should try it, Grimalkin. It’s cool and delicious. Surely you must hunger?’

  I was hungry and thirsty, but not sufficiently so to drink the blood Thorne found so palatable. Even in my earliest days of training in dark magic I had never been tempted to become a blood witch. ‘Perhaps I will do so after a sleep,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not just pangs of hunger that should concern you,’ Thorne insisted, pressing home her advice. ‘You will weaken if you don’t drink some. You’ll need all your strength in this dangerous place.’

  ‘If by “this dangerous place” you mean the dark in general, then I must agree. But Pan said that nothing would harm us. Surely here, at the heart of the domain of our ally, we are safe?’

  Thorne shrugged but she didn’t look happy. I lay down on the straw and was about to close my eyes when she spoke again.

  ‘Something else I should warn you of, Grimalkin
… Most of those who dwell in the dark find it impossible to sleep; those who do often have terrible nightmares.’

  ‘Are you able to sleep, child?’ I asked her.

  ‘A little,’ she answered, ‘but my sleep is shallow, and dark shadows haunt my dreams. And sometimes I feel cold fingers brushing against my brow – though when I open my eyes, there’s nothing there.’

  ‘I will see how I do. I am certainly weary enough to sleep.’

  I settled down and allowed my breathing to slow. I was aware of insects crawling over my body, but I stilled my mind. They would not hurt me. I could tolerate the itch.

  Eventually I drifted off to sleep and was not troubled by dreams that I could later remember.

  Suddenly, I don’t know how much later, I was woken by Thorne, who was shaking me violently by the shoulder.

  ‘There’s something trying to get in!’ she cried. ‘Something huge!’

  I could hear scratching on the wall outside our room. I had no idea how close we were to the outer trunk of the huge tree, but it sounded as if huge claws were raking against the bark. Then there was a deeper grinding sound that made the whole room vibrate, as if some powerful entity was boring through the wood, trying to get in.

  I came to my feet and drew two of my long blades. Now the whole tree was shaking and swaying.

  And then, as suddenly as it had started, whatever it was had gone and the sounds ceased. The green light intensified, and Pan materialized in the room.

  ‘You needn’t fear,’ he said. ‘There has been an attack upon my domain but it has been repulsed.’

  ‘An attack – by whom?’ I said as I sheathed my blades.

  ‘It was one of the lesser gods that have allied themselves with Talkus,’ Pan told me.

  ‘I thought that gods rarely fought each other directly – and certainly never intruded into each other’s domains,’ I said.

  Pan smiled grimly. ‘These are strange times. The usual rules have been suspended. God strives against god, and not all will survive.’

  Had it come to this – open war amongst the gods? I wondered fearfully.

  ‘Let us speak of other things,’ Pan insisted. ‘I have found a god who might be prepared to work with me to send you back to Earth. However, she will set certain conditions that you may find unacceptable. She will tell you about them herself.’

  ‘So the god is female. What is her name?’

  ‘It is Hecate.’

  I sucked in my breath angrily.

  Hecate was my enemy.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE JOURNEY TO THE MILL

  THOMAS WARD

  TWO DAYS LATER, Jenny, Arkwright and I set off for the watermill to see Judd Brinscall.

  It was a bright morning and the air was crisp and dry. The most direct route north was across the fells, but because of the ice and snow on the summits we kept to the lower slopes. That would make the journey slightly longer but there was no need for haste.

  I was carrying my staff and bag and wearing the Starblade in its shoulder scabbard. Jenny carried her own staff and bag. Arkwright had his huge staff across his shoulder and swung his own bulky bag as if untroubled by the weight.

  It felt good to be alive. There were curlews swooping over the grassy slopes, and far to the west the sea sparkled in the sunlight. I could see rabbits bobbing along in the distance so we certainly wouldn’t go hungry. The only thing that spoiled my mood was my worry that I might not get back to Chipenden before Alice returned. I’d left her a note saying we’d only be a few days, but this journey meant that we might be apart for longer than I’d hoped.

  As we descended the slopes to the northeast, the sun was already going down and the sky over Morecambe Bay to the west was red, promising another fine day tomorrow. Jenny was almost as good as Alice at hunting rabbits, so by the time Bill Arkwright and I had made camp and got a fire going, she’d already caught and skinned three beauties.

  Arkwright insisted on doing the cooking while Jenny and I watched, our mouths watering as the juices from the meat dribbled and hissed in the flames.

  ‘Well, Master Ward, what do you reckon the next threat’s likely to be?’ he asked as we started to eat.

  I’d already given him an account of how we’d dealt with Golgoth and the price we’d paid in doing so – the life of Grimalkin, the witch assassin, and of Meg, the lamia witch who’d once lived with John Gregory in the winter house up on Anglezarke Moor.

  ‘Well, it isn’t the end of Golgoth, that’s for sure. But the winter seems to be coming to an end, so I suppose he’s back in the dark licking his wounds,’ I finished. ‘The next threat is likely to come from Talkus, or maybe Balkai, the first ranked of all the Kobalos High Mages.’

  ‘Tell me more about this new god of theirs,’ said Arkwright.

  ‘Well, he’s supposed to take the form of a skelt.’

  ‘They’re rare creatures. Do you remember the one you had that little problem with?’ he asked me.

  I remembered it well! The skelt had been imprisoned in a water pit under the mill but had escaped. It had scuttled towards me, hurling me to the ground and spearing my throat with its sharp bone-tube. It had been draining my blood when Arkwright had attacked it with a rock.

  I smiled. ‘You saved my life. You cracked its head open like an egg. But they’re not so rare any more. After the battle on the Wardstone, hundreds of them appeared and ripped the body of the Fiend to pieces.’

  ‘And we saw some in the far north in Kobalos territory – they can even survive in boiling water,’ Jenny said, joining in the conversation for the first time. ‘We talked to a dead Kobalos mage too. He called himself the Architect – it was through his magic that Talkus was born. His intentions were good: he hoped that Talkus would cause Kobalos females to be born again. But the Architect was slain and others took over and changed the god’s nature before his birth, making him warlike.’

  Arkwright was staring at Jenny, his expression easy to read: he wasn’t happy for a girl to butt into a conversation between two spooks. But Jenny had been right to supply that information and share the knowledge with him. It was important that he knew everything about the Kobalos. They posed a threat to the whole world. They had slain all their females, and now the only way they could reproduce was with captured human females – slaves they called purrai.

  ‘I think it’s likely that the next strike into the County will come from their new god, but he may not be alone,’ I said. ‘The Kobalos mages are able to transport themselves here. We need a magical alliance with the witch clans if we are to stand any chance against what’s coming. That’s why Alice has gone to Pendle. She serves Pan: together, they’re a force to be reckoned with, but he’s still weak after his battle with Golgoth.’

  ‘I wish we didn’t need witches as allies,’ Jenny said. ‘It just seems wrong.’

  Arkwright shrugged. ‘I once thought the same myself, girl. But we have to survive somehow. Even John Gregory must have come round to that way of thinking. After all, he clearly accepted the alliance with Grimalkin.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, he compromised in the end, as I did. It was necessary in order to survive.’

  The next day we set off soon after dawn, heading north towards Kendal. As usual, we skirted Caster to the east. The Quisitor, a priest who specialized in hunting witches, was now based in Priestown, but he sometimes visited Caster. He had no love for spooks; in his eyes we were no better than those who dwelled in the dark. As far as he was concerned, fighting the dark was the province of the Church and we were merely dangerous interlopers. If caught, we were just as likely to end up in the castle dungeons as any witches, so it was best to give Caster a wide berth.

  Here, I remembered, they hanged witches rather than burning them. Afterwards the families collected the bodies and buried them in shallow graves in Witch Dell, just east of Pendle. The first time the full moon shone these witches became aware and began to move. Weak ones were only able to catch mice and root around for worms, but strong one
s could run faster than a man and had a thirst for blood. This made them more dangerous dead than alive. My master had once told me that the hanging of witches in Caster probably accounted for three quarters of the dead inhabitants of that dangerous dell.

  Once beyond Caster we reached the canal, crossing the first bridge we came to and heading north along its western bank. We strolled along the cinder towpath, taking our time. It was chilly, but once more the sun was shining and it lifted my spirits. I felt optimistic and cheerful. I felt sure that somehow we’d find a way to defeat the Kobalos.

  Ahead of us, long narrow barges drawn by horses were moving along the canal in both directions. There were coal barges coated in soot and grime; others were brightly painted – routine activity that belied the threat gathering on the far shore of the Northern Sea and the danger that might appear out of thin air. The attacks by Kobalos mages and support troops had so far taken place closer to Chipenden. As far as I knew, there had been no enemy activity in this area, which might account for the lack of concern. No doubt Judd Brinscall would be able to give us news of any local incursions.

  We halted briefly for a lunch of cold rabbit and crumbly County cheese. By the time we approached the place where we had to leave the towpath it was already dusk. It was easy enough to spot, despite the failing light, as it was marked by a huge post on the canal bank; it looked something like a gibbet, but instead of an executed felon, below it hung a huge bronze bell. The bargemen would ring that bell when they made deliveries to the mill.

  We followed the path down the slope into the gloom. Bill Arkwright was in the lead, Jenny bringing up the rear. To my right I could hear the gurgling of a stream, which grew louder as we approached the watermill between the drooping willows.

  We reached the perimeter of the garden, a high, rusty iron fence enclosing a tangle of saplings and shrubs. Arkwright led the way left, following the curve of the railings across the soggy ground until we reached the narrow gap, which was the only entrance. Once through that we came to the shallow moat. I was surprised when he went straight across without dipping his forefinger in the water and touching it to his lips.