The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection

by Joseph Delaney

  Arkwright leaned his staff against the wall next to the inner door, then put down his bag. There was a chink of glass as it made contact with the kitchen floor. He held out his hand toward me and I shook it. “Mr. Gregory thinks well of you, too,” I told him, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the guinea. “He sent you this to help toward my keep. . . .”

  Arkwright took it from me, put it to his mouth, and bit into it hard. He inspected it closely, then smiled and nodded his thanks. He’d checked to make sure it was a real guinea made out of gold rather than some counterfeit. That annoyed me. Did he think my master would try to cheat him? Or was it me he suspected?

  “Let’s trust each other for a while, Master Ward,” he said, “and see how we get on. Let’s allow time enough to give us a chance to judge each other.”

  “My master said you’d have lots to teach me about the area north of Caster,” I continued, trying not to show my irritation about the guinea. “About things that come out of the water . . .”

  “Aye, I’ll be teaching you about that all right, but mostly I’ll be toughening you up. Are you strong, Master Ward?”

  “Quite strong for my age,” I said uncertainly.

  “Sure about that, are you?” Arkwright said, looking me up and down. “I think you’ll need a bit more muscle on you to survive in this job! Any good at arm wrestling?”

  “Never tried it before.”

  “Well, you can try it now. It’ll give me an idea of what needs to be done. Come over here and sit yourself down!” he commanded, leading the way to the table.

  I’d been the youngest by three years and had missed those family games, but I remembered my brothers Jack and James arm wrestling at the kitchen table back at the farm. In those days Jack always won because he was older, taller, and stronger. I would be at the same disadvantage against Arkwright.

  I sat down facing him, and we placed our left arms together and locked hands. With my elbow on the table, my arm was shorter than his. I did my best, but he exerted a strong, steady pressure, and despite my best attempts to resist he bent my arm back until it was flat against the table.

  “That the best you can do?” he asked. “What about if we give you a little help?”

  So saying, he went over to his bag and returned carrying his notebook. “Here, put this under your elbow. . . .”

  With the notebook raising my elbow from the tabletop, my arm was almost as long as his. So when I felt the first steady pressure from his arm, I brought all my strength to bear just as suddenly as I could. To my satisfaction I managed to force his arm a little way back, and I saw the surprise in his eyes. But then he countered with a strength that forced my arm to the surface of the table in seconds. With a grunt he released my hand and stood up while I rubbed my sore muscles.

  “That was better,” he said, “but you need to harden those muscles if you’re going to survive. Hungry, Master Ward?”

  I nodded.

  “Right then, I’ll cook us some breakfast and after that we’d better start getting to know each other.”

  He opened his bag to reveal two empty wine bottles along with other provisions: cheese, eggs, ham, pork, and two large fish. “Caught this morning, these!” he exclaimed. “Don’t come much fresher. We’ll have one between us now and the other for breakfast tomorrow. Ever cooked fish?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, you’ve got the luxury of that boggart doing all your chores for you,” said Arkwright, shaking his own head in disapproval. “Well, here we have to do things for ourselves. So you’d better watch me while I cook this fish because you’ll be doing the other one tomorrow. You don’t mind doing your share of the cooking, do you?”

  “Of course not,” I replied. I just hoped I’d be able to manage. The Spook didn’t think much of my cooking.

  “That’s all right, then. When we’ve finished breakfast, I’ll show you around the mill. We’ll see if you’re as brave as your master makes out.”

  CHAPTER VI

  Water Lore

  THE fish tasted good, and Arkwright seemed keen to chat as we ate.

  “The first thing to remember about the territory I protect,” he said, “is that there’s a lot of water about. Water is very wet and that can be a problem. . . .”

  I thought he was trying to make another joke so I smiled, but he glared at me fiercely. “That’s not meant to be funny, Master Ward. In fact it’s not funny at all. By wet I mean that it saturates everything, soaks into the ground, into the body, and into the very soul. It permeates this whole area and is the key to all the difficulties we face. It’s an environment within which denizens of the dark thrive. We are of the land, not of water. So it is very difficult to deal with such creatures.”

  I nodded. “Does permeate mean the same thing as saturate?”

  “That it does, Master Ward. Water gets everywhere and into everything. And there’s a lot of it about. There’s Morecambe Bay for a start, which is like a big bite taken out of the County by the sea. Dangerous channels like deep rivers cross the shifting sands of the bay. People cross over when the tides permit, but tides come in fast and sometimes a thick mist comes down. Every year the sea claims coaches, horses, and passengers there. They vanish without a trace.

  “Then there are the lakes to the north. Deceptively calm some days but very deep. And there are dangerous things that come out of the lakes.”

  “Mr. Gregory told me that you bound the Coniston Ripper. And that it had killed over thirty people before you made the shores of the lake safe.”

  Arkwright positively glowed when I said that. “Aye, Master Ward. At first it was a mystery that baffled the locals,” he explained. “It seized lone fishermen and pulled them overboard. People assumed the missing men had drowned, but if so, why weren’t their bodies washed ashore? At last there were too many victims and I was called in. It wasn’t an easy task. I suspected a ripper, but where was its lair? And once drained of blood, what had happened to the bodies? Well, Master Ward, you need both patience and perseverance in this job, and finally I tracked it down.

  “Its lair was a cave right under the lakeshore. It dragged its victims up onto a rock shelf and fed at leisure. So I dug into the cave from the bank above. Its lair was a sight straight out of a nightmare. It was full of bones and corpses—rotting flesh heaving with maggots, together with other more recent bodies emptied of blood. I’ll never forget that stench. I waited for that ripper for three days and nights until it finally arrived with a fresh victim. It was too late to save the fisherman, but I finished the ripper off with salt and iron.”

  “When Mr. Gilbert met us at the canal, he said you’d gone north to deal with a body found in the water that had been drained of blood like two others before it. Was that the victim of a ripper? Is there another one at large?”

  Arkwright stared through the window as if deep in thought, and there was quite a delay before he answered. “No, it was a water witch. Their numbers have been increasing lately. But she was well away by the time I arrived. She’ll strike again no doubt, and we’ll just have to hope that she takes her next victim a little closer to home so that I’ll have time to hunt her down. But it’s not just rippers and water witches we have to watch out for. There are skelts to beware of. . . .

  “Ever heard of a skelt?” he asked me.

  I shook my head.

  “It’s very rare and lives in crevices, either submerged or close to water. Instead of a flexible tongue, a long hollow, bony tube protrudes from its snout. The tube’s sharp and pointed at the end so the creature can suck up the blood of its victims.”

  “That sounds awful,” I said.

  “Oh, it is,” replied Arkwright. “But that foul creature’s sometimes a victim, too. It’s occasionally used in water-witch rituals. After it’s taken the blood of its victim—one chosen for it by the witches—draining him slowly over a period of days until he breathes his last, the witches dismember the skelt and eat it alive. The blood magic gained is thrice that obtained
by the witch draining the victim directly.”

  Arkwright suddenly stood up and reached across the sink to seize the big knife on the window ledge. He brought it back to the table.

  “I killed a skelt once using this!” he said, placing it before me. “That blade’s got a lot of silver in the alloy, just like the blade on my staff. I took the skelt by surprise and cut its limbs off! A very useful weapon, that. I also caught a young one near this canal less than five years ago. Two in five years suggests that they’re increasing in number.”

  By now we’d finished our breakfast so Arkwright eased his chair away from the table and patted his belly. “Did you enjoy the fish, Master Ward?”

  I nodded. “Yes, thanks, it was really good.”

  “The leg of a water witch would be even better,” he said. “You might get to try it before your six months is up.”

  My jaw dropped and I stared at him in astonishment. He ate witches?

  But then he burst out laughing. “Just my sense of humor, Master Ward. I wouldn’t touch a witch’s leg with a barge pole, even roasted to perfection. Mind you, my dogs wouldn’t be so fussy—as you might find out one day!”

  I wondered where he kept his dogs. I’d neither seen nor heard them.

  “But it’s water witches that are the worst problem in these parts,” Arkwright went on. “Unlike other witches they can cross water—especially stagnant water. They can stay under the surface for hours at a time without breathing; they bury themselves in the mud or marsh, waiting for an unsuspecting victim to walk by. Would you like to see one, Master Ward?”

  In the summer the Spook and I had been to Pendle and fought the three main witch-clans there. It had been hard and we’d been lucky to survive, so I’d had my fill of witches for a while. It must have shown on my face, because when I nodded, Arkwright gave a little smile.

  “You don’t look very enthusiastic, Master Ward. Don’t you worry. She won’t bite. I’ve got her safe and sound, as you’ll soon see! I’ll give you a tour of the mill and show you the witch, but first let’s sort out your sleeping arrangements. Follow me!”

  He left the kitchen and I followed him up the stairs and into the single bedroom with the bare mattress. I thought he was going to confirm that this would be my room, but instead he dragged the mattress from the bed.

  “Let’s get this downstairs!” he said briskly, and together we carried it down to the kitchen. That done, he went back up, returning immediately with a bundle of sheets and blankets.

  “They’re a bit on the damp side,” he said, “but they’ll soon dry out in this kitchen, and then we’ll get them back to your room again. Well now, I’ve got a few things to do upstairs, but I’ll be back within the hour. In the meantime, why don’t you write up your first lesson on water witches and skelts? You have brought your notebook with you?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, go and get it, then!” he ordered.

  Sensing his impatience, I rummaged in my bag and brought the notebook back to the table, along with my pen and a small bottle of ink, while Arkwright went upstairs.

  I wrote up everything I could remember about my first lesson and wondered what Arkwright was doing for so long upstairs. At one point I thought I heard him talking to someone. But after less than an hour he came down, and as he passed by, I smelled wine on his breath. Then, holding a lantern aloft and gripping his staff in his left hand, he led the way into the room I’d first entered.

  Apart from the absence of the candlestick, which I’d taken into the kitchen, it was just as before: a chair in each corner, crates and empty wine bottles, the solitary table, and three boarded-up windows. But the brighter light from the lantern revealed something I hadn’t noticed previously.

  To the right of the outer door was a trapdoor. Arkwright handed his staff to me, bent, and with his free hand grasped the iron ring and pulled it open. Wooden steps led down into the darkness, and there was the sound of the stream rushing over its bed of pebbles.

  “Well, Master Ward,” Arkwright said, “usually it’s safe enough but I’ve been away from home for six days so anything could have happened in the meantime. Stay close—just in case.”

  With that he started to descend, and I followed him into a deeper gloom, carrying his staff, which was far heavier than the ones I was used to. A stink of damp and rotten wood assailed my nostrils, and I found myself standing not in a flagged cellar, but in mud on the bank of the stream. To our left stood the huge arc of the static waterwheel.

  “I thought I heard that wheel turning last night,” I murmured. I was sure it hadn’t really turned and was all part of the strange haunting; something that had happened in the past. But I was curious and half hoped that Arkwright might tell me what was going on.

  Instead he glared at me and I could see the anger rising red in his face. “Does it look like it’s capable of moving?” he shouted.

  I shook my head and took a step backward. Arkwright cursed under his breath, turned his back on me, and led us under the mill, bowing his head as he walked.

  Soon we came to a square pit, and Arkwright halted with the toes of his big boots actually hanging over its edge. He beckoned me forward and I stood at his side but kept my own toes well clear. It was a witch pit with thirteen iron bars so there was no danger of falling in. That didn’t mean you were entirely safe, though. A witch could reach up through the bars and grasp your ankle. Some were very fast and strong and could move faster than you could blink your eye. I wasn’t taking any chances.

  “A water witch can burrow, Master Ward, so we have to thwart that. Although you can see only the top row of bars, this is effectively a cage in the shape of a cube with the other five surfaces buried in the earth.”

  That was something I was already familiar with. The Spook used that type of cage to confine lamia witches, which were also adept at burrowing.

  Arkwright held the lantern out over the pit. “Look down and tell me what you see.”

  I could see water reflecting the light, but at the side of the pit was a narrow muddy shelf. There was something on it but I couldn’t quite make it out. It seemed to be half buried in the mud.

  “I can’t see it properly,” I admitted.

  He sighed impatiently and held out his hand for his staff. “Well, it takes a trained eye. In bad light you could step on a creature like this without realizing it. It would fasten its teeth into you and drag you down to a watery grave within seconds. Maybe this’ll help. . . .”

  He took the staff from me and slowly lowered it, blade first, between the two bars directly above the shelf before jabbing suddenly downward. There was a shriek of pain, and I caught a glimpse of long tangled hair and hate-filled eyes as something flung itself off the ledge into the water, making a tremendous splash.

  “She’ll stay at the bottom for an hour or more now. But that certainly woke her up, didn’t it?” he said with a cruel smile.

  I didn’t like the way he’d hurt the witch just so that I could see her better. It seemed unnecessary—not something my own master would have done.

  “Mind you, she’s not always that sluggish. Knowing I’d be away for quite a few days, I gave her an extra shot of salt. Put too much into the water and it’d finish her off, so you have to get your calculations right. That’s how we keep her docile. Works the same way with skelts—with anything that comes out of fresh water. That’s why I have a moat running around the garden. It may be shallow but it’s got a very high concentration of salt. It’s to stop anything getting in or out. This witch here would be dead in seconds if she managed to escape from this pit and tried to cross that moat. And it stops things from the marsh getting into the garden.

  “Anyway, Master Ward, I’m not as soft-hearted as Mr. Gregory. He keeps live witches in pits because he can’t bring himself to finish them off, whereas I do it just to punish them. They serve one year in a pit for every life they’ve taken—two years for the life of a child. Then I fish them out and kill them. Now, let’s see if we can cat
ch a glimpse of that skelt I told you I’d captured near the canal. . . .”

  He led the way to another pit almost twice the size of the first. It was similarly covered with iron bars, but there were many more of them and they were far closer together. Here there was no mud shelf, just an expanse of dirty water. I had a feeling that it was very deep.

  Arkwright stared down at the water and shook his head. “Looks like it’s lurking near the bottom. Still docile after the big dose of salt I tipped into the water. It’s best to let sleeping skelts lie. There’ll be plenty of opportunity to see it before your six months are up. Right. We’ll take a walk around the garden now. . . .”

  “Does she have a name?” I asked, nodding at the witch pit as we passed.

  Arkwright came to a halt, looked at me, and shook his head. There were several expressions flickering across his face, none of them good. Clearly he thought I’d said something really stupid.

  “She’s just a common water witch,” he said, his voice scathing. “Whatever she calls herself, I neither know nor care! Don’t ask foolish questions!”

  I was suddenly angry and felt my face redden. “It can be useful to know a witch’s name!” I snapped. “Mr. Gregory keeps a record of all the witches that he’s either heard of or encountered personally.”

  Arkwright pushed his face very close to mine so that I could smell his sour breath. “You’re not at Chipenden now, boy. For the present I’m your master and you’ll do things my way. And if you ever speak to me in that tone of voice again, I’ll beat you to within an inch of your life! Do I make myself clear?”

  I bit my lip to stop myself answering back, then nodded and looked at my boots. Why had I spoken out of turn like that? Well, one reason was that I thought he was wrong. Another was that I didn’t like the tone of voice he’d used to speak to me. But I shouldn’t have let my anger show. After all, my master had told me that Arkwright did things differently and that I would have to adapt to his ways.