The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection

by Joseph Delaney

  “You’ve crossed my path once too often. You were meant to die a slow and painful death, but now you’ll die fast!” she cried, raising her left hand, palm toward Horn, fingers spread wide. Then she closed her hand into a fist, as if crushing something within it, while muttering an enchantment in the Old Tongue.

  The abhuman screamed and buried his face in his hands. To my horror, I watched his head begin to crumple and collapse in on itself, rupturing and sending out gouts of blood. Horn dropped to the ground at my side like a sack of stones, his shrill, agonized scream giving way to a final gasp and then silence. His head was reduced to a bloody pulp.

  I struggled to hold down the contents of my stomach, and my knees began to tremble.

  “Now, where’s that daughter of mine?” Lizzie demanded, a scowl furrowing her brow.

  I found it hard to believe that she hadn’t found Alice. Where could she be? I took a deep breath to calm myself and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m here to look for her,” I said.

  Lizzie pulled a sharp knife from the folds of her gown. “The buggane will have to manage without this time,” she said. “I’ve had enough trouble from you, so I’ll take your bones now. Come here!”

  Against my will, I found myself moving toward her. I tried to draw the silver chain from the pocket of my cloak, but my arm was paralyzed! I began to sweat and shake with fear. I took a deep breath to calm myself, but my legs were no longer under my control. I took another step, and then another, until I was so close to the witch I could feel her foul breath warm upon my face, and I almost retched again.

  Lizzie seized my left hand with her right and lifted it before me. “Take a last look at that thumb, boy. It’ll be boiling and bubbling in my cauldron soon!”

  Was this it? Was I to die here after all I’d been through?

  With her left hand, the witch brought the knife down toward my thumb. I tried to break free of her grip but was powerless. I flinched, expecting to feel an agonizing pain. But the blade failed to make contact with my skin. Instead the torches flickered and died down, and a shimmer of light appeared. Suddenly, to my utter astonishment, Alice was standing there, in front of me, holding one of the shaman’s grimoires.

  All at once I noticed that telltale shimmer of an apparition—it wasn’t Alice in the flesh; it was her spirit. She’d projected it from somewhere else. I was filled with sudden hope. Was this a result of her study of the shaman’s books?

  “If you hurt Tom, you’ll never get your hands on this!” Alice warned, her image flickering. “I took Barrule’s notebook and studied it. I learned that the really useful stuff is in this grimoire!”

  “Might have known you were up to something, girl,” Lizzie snarled.

  “Tells you in here how to tap the power of the cache directly, but he wrote it down in code. You’ve got to take bits from lots of different pages and link the spells together,” Alice said. “Without this book and my knowledge, you’ll never know what to do. You’d study for years and get nowhere. Ain’t that so?”

  Lizzie’s face twisted with anger, but she didn’t reply.

  “If you want this book and what I know, come and get it. I’m down in the long room where Lord Barrule and his gambling cronies used to have their fun and games. Bring Tom with you, but don’t you dare hurt a hair on his head, or you’ll never get your mucky hands on this.” Alice raised the book toward her mother.

  She vanished, and the torches flared up again.

  Lizzie turned to me. “Looks like you’ll live a little longer, boy! At least until I get my hands on that book. . . .”

  Keeping a tight grip on my arm and holding her knife at the ready, Lizzie dragged me down the steps of the keep, through the guard room and along the underground passages. As we passed the cells, I noticed that all the doors were now shut, as if they contained prisoners.

  The long room was almost in darkness—just a couple of torches were flickering in their rusty wall brackets. Lord Barrule still lay there on the stone floor, and the place reeked more strongly of death than ever.

  Alice appeared, walking out of the shadows to face Lizzie. She was carrying the grimoire in her left hand and my staff in her right.

  “Let Tom go and then I’ll tell you what I know and give you the book,” she said calmly, the corners of her mouth twitching up into a grin.

  Lizzie pushed me roughly toward Alice. “Give me the book and start talking! Make it fast. My patience is stretched to the breaking point!” she snapped.

  “You’re welcome to the book,” Alice said, and she tossed it toward her.

  Lizzie reached out to catch it, but before her fingers closed on it, with a loud whoosh, it burst into flames. The witch flinched away, and it fell at her feet, the pages curling and blackening.

  Her expression was now black as thunder, but Alice was smiling, a look of triumph on her face. The witch arched her back, pointed her finger straight at her daughter, and muttered some words in the Old Tongue. For a moment I was horribly afraid for Alice, but nothing happened, and her smile grew even wider.

  “Used the cache to protect myself,” she said to Lizzie. “You can’t hurt me, and now Tom’s at my side you can’t hurt him either! But I can hurt you. Push me, and I can hurt you really badly. If you weren’t my mother, I’d kill you! But you’re going to do as you’re told and do it right away. Give me the shaman’s thumb bones! Hand ’em over!”

  Lizzie began to shake, and beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. Her face was twisted with the effort of trying to resist Alice’s command, but she wasn’t strong enough. I remembered how she had controlled us, but now things were reversed. She was forced to do Alice’s bidding, reaching into the pocket of her dress and pulling out the bones that she’d cut from the dead body of Lord Barrule. They were white now, clean bones, the flesh boiled off as part of the ritual to tap into their full power.

  Alice held out her hand to receive them, and once more Lizzie tried to resist, her whole body shaking with the effort, but then, with a gasp, she finally let them fall into Alice’s palm.

  That done, with a shriek, the witch ran toward the underground tunnel and scrambled inside.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  The Buggane

  “WE must go after her, Alice,” I said, heading for the mouth of the tunnel. “We can’t let her escape. It’s my duty to bind her.”

  Alice shook her head. “Sorry I let her go, Tom. Could have killed her then, but despite what I said, I wasn’t hard enough to do it. She’s my mother, after all. What kind of girl would kill her own mother?

  “It ain’t safe to follow her through the tunnels now. Even though I was stronger just then, Lizzie still controls the buggane. She’ll be able to find a way to the surface, but she can’t return to the keep. Locked all the cell doors, I have, just to make sure she don’t try to double back. I’ll lock the door to this room, too,” she said, holding up a key.

  “Then we should head to where we left Adriana and Simon and try to cut her off!”

  Alice nodded, but her eyes were fearful.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

  “The farther we get from Greeba Keep, the less I’ll be able to draw on the power of the cache. After a few miles, it’d just be me against Lizzie, and she’s bound to be stronger.”

  “All the more reason to deal with her before she gets too far away,” I said.

  We hurried out of the keep; it was deserted, and we headed directly for Adriana and Simon. They were still waiting at the edge of the trees, so we quickly explained what had happened and made our way toward the chapel, watching closely to see if Lizzie emerged.

  But we watched and waited in vain. Two hours later, there was no sign of the witch, and we began to grow dispirited. Had she already escaped?

  “Can’t you sniff her out, Alice?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Been here before, she has, and her stench is everywhere. Can’t tell what’s fresh ’cause there’s so much of it.”

  It was then, as the
light began to fail, that I saw a figure approaching in the distance, and my heart sank right down into my boots. There’d be a reckoning now, all right.

  It was the Spook, and as he drew nearer, I saw that he was scowling.

  It was Adriana who spoke first. She stepped forward, placing herself between him and us. “It was my idea,” she said. “We had to try and deal with Lizzie. I knew you’d never agree. It’s all my fault.”

  The Spook nodded. “Aye,” he said angrily, “you’ve put a bad taste in my mouth in more ways than one. But we’ll deal with all that later.” He turned to me, his expression grim. “We need to get down to practicalities. Tell me what happened and make it quick.”

  After I’d finished, my master shook his head. “It’s a bad business. We need to follow the witch and deal with her once and for all. But now that she’s gone and no longer has access to the power here, our first priority is the buggane. I’ve been thinking—if we can destroy it, eventually the tunnels will collapse and the cavern, with that cache of power, will be buried. That’ll stop servants of the dark from visiting it in spirit form. They’ll no longer be able to tap into it directly. And that includes you, girl!” he said, turning on Alice. “Deals with everything nicely.”

  “That’s not fair! I’d be dead by now but for what Alice did,” I shouted.

  “She still used dark power—and not for the first time, as you well know. But we won’t speak of that now. We’ll go directly to the chapel; that’s at the center of the buggane’s domain. It’ll sense us there and attack.”

  “What about the dogs? Won’t they help us?” I asked my master.

  “There’s no time for that now, lad. I left them at the mill, and we’ve got to deal with this creature.”

  The Spook turned and began to walk away. Alice and I were at his heels, with Adriana and Simon close behind. Suddenly my master spun round to face them.

  “This is spook’s business,” he said, holding up his hand. “Dangerous work for just me and the lad. It’s best if you wait here until we’ve dealt with the demon. And that means you too!” he said, glaring at Alice. She opened her mouth to protest but then shook her head. There would be no arguing with my master after what had just happened.

  So the Spook and I headed directly for the chapel. Despite his wishes, I hoped Alice wouldn’t be very far behind. She couldn’t afford to distance herself from the blood jar. We arrived at the ruins and waited just inside the trees, within sight of those crumbling dark stone walls. The minutes passed, but nothing happened. Lizzie would be getting farther and farther away with every second, I thought.

  It was a cold, crisp, clear night, and the grass was white with hoarfrost. Half a waning moon cast dappled shadows on the ground. Occasionally an owl hooted, but apart from that, all was silent; there wasn’t even a breath of wind.

  “Why doesn’t the buggane attack?” I asked.

  “It’s nearby—I can feel it in my bones—but it’s not showing itself,” the Spook answered. “Most likely it’ll be down the slope close to the water’s edge, a place we want to avoid. It’ll take the shape of a worme on that marshy ground, and wormes are hard to kill. But what choice do we have? Let’s get it over with!”

  I followed my master toward the incline. I was gripping my staff nervously. The last thing I wanted was to face a worme again. I remembered the way they could spit poison and bite off an arm or leg with those rows of sharp teeth.

  As we descended, the slope became steeper and our boots squelched in the soft ground. I soon found it hard to stay on my feet. Below, the murmur of the river was ever louder, though as yet I couldn’t see it through the trees. They grew closer together here, interspersed with dense bushes and saplings, making our progress difficult and forcing us to make frequent detours.

  “Spread out!” the Spook commanded. “Giving it more than one target will distract it.”

  I did as he said, obeying without question and moving away to the left. My master was the expert here, and having already faced a worme, I knew it was the same advice that Bill Arkwright would have given; he’d been the specialist on all creatures that lived in marsh and water.

  We were very close to the riverbank now, and the Spook was hidden from view by bushes and tall reeds, though I could still hear the suck and squelch of his boots.

  It was then that I heard another noise in the reeds—a heavy, wet, slippery sound, almost as if someone had fallen onto their back and was sliding down the steep slope toward the water. But the sound was getting louder and moving closer—up the slope, directly toward us. My heart lurched with fear.

  All at once, something burst through the reeds directly ahead of me and lunged for my head. I threw myself sideways, catching a glimpse of something above me before it withdrew back into the reeds: a long, sinuous body like a fat snake, small fierce eyes, and a mouthful of fanged teeth.

  It certainly wasn’t a worme—at least not the type that I’d once fought—and the only snakes I’d ever seen were small grass snakes and, more rarely, adders. But this was huge. It had to be the buggane, and it had taken the form of a great serpent.

  In a blind panic, I struggled to my knees. I was only just in time. It attacked, and this time I jabbed at the creature with my staff. It hissed and retreated again. I came cautiously to my feet and heard a scuffle to my right. Then the Spook shouted something—I didn’t catch it the first time, but when he repeated it, I realized it was a cry of warning.

  “Hydra!”

  From what my master had taught me, I knew that we were in serious trouble. There were many forms of hydra, some real, some just fantastic creatures made up by storytellers. The one referred to in the Spook’s Bestiary was a creature called a scylla, which had seven heads. All hydra certainly had several heads—and this one was attacking my master and me simultaneously.

  Again I heard that slithering sound, and the snakelike head surged toward me along the ground, parting the reeds before rearing up at my throat. But this time I was ready, and I used my staff like a spear, ramming the blade past its teeth and right down its throat with all my strength. It screamed and convulsed, and blood sprayed in an arc from its fanged mouth. It retreated immediately, almost dragging the staff out of my hand, but I held on tight and the demon’s head slid away, its mouth gushing blood.

  I followed it through the reeds toward the water’s edge. Once on the riverbank, I could see the buggane by the light of the moon. Its body was hidden underwater, but its many heads reared and writhed, lunging at me. I quickly counted to nine, but then gave up because they were moving too quickly. The one nearest me hung limp, dark blood issuing from its gaping mouth and swirling away in the current. That was the one I’d just speared. The Spook was now on the riverbank too, jabbing furiously with his staff. But there were so many heads, all roaring and howling eerily. How could we deal with them?

  “To me, lad!” cried the Spook, plunging into the strong river current. “Its heart—we need to cut our way to its heart! I’ll go for the body while you tackle the heads!”

  I splashed along to his side. The water reached our waists, and it was a struggle to stay on our feet. The gray body of the hydra surfaced briefly before submerging again. That sight filled me with hope, because it didn’t seem to have the hard defensive scales of a worme and would be vulnerable to our blades. No doubt the demon had sacrificed that defense in favor of the attacking capability of those many fanged heads. I kept swinging my staff in an arc and jabbing directly at any ravening mouth that came too close.

  The Spook began to attack the hydra’s body, driving his staff in deep and leaning against it while I defended us both against those heads with their dangerous teeth.

  How long that struggle went on, I don’t know. All I remember is the water, dark with blood, and those demonic heads shining silver in the moonlight as they sought to put an end to us. At one point I was almost overwhelmed—teeth and ravening jaws were all around me—and the Spook had to halt his attack on the body and help me fight off
the heads. But then I heard a cry from the bank and saw Alice standing there, waving the short blade and shouting at the buggane, trying to attract its attention.

  Several of its heads immediately lurched toward her. I was afraid for her, but the demon was distracted, and it gave us our chance. Furiously the Spook renewed his attack. Within moments his silver-alloy blade had found the demon’s heart. There was a blast of foul air, and then water rose up before me in a high wave and I went under, still gripping my staff. Moments later, I floated up to the surface.

  Eventually the Spook and I dragged ourselves wearily out onto the riverbank. Alice’s face looked full of relief. I stood there beside her, shivering and dripping wet.

  “It’s gone, lad. Not one bit of it remains,” said the Spook, bending over, exhausted. “And as for you, girl—will you never do as you’re told?”

  “If Alice hadn’t disobeyed, we’d probably both be dead,” I pointed out indignantly.

  My master gave a grudging nod but didn’t comment further. He knew what I said was true.

  “Now it’s time to deal with the witch,” he muttered.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  One for Sorrow

  ONCE we’d rejoined Adriana and Simon, the Spook wasted no time looking for signs of Bony Lizzie.

  I knew he was an expert tracker, but with only moonlight to rely on, would he find Lizzie’s trail when even Alice couldn’t sniff her out? We watched him pace around the wood, checking it systematically, bit by bit. Every so often he paused and knelt down, studying the ground. Maybe there wasn’t anything to find? Maybe Lizzie was still hiding in the tunnels?

  It was almost an hour before my master found something and waved us over. There were three footprints in the mud. They were fresh and made by pointy shoes.