The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection

by Joseph Delaney

  Of course, but you’re not going to die. Where are you?

  “Southwest of Pendle, about five miles from the base of the hill.”

  Then hold on. I’ll be with you very soon. How far behind you is the kretch?

  “It’s impossible to be sure,” I told her, “but probably only a few hours at the most.”

  Then try to keep moving. Remember what you once said to me—“You have only just begun to fight.”

  With that, the mirror darkened and Thorne was gone. Fighting against the pain, I struggled to my feet and staggered eastward once more, my breathing hoarse and ragged. My progress was very slow, and I began to imagine that I could hear the kretch padding through the trees behind me, getting closer and closer, ready to spring.

  At one point I whirled round to meet it, but there was nothing there. The next thing I remember is lying on my back with rain falling straight into my face. I opened my eyes in a panic.

  Where was the leather sack? I reached out for it but found nothing.

  “It’s safe—I have it beside me,” said a voice I knew.

  Thorne was kneeling next to me, looking concerned. I tried to sit up, but she gently pushed me back down again.

  “Rest,” she said firmly. “Give the potion time to take effect. I called in to see Agnes on my way here. What she sent is not a cure, but it should buy you some time. After you spat out the first mouthful, I managed to pour most of it down your throat.”

  “The kretch—is it close?” I asked.

  Thorne shook her head. “I can’t sniff its approach.”

  “If we can reach Pendle, we’ll be safe for a while. The witches who made the creature are from the southwest of the County. They will not dare venture into our territory.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Thorne. “But the clans are divided. Some may allow them entry. Now, try to stand.”

  She helped me to my feet, but I was unsteady and she had to support me. Although only fifteen and not yet fully grown, she was now almost as tall as me and looked every inch a witch assassin. She was dressed in a similar fashion to me—leather straps crisscrossed her body, the sheaths holding blades.

  I smiled at her. “I’m still not strong enough to travel. Leave me and take the sack. That’s what is really important.”

  “We’ll travel together,” Thorne said firmly. “Remember how you once carried me?”

  “When we hunted the bear? Yes, I remember it well. I was thinking about that earlier.”

  “Well, now I’ll carry you.”

  With that, Thorne hoisted me up onto her shoulder and, carrying the leather sack in her left hand, began to jog eastward. We were heading toward Agnes Sowerbutts’s cottage on the outskirts of the Deane village of Roughlee.

  It was strange to be carried in this way. I was at war with myself: One part of me felt anger at my weakness and resentment toward Thorne for treating me thus; the other felt gratitude for her help and was well aware that the skill of Agnes Sowerbutts would give me the best possible chance of surviving.

  After a while, the stabbing pain in my lungs started to return as the effects of the potion began to wear off. The agony slowly intensified until I could hardly breathe, and I felt myself losing consciousness again.

  The next thing I remember is what sounded like the eerie cry of a corpse fowl very close by. Then there was a sudden stillness and a change of temperature. I was no longer being carried; I was inside, out of the rain. I lay on a bed, and someone was bending over me; the concerned face of Agnes Sowerbutts swam into view.

  I felt my head being lifted, and suddenly my mouth was full of a vile-tasting liquid. I swallowed a little and almost vomited. I wanted to spit out the rest but fought to control my urge. Agnes was trying to help me. She was my only hope of survival. So I forced myself to swallow again and again. Eventually, a strange warmth spread slowly from my stomach to my extremities. I felt comfortable. I think I slept for a while.

  But then I was awake again, my body racked with pain. There were sharp twinges in my chest, and each breath was like a dagger stabbing into my heart. My limbs throbbed and felt as heavy as lead. Whatever potion Agnes had given me, it hadn’t worked for long. I opened my eyes but could see nothing. Everything was dark. Had the poison taken away my sight?

  Then I heard Agnes’s voice. “The poison is too virulent. She’s dying. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more that I can do.”

  CHAPTER V

  MALKIN TOWER

  Blood, bone, and familiar magic work for most witches,

  but the old ways are not the only path to power.

  There is nothing wrong with tradition,

  but I am open-minded and flexible.

  I am Grimalkin.

  “PLEASE, please, try again,” I heard Thorne beg. “She’s still fighting, still strong. Grimalkin deserves another chance.”

  I fought to stay awake, but eventually I lost consciousness again, falling slowly into a darker, deeper sleep than I had ever known before.

  Was this death? If so, Thorne was alone. How long would she be able to keep the Fiend’s head out of the hands of his supporters? I had told her a little of my alliance with Alice Deane, Tom Ward, and John Gregory. Would she understand that she needed to approach them directly and seek their help?

  I tried to call out to Thorne and tell her what must be done, but I was unable to speak. I was trapped deep within my body, forced to endure the pain, which was increasing all the time.

  I wasn’t going to remain lying here in agony while my body slowly lost its grip on life. There was a way to escape the pain. I could float out of my body to meet my death. I had some skill in the arts of shamanistic magic.

  Most Pendle witches are deeply conservative in their habits. At an early age they are tested by their clan to determine which type of dark magic—blood or bone or familiar—they have an aptitude for. They would never think to range beyond those options. But I am different. My mind is flexible and open to other alternatives. I am willing and eager to learn new things.

  This may be because during my life as a witch assassin I have traveled widely and have encountered other cultures and ways of utilizing the dark. One such encounter was with a Romanian witch who was living in the northeast of the County. It was she who taught me something of shamanism.

  Of course, you could spend a lifetime learning its secrets and practicing its craft. I had but a few months to devote to it, so I concentrated on just one aspect of its repertoire—the skill of projecting the soul from the body.

  Such a procedure is not without risks. One practitioner, a mage, projected his soul into the dark and was devoured by a demon. You may also be unable to find your way back to your body. For that reason I had used it only rarely, and with great caution.

  But what did it matter now? I was dying. The mists of limbo would close about me soon enough, whether I left my body or not. At least I would be able to see again—after a fashion.

  The process usually involves a few key words muttered in a particular cadence, but equally important is the will to escape.

  I had lost control of my body and couldn’t even move my lips to speak the words of the spell. As it was, my will, driven by desperation, proved sufficient. Moments later I was floating just a few feet above the bed upon which my body lay. Thorne was sitting in a chair, her head in her hands. The leather sack was within her reach. A candle flickered on the small table beside her.

  I looked down at my weary face, mouth open to suck in rapid shallow breaths. I had never thought it would end this way. It didn’t seem right. Grimalkin was never meant to die in a warm bed—she should have met her end in battle, as a warrior. But on reflection, I realized that I had. The kretch had killed me. That scratch from its poisoned talon had been the moment of my defeat—the beginning of my death.

  I floated away and passed through the closed door. I was nothing more than a small, glowing orb of light, invisible to most people. The strongest of witches and spooks might be able to glimps
e me, but only in a very dark place. Even candlelight made me almost totally invisible.

  However, I could see clearly, even in the dark—though only one color was visible. Everything was a shade of green, and living things glowed, lit by the life force within them. The front room of Agnes’s cottage was exactly as I remembered it: cozy, clean but cluttered. The walls were lined with shelves full of books or rows of jars containing ointments, dried herbs, and withered roots. First and foremost, Agnes was a healer.

  She was sitting on a stool by the fire in the small front room, reading a book. I drifted closer and read the title on the spine: Antidotes to Deadly Poisons.

  So she had listened to Thorne and hadn’t given up on me yet. Even though my enemies had created a kretch specially designed to kill me, it did not necessarily mean that they had concocted a totally new poison. The creature itself would have used up much of their strength and resources, at great cost to themselves. It had been endowed with many means with which to kill me, and poison was just one; they might simply have selected one of the most deadly. If Agnes could determine which it was, I might still have a chance.

  I floated on, passing through the wall of the cottage with ease. Ahead lay the huge, long mass of Pendle Hill. I sped on swiftly. I might die at any moment, but I had to keep my hopes up. There was something that I could do now that, were I to recover, might help me to keep the Fiend’s head safe.

  I had decided to visit Malkin Tower and see what the situation was there—where exactly the two lamias resided. I flew toward Crow Wood and was soon swooping low over the treetops, invisible to the fierce carrion crows that roosted below.

  A bright green half moon cast its sickly light upon the tower. It was a grim fortification, surrounded by a moat, topped by battlements and protected by a huge iron-studded door. It had once been the home of the Malkin coven, but now the two feral lamias dwelt there. Before the war and the enemy occupation, I had been instructed by the coven to kill them and retake the tower. I had refused, telling them that the lamias were too strong and that the attempt would lead to my certain death.

  One of the coven had twisted her face into a sneer. “I never thought the day would come when Grimalkin would consider an enemy too strong!” she’d jibed.

  In retaliation, I broke her arm and glared at each of the other witches in turn. They were afraid of me, and they quickly cast down their eyes.

  But I had lied. Fully armed and fit, I felt confident that I could defeat the lamias—especially if I could engineer a fight with them one at a time and in a place of my choosing. However, for now it suited my purposes to have them inhabiting the tower. For within lay the chests owned by my ally, Thomas Ward, one of which contained knowledge and artifacts belonging to his mother. These might one day aid us in our struggle against the Fiend and his servants. With the lamias as guardians, the chest and its contents were safe.

  Had I been approaching clothed in flesh, I would have used the tunnel that led to the dungeons far below the tower, and climbed up into it that way. Meeting a hostile lamia in a confined space would have been to my advantage. The two guardian lamias could fly, and it would not be wise to meet them in the open.

  Shortly after the coven had completed the ritual to raise the Fiend, I had taken part in the battle fought atop Pendle Hill. We were attacked by a rabble from Downham village and would have made short work of them—but the intervention of the lamias was decisive. Despite the accuracy of my blades, they persisted in their attack. My knives found their targets half a dozen times, but the lamias’ scales were a better defense than the toughest armor. Many witches had died that night.

  As I approached the moat, I felt a tug, as if I were being pulled back toward my body. Never had I traveled so far from it. The thin, invisible cord that bound me to it could snap and bring about my death immediately. That had always been my fear. Maybe this was why some shamans failed to find their way back and died: They had gone too far and snapped the cord. . . . But did it matter now? I was close to death anyway. Unless Agnes found a cure, little time remained to me.

  I crossed the moat and passed through the thick stone of the tower to find the living quarters in a state of disarray, just as they had been when the soldiers had used their eighteen-pounder gun to breach the walls.

  My clan had escaped through the tunnels, leaving their meals half eaten. Since then, during a brief occupation by the Mouldheels, the breach had been fixed—before the lamias had driven them out in turn. The floor was strewn with rubbish, and in the adjacent storeroom lay sacks of rotting potatoes and moldy carrots, so it was fortunate that my spirit was unable to smell. Spiders’ webs covered in clusters of desiccated flies were strung from every corner. Cockroaches and beetles scuttled across the flags.

  And there among the rubbish was the large locked chest that had belonged to Tom’s mother. It was safe.

  All at once I noticed something that made me wonder. The chest was free of cobwebs. It wasn’t even dusty. And beside it stood a small pile of books. Had they been taken from the chest? If so, who had been reading them?

  Because it had been guarded by the lamias, Tom Ward had left the chest unlocked. But someone had been here very recently, and no doubt they had delved inside. I felt a surge of anger. Where were the two lamias? How had this been allowed to happen?

  I floated up the stairs and out onto the battlements, where I saw two more trunks; they had once contained the dormant bodies of the lamias. Abandoned, both trunks were open to the elements and were covered in moss, like the stone flags beneath them. With everything appearing in shades of green, it was hard to tell whether the wood of the boxes was rotten or not.

  I gazed out over the surrounding countryside. On every side the tower was surrounded by the trees of Crow Wood. All was still and silent. But suddenly I heard a distant cry that sounded like the shriek of a corpse fowl, but somewhat deeper—as if it came from the throat of a much larger creature. Then a dark shape flew across the face of the green half moon. It was a lamia, heading back toward the tower.

  She swooped toward me—four feathered wings, black-scaled lower body, talons gripping something. She circled the tower twice, then dropped her prey onto the battlements close to where I was hovering. It hit the flags with a dull thump, and blood splattered across the flags. It was a dead sheep. The lamia had been out hunting. But where was her sister? I wondered.

  The creature swooped toward the tower again, and instinctively I reached for my blades. Then I remembered my present state. Even clothed in flesh, this would not have been a good place to face the lamia.

  She landed on a trunk, curved talons gripping the wood—which was clearly not rotten. The creature was formidable and would be difficult to defeat even if she could not fly. She was bigger than I was—maybe nine or ten feet tall if she ever stood upright. Those rear limbs were strong and taloned, able to carry a heavy weight such as a sheep or cow, but the forelimbs were more human, with delicate hands that could grip a weapon. The claws were slightly longer than a woman’s fingernails but exceedingly sharp—able to tear open a face or slice into a neck.

  The lamia gazed directly at me, and I suddenly realized that she could see me. It was night, but the moon was surely casting enough light to make me invisible. Either she had exceptionally keen sight or she was using powerful dark magic.

  The creature opened her mouth to reveal sharp fangs and spoke to me in a hoarse, rasping voice.

  “Who are you, witch? What do you want here?”

  I was unable to reply. Perhaps there was a way for a disembodied spirit to communicate, but it was a shamanistic skill that I had never learned. And I was puzzled by the fact that this feral lamia could actually speak. It suggested that she was beginning to shape-shift slowly back to her domestic, almost human form; in this shape, only a line of green and yellow scales running down the length of her spine betrayed her true nature.

  “Sister, I think we have a spy here. Send her on her way!”

  The feral lamia was no lo
nger looking at me; she inclined her head, with its heavy-lidded eyes, toward the doorway.

  I turned to follow her gaze. A woman was standing there, staring straight at me. I looked more carefully and realized that in fact she was more beast than woman. The other lamia had already shape-shifted to a point where she had arms and legs and stood upright. However, she was still a monstrous thing and had some way to go to complete the transformation. She breathed heavily, like a predatory beast about to spring, and her arms were too long—the hands hung well below her knees. The face was savage, but there was intelligence in the eyes, and the high cheekbones showed the beginnings of beauty.

  She cried one word—“Avaunt!”—hurling it against me with palpable force.

  It was a word from the Old Tongue, a spell. The alternative words for that dark spell are “Be gone.” She was driving me away and, in my spirit form, I had no power to resist.

  I felt a tightening of the invisible cord that bound me to my dying body, and I was snatched backward from the battlements. But not before I had seen something else.

  The other lamia was holding a leatherbound book in her left hand. Was it something that she had taken from Tom’s mother’s trunk?

  Suddenly I was being dragged back over the trees of Crow Wood. Everything became a blur, and with a thud I was back in my body and felt pain again. I tried to open my eyes, but I was too weary. Then I heard another thud and realized it was the beating of my heart. It was a slow, ponderous beat; it seemed to me that it was about to fail, weary of keeping the blood coursing through my dying body.

  My life as a witch assassin was over. But I had trained Thorne well. There was someone to take my place.

  I closed my eyes and fell into a deep darkness, accepting death. It was over, and there was nothing more that I could do.

  CHAPTER VI

  THE LAMIA GIBBET

  Malkin Tower is the dark spiritual home of our clan.

  Many grieve its loss, but I care nought,