Spook’s: I Am Grimalkin (19 page)

Now I am amongst my enemies and I begin to cut into them. An archer screams and dies. I must forget that I fought alongside these men so recently. We are in close now and they cannot use their bows. The situation has changed. It is their lives or ours. They know it too. Such is combat. We must kill or be killed. So I kill. I kill again and again, and the screams of the dying seem very far away.

I allow my heart to beat once; blood surges through my arteries.

I whirl and cut and spin and cut again. Enemy blood sprays everywhere; within seconds I will reach the priest. Once beyond his corpse, we will head for the gate. It can be done. We can win. We can escape.

But then, too soon, the breath catches in my throat and there is a sudden pain in my chest. Weakness quickly brings me to my knees. It is the poison of the kretch. I fight against it but all goes dark.

Is this death?

My last thought is of Thorne. She is so young, and now she will die too. I feel a moment of regret at bringing her into danger. Then there is darkness and I forget everything.

But I did not die then. I awoke with a taste of blood in my mouth, bound securely in a dark place.

Iron manacles clamped my hands and feet together; the metal was painful and I could feel it burning my skin. I was lying on my back against a damp wall. I rolled to my left, but half a turn brought me to a halt. There was another chain stretching from my feet to an iron ring in the stone floor.

I managed to sit up and rest my back against the wall. It was very dark, but with my witchy eyes I could see even into the gloomiest corners of that dungeon. It stank of death. Over the years a dozen or more had died here. Sir Gilbert had seemed benign, but clearly he had imprisoned people, some of whom had ended their days in this underground prison. What were their crimes? I wondered.

It mattered little.
My
crime was to be a witch. In the hands of
the
priest I could expect nothing but pain and death. The scryer had once predicted my death, but it had been in combat with a knife in my hand, not chained up helplessly. Scryers are not always completely accurate – there is always room for error.

I consoled myself with the thought that at least they would not find the Fiend’s head. I had hidden it too well. Only very powerful practitioners of dark magic could discover its whereabouts, and they would have to get into this castle first. As the knight had told me, these walls could withstand weeks of siege. Every day that the head was kept out of their hands meant more time for Tom Ward to find a way to finish the Fiend for ever.

The weakness seemed to have passed but it mattered little now. Bound in iron chains, I had little chance of escaping. I still wore my leather straps but their sheaths were empty; my weapons were gone. However, I still had one weapon left – and the last of my magic. These were being saved as a final resort. The time to use them must be chosen with extreme care. After that it would be hopeless.

It was then that I heard the first scream. It was thin and high and lingered on the air: a female cry – the cry of someone suffering unendurable pain.

It came again, and it made the hairs on the back of my neck rise up in dread. Someone was being tortured.

Was it Thorne?

A second later my heart sank as I heard confirmation that it was.

‘Please! Please!’ she begged. ‘Don’t do that – anything but that!’

Thorne was brave and fearless. What kind of torture could make her beg like this, her voice so shrill and tremulous?

I could not stand by and hear her suffer so. But first I had to see exactly what the situation was, and I had the means to accomplish that without using too much of my remaining store of power. I would use shamanistic magic, and project my soul from my body once more.

I chanted the necessary words, getting the cadence exactly right, and concentrated on exerting my will. For a second all became dark, and then I was floating above my chained body again, in a world within which everything was a shade of green. I looked down on myself, at the closed eyes and deep, steady breathing, then drifted towards the dungeon door; my spirit passed right through it.

I emerged in the passage beyond, and it was easy to find the room where Thorne was being tortured. It was the next cell to the left. The door was wide-open, and a guard, his body glowing green with life-force, was standing outside with his back against the wall. Once inside, I took in the situation with one glance.

Thorne lay on her back, tied to a metal table with thick ropes. There was blood on her bare shoulders and arms. A burly man was standing over her, stripped to the waist, his chest hairy and his skin gleaming with sweat. In his right hand he held a bodkin – he had been stabbing the long thin sharp point repeatedly into Thorne’s body. They were trying to find the place where she had supposedly been touched by the Fiend;
the
place where she could feel no pain; the place that proved she was a witch.

All this was completely unnecessary: we were clearly witches; we did not deny it. But the priest hovered close, wearing a smile on his thin lips. He was enjoying this.

And then I understood what it was that had caused Thorne to cry out and beg like that. It had little to do with the work of the bodkin on her body; little to do with the extreme pain that she must be suffering. No – what had caused her so much terror was the tool the priest was holding.

It was a pair of scissors that belonged to me; those with which I snipped away the thumb-bones of my dead enemies. The remainder of my weapons were aligned in a neat row on a small wooden table in the far corner of the room. But the priest must have known something of witch lore because he had selected the scissors.

Boiled up in a pot, accompanied by the correct rituals, thumb-bones bring dark magical power to their possessor. But losing her thumb-bones is one of the worst things that a witch can suffer. It brings great dishonour: all that a witch has achieved in her lifetime instantly becomes null and void. And such a fate is all the more terrible for a witch assassin. Having been exalted, feared and respected by her clan, she immediately becomes nothing more than an object of laughter and ridicule.

Although it is possible for a living witch to survive if her thumb-bones are taken, most die of shock after such a procedure. But even if they are taken after death, there may be consequences. It is believed that a dead witch thus maimed
cannot
be reborn; she cannot return to walk the earth once more. She must remain in the dark for ever.

No wonder Thorne had cried out in anguish at such a threat. For her the worst thing would be the shame and loss of respect. Not only had she hoped to become the greatest Malkin assassin of all time; she wanted that reputation to endure after her death. With two snips of those scissors the priest threatened to take that away from her.

I quickly took in the situation, noting the two other guards standing against the far wall. So there were four men to deal with in the room and one outside in the passage.

I retreated fast, jerking my spirit back into my body as quickly as I could. I opened my eyes and began to use the last of my magical resources, twisting my neck and projecting my tongue out as far as I was able. I curled it around the necklace and manipulated the final potent thumb-bone into my mouth. Next I sucked it, slowly drawing into my body the last of its stored power. That done, I released it and concentrated hard, focusing on the solitary guard outside the cell door.

My final shred of magic was certainly not strong enough to compel him to enter my cell and free me from my chains. But I could bring him to me in another way – by putting an element of doubt in his head; his duty would be to guard the passage, barring entry to the torture cell, but at the same time ensuring that I was safely confined. I used a simple spell that filled his mind with anxiety about me.

Seconds later he inserted a key into the lock, turned it, opened the door, and came into my cell. He took two steps
forward
and stared at me intently. I held my breath. What I was about to attempt was difficult and I would only get one chance.

The wisdom tooth at the back of my lower left jaw is hollow. I’d drilled the deep thin hole myself with a tool I forged specially for the purpose. That tooth contains a fine needle coated with a poison that eats away at a person’s will, making them malleable enough to obey another’s commands. It is a poison to which I have built up an immunity over many years by taking very small doses and increasing them steadily; thus I can store the poisoned needle in my mouth without suffering any adverse effects.

I flicked aside the false top of the tooth with the tip of my tongue and sucked the needle out of the cavity. A second later it was positioned between my lips. I had practised this manoeuvre many times, but the needle was tiny and the guard still some distance away from me: success was far from certain.

At the last moment he started to turn away. Some instinct of self-preservation must have made him aware of danger. But he was too late. I spat the needle towards him with great force and it embedded itself in the side of his neck, just below his right ear. He staggered and almost fell, and a look of bewilderment settled across his face.

‘Look at me!’ I urged. ‘Listen to all I say and obey every word without question!’

The guard stared at me. The poison had already taken effect. He was breathing noisily with his mouth open, and saliva was dribbling from his lower lip and dripping from his chin.

‘Release me from my chains!’ I commanded.

He came forward and did as I asked, but the poison made his movements slow, and he fumbled with the key. At any moment the priest might take Thorne’s thumb-bones, but I had to stay calm and patient and wait to be released.

At last I was free. I took the guard’s weapons – two daggers and a heavy club. I could have killed him then, but there was no need. Instead I told him to lie down and fall into a deep sleep. He was snoring before I left the cell.

Hoping against hope that I would not hear Thorne scream again, I tiptoed into the passage. The moment I showed myself in the doorway to the cell, I attacked. The priest was gripping Thorne’s left hand, the blades of the scissors wide open, as he prepared to snip away the first of her thumb-bones.

Faster than thought, I threw the blade in my left hand. My own weapons, particularly my throwing blades, are perfectly suited to their purpose – finely balanced and calibrated. I also practise with them constantly. This was an unfamiliar weapon and one designed for hand-to-hand combat – not throwing. So I took no chances.

Normally I would have gone for the throat or the eye; either shot would have slain the priest almost immediately. This time I buried my blade deep into his shoulder; it was an easy target and it caused him to drop the scissors. Besides, I had other plans for him; I could always kill him later if it proved necessary.

With the other blade and the club I attacked the two guards. I did not think; my body simply acted, guided by my long years of training, while my mind vibrated with the ecstasy of combat.

Such was my speed that the first died before he could cry out; the second probably survived but the blow to his temple laid him out cold. The whole thing had lasted barely two seconds. Beyond was the burly torturer, still gripping the bodkin he had used on Thorne. He stabbed it towards me, but I dashed it aside with the club and killed him by driving my dagger up under his ribs and into his heart.

The priest was on his knees now, whimpering with pain. I threw the club aside, and when I tugged the blade from his flesh, he screamed; I used the knife to cut the ropes that bound Thorne to the table. The priest’s cry did not alarm me; it was shrill and high and could well have been the shriek of a girl being tortured. It would not bring others to investigate.

We had to get out of the castle, and I intended to use the priest as our hostage. The main barriers to our escape were the remaining archers. They could kill us from a distance.

‘You’re safe,’ I told Thorne, helping her from the table. ‘I know you are hurt and have endured an experience that might have broken the mind of a strong witch. But it is important that you gather yourself and prepare for danger. Are you ready – or do you need a few more moments to compose yourself?’

‘I’m ready now,’ Thorne answered, giving me a brave smile, her voice little more than a croak. I was proud of her at that moment; she had become more than I ever hoped for.

‘Then first we have to retrieve the head of the Fiend.’

After returning my blades and scissors to their sheaths, I tore a strip from the hem of the priest’s cassock and used that to gag him. As I dragged him along, he made no attempt to resist;
he
looked terrified. We reached our chamber without incident, and soon the leather sack was safely on my shoulder once more.

Pushing the priest ahead of us, we reached the castle yard. It was dark outside, with heavy cloud, and three hours at least till dawn. That would make it more difficult for the archers.

There was a soldier on guard, standing with his back to the portcullis. He held a flickering torch aloft as we approached. It illuminated the figure of the priest first, and I saw the man’s expression of deference and obedience change to incredulity and fear as he saw the priest’s terrified face and the blood-soaked arm of his cassock.

I held a blade to the priest’s throat. ‘We are leaving. Prepare our way or he dies!’

With shaking hands the soldier began to raise the portcullis by turning the capstan. The clanks and rattles of the chains sounded very loud in the darkness. That would attract attention. Others would wonder why someone should be leaving or entering the castle at such an hour.

A voice called down from the battlements: ‘Who goes there? Show yourselves!’

We stepped closer to the wall and pressed ourselves into the shadows. The portcullis was rising very slowly. At last it was high enough for us to duck underneath.

‘That’s enough. Now get that door open! Do it quickly!’ I said, gripping the priest by the hair and pressing the blade against his throat.