Spook's: The Dark Army (The Starblade Chronicles) (33 page)

BOOK TEN:
THE SPOOK’S BLOOD

BOOK ELEVEN:
SPOOK’S: SLITHER’S TALE

BOOK TWELVE:
SPOOK’S: ALICE

BOOK THIRTEEN:
THE SPOOK’S REVENGE

THE SPOOK’S STORIES:
WITCHES

THE SPOOK’S BESTIARY

THE SEVENTH APPRENTICE

A NEW DARKNESS

ARENA 13

I AWOKE IN
darkness, shivering with cold, my mind numb and void of memories.

Who am I?

I was lying on my back, staring up at a pitch black starless sky. The new moon hung low on the horizon and it was the colour of blood.

Suddenly, my identity surged back.

I am Grimalkin.

I was dead. I was in the dark. I remembered how I had attacked Golgoth, the Lord of Winter, running towards him with my blades. I’d known that I could not win, but I’d bought time for Alice to fight back.

There had been a moment of freezing cold and intense pain; then I had fallen into the dark. My life as a witch assassin on Earth was over.

I had a moment of regret.

Never again would I be the witch assassin of the Malkin clan. Another would take my place. Neither would I be able to help humans in their fight against the Kobalos. I felt saddened at the thought of the human females who were still slaves of the Kobalos. I had sworn to free them but now could not keep that vow. I hoped that my allies left behind on Earth would still prove victorious. But I could do nothing to help. Death was final.

It was hard to accept that but I shrugged. What had happened could not be changed. I had to let the past go and deal with my new situation.

What opportunities would the dark present?

I sat up slowly and looked around. The ground was damp and flat, with a few dead trees and patches of scrub. There were lights in the distance and the faint outline of buildings. They looked like the cottages found on Earth.

But this was not Earth. So how would it differ from the world I knew? What new dangers would it present?

I began to walk towards the nearest of those lights, aware now of the straps that criss crossed my body.

I was pleased to find my blades in place: short ones for throwing and long ones for fighting at close quarters. I felt under my left armpit. My scissors were also in their sheath. There would be other dead witches here; enemies I had encountered in the past and perhaps new adversaries too. Would I be able to take their thumb-bones to increase my own strength? Was the dark like Earth in some respects? Or did it have different rules regarding dark magic?

I saw a silhouette approaching, walking purposefully towards me. Had one of my enemies already discovered my whereabouts? I drew a short blade and balanced it in my hand, preparing to throw it.

But then the figure – a girl, I saw – called out to me. ‘Grimalkin? Is that you?’

I smiled and sheathed the blade. I knew that voice. We had fought together. It was the girl I’d been training to become a witch assassin like me. Her name was Thorne and we had been close.

Tears are a waste of time. They achieve nothing. But I wept when my enemies slew Thorne. And afterwards I took my revenge. I hunted down every one of her killers.

I looked at her hands. She had died when her thumbs had been cut away, but now they were whole.

‘It’s good to see you, child,’ I told her.

‘It’s good to see you again, Grimalkin,’ she replied. ‘But I wish we were meeting under better circumstances. The dark’s a terrible place. It is hard to survive.’

‘But you
have
survived, child. I trained you well. Now you can teach me what I need to know of this place.’

‘That’s why I came. When a soul arrives here the first hours are the most dangerous. I’ll help you if you will allow it.’

‘I would be a fool not to follow your guidance,’ I said with a smile.

Now the trainee would train her trainer so I followed her towards the distant lights.

We emerged into a narrow cobbled street. At first glance it could have been somewhere in the County – Priestown or Caster perhaps. But the baleful blood moon only lit one half of it, and the cobbles were a shiny black rather than grey; I saw an open drain on our left.

Dark, old blood trickled along it. It could have come from a slaughterhouse or a butcher’s shop. But I sniffed and knew instantly that it was not from animals.

It was human blood and I could smell its coppery taint in the damp air.

On either side of us were houses with small windows illuminated by candlelight, their interiors occluded by black lace curtains that twitched like spider webs.

Were eyes peering from behind those curtains? I felt sure that they were. If so, were they spies, dead humans, witches or other creatures of the dark?

Dead people shuffled along the street towards us. Some showed evidence of the way they had died. There was a man staggering forward with a wide gash in his throat like an extra mouth; he was moaning with pain and the wound was dribbling blood.

If the manner of your death was carried over into this dark domain of the dead then I should be in bloody fragments. Because that’s how I’d died, blasted into shards of flesh and bone by Golgoth, the Butcher God.

I glanced sideways at Thorne. Why did she still have her thumbs? Why was I whole? There was much to learn here.

I lived for challenges. I thrived on combat. This was a whole new world to understand and eventually dominate. My interest was aroused by its potential.

Death might even be better than life!

Then I noticed that the dead walked with their eyes fixed on the cobbles. It was as if they dared not look others in the eye.

‘Why do they walk like that with their eyes cast down?’ I asked.

‘They do that so as not to draw attention to themselves,’ Thorne explained. ‘These are weak souls who are mostly just prey.’

‘The prey of what?’ I asked.

But before Thorne could answer I heard a screech in the distance and simultaneously a big bell began to boom, a terrible tolling that vibrated through the soles of my feet.

Was it some kind of warning? I started to count the peals.

Thorne looked anxious. She pointed to a narrow alley and ran towards it. I followed her into its shadows. At the thirteenth peal the tolling of the bell stopped. In the new silence I could hear screams and wails of terror from every direction.