The Second Siege
Authors: Henry H. Neff
Tags: #& Fables - General, #Legends, #Books & Libraries, #Children: Grades 4-6, #Fiction, #Myths, #Epic, #Demonology, #Fables, #Science Fiction, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Ages 9-12 Fiction, #Schools, #School & Education, #Magic, #Juvenile Fiction, #Books and reading, #Witches, #Action & Adventure - General, #Action & Adventure, #Fantasy fiction, #Children's Books, #General, #Fantasy
ONTENTS
Cover Page
4. The Riddle and the Red Branch Vault
13. Whispers at the Witching Hour
David Peter Gogolak
1971–2008
1HE
W
ITCH
eep within a tangled corner of Rowan’s Sanctuary, Max McDaniels crouched beneath a canopy of sagging pines. It had been ten minutes since he had spied a dark shape slinking among the gray foothills far below, and Max knew his pursuer would now be close. He unsheathed his knife, using the blade’s coat of phosphoroil to study the crude map he’d scrawled before setting out. The target was still far away. At this rate, he would never make it—this opponent was much faster than the others.
The shrill cry of a bird shattered the pre-dawn stillness.
Something was coming.
Max’s pulse quickened. He scanned the switchback below for any sign of his pursuer, but there was only the smell of damp earth and the low sigh of the wind as it blew tatters of mist across the mountain.
While the sky brightened to a thin wash of blue, Max watched and waited, still as a stone among the roots and nettles. Just when he had decided to abandon his position, a flicker of motion caught his eye.
One of the trees was creeping up the mountainside.
At least he had thought the shape was a tree—one of several bent and broken saplings clinging precariously to the slope’s dry soil. Slowly, however, the silhouette straightened and began to thread its way up through the sparse wood. It crept toward Max’s double, as dark and shrouded as a specter. When the figure was some twenty feet away, Max realized why he had been unable to shake the pursuer.
It was Cooper.
The Agent’s scarred and ruined face looked like a fractured mask of weathered bone. His pale skin was camouflaged with dirt; his telltale shoots of blond hair were tucked beneath a black skullcap. Reaching the base of the tree on which Max’s double was perched, he drew a thin knife from a sheath on his forearm. Its blade gleamed with phosphoroil.
Cooper began climbing the tree with the fluid ease of a spider.
While the Agent climbed, Max’s pupils slowly dilated. Terrible energies filled his wiry form, making his fingers twitch and tremble.
Max sprang from his hiding place.
Cooper’s head cocked at the sound as Max hurtled toward him with his knife.
Max’s weapon struck home, but instead of meeting flesh and bone, it passed through the figure to thud against the tree in a spray of bark. Cooper’s conjured decoy dissolved in a billow of black smoke and Max realized he’d been duped.
Max whipped his head around and spied the real Cooper darting out from a nearby thicket. The Agent closed the distance in five long strides. Shifting his knife to his left hand, Max swung himself up into the tree as Cooper’s blade whistled past his ribs.
Cooper seized Max’s wrist in a grip of iron. “You’re caught,” he hissed.
With a terrible wrench, Max pulled himself free and sliced his own knife across Cooper’s shoulder, leaving a bright line of phosphoroil on the black fabric. Cooper gave a grunt of surprise. Slashing the Agent again, Max leapt clear of the tree.
In one fluid movement, Max landed and bolted up the path, veering right at the fork and dashing up the steep trail he had marked on the map. Cooper trotted after him, apparently unconcerned that Max was increasing his lead with a burst of Amplified speed. Ignoring Cooper for the moment, Max focused his attention on the coppery summit as he raced up the mountain, climbing steadily above the timberline.
It was ten minutes of hard running before Max spied a small white pennant fluttering from a distant peak of jagged rock. He fixed its position in his memory and grinned in spite of himself. Another ten minutes at this pace and he would be victorious.
As he ran on, however, his breathing was reduced to shallow gasps and then to agonizing, frantic swallows as the air became unbearably thin. A quick glance behind revealed that Cooper had closed to a hundred yards and was running as evenly as ever. Max spat on the path and increased his pace, coughing as he climbed.
The pennant was tantalizingly close, but the pain and dizziness became overwhelming. Tiny motes of light swam before Max’s eyes; his mouth felt as if it were full of hot sand. Stumbling over a rock, he spilled onto the ground, scraping his knee and dropping his knife. He scrambled to his feet just as a blurred shape came into view.
Cooper stood ten feet away, his sturdy black boot planted squarely on the hilt of Max’s knife.
The Agent’s eyes were locked on Max. His chest rose and fell in long, slow breaths as he flicked a cold glance at the red patch on Max’s uniform. The patch was a target, positioned directly over Max’s heart. A successful strike there signified a kill and would bring the exercise to an abrupt finish.
“Do you submit?” came Cooper’s clipped Cockney accent.
Max paused a moment, crouched in a defensive posture while he considered Cooper’s offer.
The very instant Max made his decision, the Agent reacted so swiftly, it was as though he had read Max’s mind. Before Max had even moved, Cooper flicked his wrist and sent the thin black knife darting toward the patch on Max’s chest.
The knife’s flight was straight, swift, and unerring. In a blur, Max batted the weapon aside, registering a sting of pain as its blunted edge sliced his palm. Leaping forward, Max caught Cooper with a sharp kick to the knee that forced the tall man backward. Max extended his fingers and his knife flew obediently into his hand. He pressed the attack in a blinding array of subtle feints and blurred strikes.
Rage churned within Max.
How dare they send Cooper!
Cooper was not another student; he was a solitary killer who hunted the Enemy at the behest of his superiors. Today, he’d been sent to hunt Max—a move undoubtedly calculated to humble Max after a string of easy victories. Max pressed his attack at a wild, reckless pace. He would take the Agent’s patch as a trophy and pluck the pennant at his leisure.
Unlike Max’s previous opponents, however, Cooper was not cowed by Max’s uncanny speed and aggressiveness. The Agent had overcome his initial surprise and recovered his knife. The two now danced back and forth, Cooper a disorienting mirage of steel and smoke as he began to gather a cloak of shadows about himself. Soon, Max had to squint to see him at all: an ink-black silhouette against a backdrop of charcoal gray. Under such circumstances, it was difficult to gauge in which hand Cooper held his weapon, or even if a strike was coming. As the darkness deepened, the knife’s glowing point became a sort of will-o’-the-wisp, bobbing and treacherous as it disappeared periodically only to stab forward with exquisite speed and accuracy. Max tried to anticipate the attacks, but there was no pattern to them; he was forced to rely wholly on his reflexes.
There was a rush of air behind him. Max parried the thrust, seeking to catch the slim blade in his guard, but Cooper retreated, and Max’s counterattack met empty air. He seethed. Again came the knife—three stabs, faster than a boxer’s jab at Max’s chest. Max knocked Cooper’s hand aside and managed a pair of desperate slashes before the Agent slipped beyond his reach.
“Show yourself!” Max spat in frustration.
There was no answer. The darkness swirled about him, thick as pea soup.
Finally, Cooper made a mistake. Max heard a sudden shuffling behind him. Turning, he saw a flash of phosphoroil arcing low and wide toward his midsection. Swift as a serpent, Max stabbed downward and caught the blade within his parrying guard. Cooper stopped a moment—off balance and close enough so that Max could see a tantalizing glimpse of the Agent’s target patch. Max grinned and went for the kill.
As he stabbed, however, he felt the Agent’s weight shift, and Cooper’s hand locked onto his elbow. Using Max’s momentum, Cooper sent him flying while the Agent slipped out of harm’s reach, as smooth and fluid as an eel. Landing hard on his backside, Max felt a sudden point of pressure on his chest. Cooper’s voice dispelled the silence.
“Stop.”
The command was delivered with calm, taut finality.
The unnatural darkness subsided into wisps on the wind. By the time it had gone, Max saw that Cooper had backed away to a distance of some twenty feet. For a few quiet moments, he merely watched Max. Apparently satisfied the fight was over, the Agent tapped a small receiver in his ear.
“This is Cooper,” he said, his eyes still locked on Max. “I’m with him now. We’re finished . . . outcome as expected.”
Max watched as Cooper listened patiently to someone on the other end. Then the Agent switched off the receiver and turned to Max.
“We’re to head back,” he muttered.
Max got to his feet and craned his neck at the white pennant fluttering above them.
“Leave it be,” said Cooper. “I’ve won.”
Max followed the man’s casual gesture to the red patch on Max’s chest. A bright smear of phosphoroil was glowing at the center.
“Are you sure?” asked Max, glowering at the Agent before succumbing to a series of dry, hacking coughs.
Cooper glanced down at his own chest, where a glowing stab of phosphoroil was burned into the blood-red patch like a brand. A dozen phosphorescent scars laced the Agent’s chest and arms.
The Agent surveyed Max’s handiwork with a grim expression. He tapped his ear receiver.
“Retraction. Outcome unexpected. Both parties eliminated.”
Cooper removed the receiver.
“Who was that?” asked Max.
“Director Richter,” said Cooper. “We need to be back by noon.”
Max groaned, but Cooper would have none of it.
“You should be happy to run,” growled the Agent while Max retied his shoes. “Your conditioning is very poor.”
“No one else gets chased up here by Agents,” muttered Max, feeling drained and snappish.
“You’re exhausting your options,” replied Cooper stoically. “The older students complained. They refuse to train with you—they think the results are hurting their placement applications. It will be Agents or Mystics from now on.”
Max thought of the terrified Sixth Year he had tracked earlier in the week and how the boy had stormed out of the Sanctuary following his rapid defeat.
“I promise I won’t get them so fast,” Max said with a mischievous grin. “I’ll let them do better.”
Cooper scowled at him.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ve plenty to work on. Pleased with your little yellow dot, are you?”
“A little,” Max admitted, reddening and studying his shoe tops.
Cooper counted off Max’s errors in a flat, clipped staccato.
“I could have approached your hiding place from any direction. A basic birdcall let me get within thirty feet of you. Your decoys were crude and childish—”
“I get it,” said Max quietly, feeling his face burn.
“No,” said Cooper, stooping to look him squarely in the eye. “You don’t. If this had been for real, there’d be no yellow dot on my chest. You’d be crossing the river before you ever even saw me.”
Max said nothing.
“One more thing,” said Cooper, sheathing his knife and turning his taut, scarecrow face toward Max. “Your self-control is atrocious—your emotions give away your intentions. A well-trained opponent will know what you’re planning even before you do. Fatal flaw.”
Max scowled and swallowed his response while Cooper turned and broke into a trot.
By the time they reached the Sanctuary clearing, the sun was already high above the eastern dunes. The clearing’s tall grasses waved and rippled in the breeze, accented here and there by splashes of wildflowers and jutting pillars of sun-bleached rock. In the distance, dozens of small figures fidgeted nervously in the blue shadows of the Warming Lodge.
“Can we watch the First Years?” asked Max, tugging at his black shirt, which was slick with sweat.
Cooper shook his head just as Nolan, Head of Grounds, led YaYa out onto the porch. Max grinned as the First Years backed away in a sudden stampede. He had been in their shoes just a year ago, terrified at the sight of that rhino-sized shaggy black lioness now settling herself onto the porch.
Nolan waved as they approached.
“Heard you two would be comin’ this way. Everybody still in one piece?” he inquired in his mellow drawl, his bright blue eyes twinkling with good humor. He smacked his thick leather gloves, scattering stray bits of hay.
Cooper merely nodded, seemingly oblivious to the stares and whispers of the students.
“My oh my,” muttered Nolan, taking a long, curious look at the yellow dot on Cooper’s patch. “Everyone, this is Cooper and Max McDaniels. Max is a Second Year—”
Nolan blinked suddenly; his smile faded.
“Now that I think of it,” he continued, “some of you have met Max before.”
Several gasps of recognition swept through the students. A few had indeed seen Max before; last spring he had rescued them from a terrible fate in the crypt of Marley Augur. Max gave a little wave, anxious now to keep moving.
“Director’s waiting,” explained Cooper, ushering Max along.
“I know,” said Nolan soberly. “Glad you’re here for this, Cooper. Don’t let her get too close to our boy, eh?”
Cooper nodded but kept them walking briskly away. Max held off on his questions until they closed the Sanctuary’s thick, mossy door behind them.
“What’s Nolan talking about?” he asked cautiously. “Who isn’t supposed to get close to me?”
Cooper’s gaze followed the flight of a bright red butterfly while Old Tom chimed eleven.
“A witch,” he murmured. “She arrived before dawn.”