The Spook 9 - Slither's tale (4 page)

‘Hello, Nessa,’ he said, giving me a hideous smile that revealed his sharp teeth. ‘What a good, dutiful daughter you are to keep your promise. Tomorrow, just to show you how grateful I am, I’ll bury your poor father’s body before the rats can spoil it too much. The eyes have gone already, I’m afraid, though he won’t be needing them now. But sadly those aren’t the only things he was missing: the rats had already nibbled off two of his toes and three of his fingers. Still, his body will soon be in the ground and I’ll cover his grave with rocks so that it won’t be dug up by a hungry animal, don’t you worry. He’ll be safe and snug in the dark, being slowly eaten by worms, as is only right and proper.’

That cruel, callous reference to my father brought a lump to my throat and I could hardly breathe. I bowed my head and was unable to meet the monster’s eyes, ashamed that I’d not plucked up the courage to go out and bury my father myself. When I looked up, he gave another grotesque grin, pulled a key from his pocket, spat upon it three times, and inserted it into a lock in the trunk of the tree.

‘This is a door I use only rarely,’ he said, ‘but it’s the only way to get you into the tree in one piece. Enter before me. You are my guest!’

Fearful that he might strike me down from behind, I nevertheless turned my back on him and walked through the open doorway into the tree.

‘Most guests are usually dead when I drag them in here, but you are special to me, Nessa, and I’ve done my best to brighten up the place for you.’

His words horrified me, and my heart began to palpitate, but I looked about me in astonishment. It was incredible to find such well-furnished quarters within a tree. There were thirteen candles, each in an ornate candlestick, set upon a dining table so highly polished that I could see my own reflection in it.

‘Would you like a glass of wine, Nessa?’ the beast asked in his gruff voice. ‘Things always look better viewed through the bottom of a glass.’

I tried to refuse his offer, but when I opened my mouth I could only manage a gasp of fear. His words made me shiver because that was one of my father’s sayings. In fact I could see that it was my father’s wine. I knew that he’d sold ten bottles to the beast the previous autumn: they were all lined up on the table behind the two glasses.

‘Wine is the next best thing to blood!’ he said, showing me his teeth again. He’d opened all the bottles already and they were now just loosely corked. ‘I’m feeling very thirsty and I hope you won’t expect more than your fair share. Four bottles should be enough for a human, don’t you agree?’

I shook my head, refusing the wine. But suddenly a little hope flared within me. If he was offering me wine, maybe he wasn’t going to kill me now after all?

‘It’s good wine,’ the beast commented. ‘Your old father made it with his own hands. So I’ll be only too happy to drink your share too. We wouldn’t want to waste it, would we, little Nessa?’

Again I didn’t speak, but began looking at the room in more detail, my eyes taking in everything: the bottles and jars on the rows and rows of shelves; the long table in the far corner of the room, decorated with what appeared to be the skulls of small animals and birds. My eyes stopped their wandering at the three lambskin rugs that adorned the floor. Each one was a most vivid shade of red. Surely that wasn’t just dye . . . could it be blood?

‘I see that you’re admiring my rugs, little Nessa. It takes a lot of skill to keep them looking that way. Blood never wants to stay red for long outside a body.’

At those words I began to tremble from head to foot.

‘The truth is, Nessa, I’d like to taste a little of your blood now.’ I cringed away from the beast in fear, but he continued, ‘However, you’ve shown good faith by coming to see me, making me believe that you will keep to the terms of the trade I made with your father. That’s why I asked you here. And you have passed the test, satisfying me that you are a person of honour who can keep to an agreement. You have also been gracious enough to refuse the wine, so that now I have all ten bottles to myself. So I am going to let you go home.

‘Be ready at sunset tomorrow,’ he told me as I started to breathe a little more easily. ‘Kill and salt three pigs, but collect every last drop of blood and fill a milk churn with it – the
journey
will make me very thirsty. Pack up cheese and bread and candles and two large cooking pots. Oil the wheels of your largest cart. I’ll bring horses, but you must provide the oats. And take plenty of warm clothes and blankets. There might be snow before the week is out. We will take your two sisters to their relatives, as I promised. Once that is done, I will take you north and sell you in the slave market. Your life will be short but useful to my people.’

I walked slowly home, numbed by what I had learned. But there were practicalities to consider, such as dealing with the farm animals. They would be best given to one of our neighbours. I had a lot to arrange before my life changed utterly. I was going to become a slave of the beasts and would surely not survive for very long.

I ARRIVED AT
the farm at sunset, as promised, and was pleased to find the three Rowler sisters ready for the journey.

Three stout trunks waited in the yard, and upon the smallest sat Bryony, nervously picking the loose threads from her woollen gloves. Susan was standing behind Bryony, her mouth pulled down into a pouty sulk, while Nessa paced up and down impatiently. It was getting colder by the minute. They had sensibly chosen to wear their warmest woollen dresses, but their coats were thin and threadbare, offering little protection against the cold.

I halted at the open gate and stared at the girls, almost drooling. And on looking more closely, I saw that the flesh of
the
youngest sister would be very tender and best eaten uncooked; even raw it would melt off the bone. As for Susan, there was plenty of meat on her older bones, but I knew that her blood would be even better. I would need all the discipline I could muster to keep to the terms of my deal with the dead farmer.

Dismissing such thoughts from my head, I urged my black stallion into the yard, his hooves clattering on the flags. Behind me I led a white mare and a heavy shire horse for drawing a cart in which the two younger sisters could ride. I had stolen all three horses that very day.

I circled the yard three times before coming to a halt, then leaned down and showed my teeth in a wide smile. Terror flickered upon the faces of Bryony and Susan, but Nessa walked boldly up to me and pointed towards the shed just beyond the stables.

‘The cart’s in there,’ she said, her chin raised defiantly. ‘It’s already loaded with the provisions, but the trunks were too heavy for us . . .’

I leaped down from my horse and flexed my hairy fingers close to Nessa’s face, making the bones crack. Then, in no time at all, I harnessed the shire horse to the cart before tossing up the three trunks – feeble humans; the trunks were as light as air.

Then I smirked when Nessa noticed the freshly sharpened sabre at my belt, the one that had belonged to her father.

‘That is my father’s sword!’ she protested, her eyes widening.

‘He won’t be needing it now, little Nessa,’ I told her. ‘
Anyway
, we have no time to waste dwelling on the past. This white mare’s for you. Chose it specially, I did.’

‘Are my sisters to ride in the cart?’ she asked.

‘Of course – they will find it far better than walking!’ I declared.

‘But Susan has no experience in handling a horse and cart, and the going may become difficult,’ Nessa protested.

‘Fear not, little Nessa: the shire horse will be obedient to my will and your sisters will come to no harm. They can simply sit in the back of the cart.’

It had been but the work of a minute to breathe into the nostrils of the big horse and use my magic to claim its obedience. It would follow in my wake, moving only when I moved and halting when I brought my own mount to a stop.

‘You said you would bury my father,’ Nessa accused suddenly, ‘but his body was still lying there. Don’t you worry – I did it myself with the help of my sisters. However, it suggests to me that you don’t keep your promises, after all.’

‘I always keep to a trade, Nessa – but that was no such thing, merely a kind offer that I meant to carry out. Unfortunately I’ve been busy getting hold of these horses and didn’t have time. It was better that you should bury him though. It might make up for running away and leaving him to die alone.’

Nessa didn’t answer but a tear ran down each cheek and she quickly turned her back on me and struggled up into the saddle while her sisters climbed into the cart. As we rode down the track towards the crossroads, the air grew even colder and frost began to whiten the grass.

It had been difficult obtaining three horses at such short notice. I avoid killing or stealing within my own haizda, so had been forced to range far beyond it to acquire the mounts.

I hoped that Nessa wouldn’t notice the dark bloodstain on the left flank of the white mare.

There had been conflict between my people and humans for at least five thousand years. At times, during periods of Kobalos expansion, it had flared up into outright war. Now it was merely a simmering hostility.

My private domain, my haizda, is large, containing many farms and a number of small settlements which I husband and control. But once beyond its borders I become a lone enemy, likely to attract all sorts of unwelcome attention. No doubt, seeing the purrai in my possession, humans would band together and attempt to take them from me by force. For that reason it was necessary to be vigilant and travel mostly by night.

Just before dawn on the third day, it began to snow.

At first the dusting was very light, hardly adding to the white coating of frost. But the snow persisted, grew heavier, and the wind started to blow hard from the west.

‘We can’t travel in these conditions,’ Nessa protested. ‘We’ll get trapped in a drift and freeze to death!’

‘There is no choice,’ I insisted. ‘We must go on. I am hardy and can endure, but if we stop now, you poor weak humans will die!’

Despite my words I knew that the weather would soon bring us to a halt. The girls couldn’t survive more than a few
days
in these conditions so I was forced to change my plans.

Although the heavens were now lit with the grey light of dawn, I decided to take a risk, and after a short rest we continued on our way. We headed west now, rather than south, right into the teeth of what had become a blizzard.

At first Susan and Bryony sat cowering under the tarpaulin in the back of the open cart; both kept complaining of the cold, but I could hardly blame them for that. Then, after an hour or so, they said that when sheltering from the weather under the tarpaulin, the movement of the cart made them feel sick, so for the rest of the day they kept their heads above it, exposed to the bitter cold and damp of the blizzard. It was only a matter of time before they froze to death.

As the light began to fail, we were moving through a dense wood of spruce and pine, heading down a slope towards a frozen stream with an even steeper slope rising beyond it.

‘We’ll never get our horses up that incline!’ Nessa shouted. She was right.

At the bottom on the left stood a five-barred gate. Here, giving the purra a wicked grin, I dismounted. After a good deal of scooping of snow and pulling and tugging, I managed to open it wide enough for the horse and cart to pass through.

A cinder track ran alongside the stream, and upon this the snow had been unable to take a hold: each snowflake had melted immediately on making contact. The track was actually steaming.

I watched Nessa dismount and lead her own mare through the gate. She reached down to test the surface with her fingers.

‘It’s hot!’ she squealed, drawing her fingers away rapidly.

‘Of course it is!’ I said with a laugh. ‘How else could it be kept free of snow?’

Nessa walked back to the cart and spoke to her sisters. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘I’m so cold,’ Susan complained, ‘I can hardly feel my hands or the nose on my face.’

‘I feel sick, Nessa. Can we stop soon?’ Bryony asked.

Nessa didn’t reply but looked up at me. ‘Where are we going?’

‘A hostelry,’ I replied and, without bothering to elaborate, I leaped back onto my horse and took up the lead once again.

The spruce and pine gave way to deciduous sycamore, oak and ash trees, which were waiting, bereft of leaves, for the coming of the short summer. These trees pressed in upon us, dark and thick, their stark branches hooked like talons against the grey sky. It was strange to see such trees so far north.

Soon there came a strange silence: the wind suddenly died away, and even the clop of hooves and the rattle of the cartwheels seemed muffled on the cinders.

Bryony, the youngest child, started to sob with cold. Before Nessa could ride closer to offer her words of comfort, I turned and hissed at her to ensure her silence, placing my finger vertically against my lips.

After another few moments, I saw through the trees a faint purple light that blinked on and off like the opening and closing of a giant eye. Finally a building came into view.