The Spook's Sacrifice (10 page)

Soon after dawn, we continued our journey eastwards.

We travelled for three days, each stage of our
journey more wearisome than the previous. It was hot
and dusty, the sun beating down mercilessly. After the
third day we skirted the town of Yiannena.

At last we saw a ridge of mountains on the horizon,
the ones we needed to cross in order to reach Meteora.
Two nights later, as we made camp on their lower
slopes, those high Pindhos Mountains loomed very
close. Tomorrow, well before noon, we would start to
climb. Beyond the mountains awaited the plain of
Kalambaka, where the Ordeen would emerge from her
fiery portal. Every mile brought us closer to that
ultimate danger.

Ilay wrapped in my cloak some distance from the
cooking fire. It had been a hot day but the stars were
bright and the air was starting to cool a little. Just as I
started to sink into sleep, I was awoken very suddenly
by a loud noise.

It sounded like wild laughter but ended in a frenzied
scream. I looked out into the darkness beyond the fire.
Immediately the sound was repeated from a different
direction and I lurched to my feet, snatching up my
staff.

It was maenads – I felt sure of it. They were preparing
to attack. Other people were stirring about me. In
the light of the embers I saw Bill Arkwright's shaven
head as he kicked dirt across to extinguish the orange
glow of the fire, plunging us into relative darkness. In
the distance the other fires were also being doused, so
that the enemy had only starlight to see us by. I saw
Arkwright crouch down to make himself less of a
target and I did the same.

There were more shrieks and yells, this time from
behind us and much closer. We were surrounded: the
maenads were moving in, about to attack. A shadowy
figure ran straight at Arkwright and he struck out at
her with his staff. The maenad fell at his feet with a
grunt but others were sprinting towards us from all
directions. I could hear their feet thumping on the dry
earth. I whirled to meet an attacker at my left shoulder,
swinging my staff in an arc. I caught her on the head
and she overbalanced and fell away. I pressed the catch
in my staff and the blade emerged with a click. It was
a fight to the death now. Maenads were all around,
some stabbing at me with long cruel blades, others
charging with bare hands. Some had killed already.
The mouth of one was dripping with blood and she
had pieces of skin and flesh trapped between her teeth.
I whirled round, trying to keep them at bay. There
were too many to fight off and I'd no hope of help.
Everyone else was in the same predicament. We were
heavily outnumbered.

My only hope was to break out of the circle so I
attacked, lunging forward, spearing my staff towards
the figure directly before me. She fell back and I leaped
over her body into an open space. The maenads were
still shrieking behind me. I needed to link up with
some of the others – Bill Arkwright and the Spook or
even the Pendle witches – and fight alongside them.

A shadow loomed up from my right, and before I
could spin to defend myself a hand gripped my wrist
fiercely and tugged me away into the darkness.

'Just follow me, Tom!' cried a voice I knew so well.

It was Alice!

'Where are we going?' I demanded.

'Ain't time to talk now. Got to get away first . . .'

I followed at her heels. We ran away from the camp,
heading roughly east. The sounds of pursuit faded, but
when Alice showed no sign of slowing down, I caught
her up and grabbed her arm from behind.

'I'm not going any further, Alice.'

She turned to face me, her features in shadow but
her eyes glittering in the starlight.

'We've got to go back, Alice. They'll need all the help
they can get. We can't just leave like this. We can't
abandon them and think only of ourselves.'

'Your mam said that at the first sign of trouble I had
to get you away. Especially if the maenads attacked.
Get Tom to safety
, she said.
If anything happens to him, it's
all for nothing anyway
. Made me promise that, she did.'

'But why would it be all for nothing? I don't
understand.'

'Whatever your mam's plan is for defeating the
Ordeen, you're an important part of it, Tom. So we've
got to keep you safe. We need to keep heading east.
We'll be up in the mountains before dawn. They won't
find us there.'

Alice sometimes hid things from me but had never
told me a direct lie. I knew that she was following
Mam's instructions, so reluctantly I continued east. I
was still worried about the attack on the camp. There
had been so many maenads down there, but I knew the
defenders would put up a good fight. There was
Mam's warrior guard, but also the witches from
Pendle, the Spook and Bill Arkwright – he would
certainly do his best to break a few skulls.

'Why didn't you or the Pendle witches sniff out the
attack?' I demanded accusingly. 'And surely Mam or
Mab would have known what was coming and raised
the alarm too. What went wrong, Alice?'

Alice shrugged. 'Don't know the answer to that,
Tom.'

I felt uneasy but said nothing more, keeping my
worries to myself. Mam had already told me that her
foresight was waning. I felt sure that the Fiend was
weakening all our powers, making our mission more
and more impossible.

'Come on, Tom. Let's move!' Alice cried, an urgency
in her voice. 'More than likely they'll still be
following . . .'

So we ran on a little further before slowing to a
steady jog.

As we reached the foothills, the moon came up
above the solid bulk of the dark Pindhos Mountains
rising before us. No doubt somewhere ahead there was
a route through them, but we weren't back in the
County and didn't have either a knowledge of
the terrain or a map to refer to. All I knew was that
Meteora was somewhere to the east beyond this range.
So we climbed as best we could, hoping to find our
own way through.

We'd been climbing through a pine wood for about
ten minutes – my body was starting to sweat with the
exertion – when Alice suddenly came to a halt, her
eyes wide. She sniffed the air three times. 'There
are
maenads following us. Ain't no doubt about it. They
must have a tracker.'

'How many, Alice?'

'Three or four. Aren't too far behind either.'

I looked back, but even with the moonlight bathing
the slope, I could see nothing of our pursuers through
the trees. However, Alice was rarely wrong when it
came to sniffing out danger.

'The higher we get, the more chance we've got to
hide and throw 'em off our trail,' she said.

So we turned and hurried on. Soon the trees were
left behind us and the ground became steeper and
more rocky. The next time I looked back I could see
four shadowy figures moving swiftly up the trail. They
were closing on us fast.

We were following a narrow track between two huge
crags rising up on either side when, suddenly, we saw a
cave ahead, its dark maw leading downwards. The path
led straight into it. There was nowhere else to go.

'We could lose 'em down there in the dark. Hard to
track us too,' Alice suggested. Swiftly she sniffed the
entrance to the cave. 'Seems safe enough, this one. No
danger at all.'

'But what if it's a dead end, Alice? If there's no way
through, we'll be trapped down there in the darkness.'

'Ain't got much choice, Tom. We either go in or turn
back and face 'em on the path!'

She was right. We had no alternative. I nodded at
her, and after using my tinderbox to light the candle I
always carried with me, we entered the cave. The
descent was gradual at first and the air was much
cooler than outside. Every so often we paused for a
second but could hear no sounds of pursuit. It
wouldn't be long before the maenads came after us
though. And what if we reached a dead end? That
didn't bear thinking about.

But the path up to the cave entrance was well-worn,
suggesting there was a way through. The tunnel
sloped downwards more steeply now, each step taking
us deeper underground. Suddenly we heard a faint
rhythmical tapping within the wall somewhere to our
right. Almost immediately there was a reply from the
left wall.

'What's that, Alice?'

'Don't know,' she said, her eyes wide. 'Ain't the
maenads. They're back there. Unless there are more of
'em already in the tunnel.'

The tapping became more frantic, building into an
insistent beat made by some insane many-armed
drummer. The sounds were sometimes above but
mostly to the side, as if somebody or something was
keeping pace with us, moving along the tunnel. But we
could see nothing. Either the things making the sounds
were invisible or they were somehow inside the rock.
Could they be some sort of elemental? I wondered.

Eventually the tapping noise faded, which made me
feel a lot better. Now the tunnel had narrowed and was
really steep, the floor uneven and strewn with loose
rocks. After a few minutes we emerged into a wider
passageway that sloped from left to right. Until now
the cave had been dry, but here water cascaded
down the far wall and dripped from the roof above,
and there were puddles on the ground. We followed
the downward slope.

Soon the water underfoot became a shallow fastflowing
stream and we followed its course. We pressed
on, our mood darkening as our confidence began to
ebb away. The depth of the water steadily increased;
eventually it came above our knees, the current so
strong that I found it difficult to stay upright. By now
we could hear the maenads calling to each other
behind us, the sounds getting nearer and nearer.

Stumbling along, thigh-deep in water, we reached
what at first glance appeared to be a dead end. But the
water level didn't seem to be rising any further – if
there was no escape route, it would surely have
already reached the roof of the cave. Only as we got
closer did I notice the extreme turbulence of the water.
It crashed against a wall of solid rock before swirling
back on itself. It was a large whirlpool.

Somewhere below we could hear a great echoing
roar of falling water. It must be dropping through a
hole into a cavern somewhere further underground.
Then we heard shouts and shrieks of anger from
behind us. The maenads were closing on us and we
were trapped against the rock face.

Desperately I held the candle aloft and searched the
walls that hemmed us in. There was a steep upward
slope of scree to our right, a dry area above the water.
To my relief I saw that it led up to small tunnel. I
pointed towards it, and Alice immediately started to
scramble up the loose rocks. I followed at her heels, but
our pursuers were very close now. I could hear their
feet scrunching up the scree, then pounding along the
tunnel behind us.

They'd catch us in moments, I thought. Was it better
to turn and face them now? The tunnel was very
narrow: only one could confront me at a time. That
lessened the odds against us. I decided that it was
indeed time to turn and fight.

I handed the candle to Alice. Then, holding my staff
before me at forty-five degrees, I released the blade,
remembering all that Arkwright had taught me.
Breathe slowly and deeply. Spread your weight evenly.
Let the enemy come to you and make the first move.
Be ready with the counter strike . . .

The maenads were getting ready to attack, working
themselves up into a frenzy, issuing a torrent of words
in Greek. I couldn't understand it all, but I got the
general meaning. They were telling me what they
intended to do to me:

'
We'll rip out your heart! Drink your blood! Eat your
flesh! Grind your bones!
'

The first maenad ran straight at me, brandishing a
knife and a murderous wooden spike. Her face was
twisted into something beyond anger. She lunged. I
stepped back and felled her with a hard blow to the
temple. The one behind her moved towards me more
cautiously. She had insane eyes but a cunning face and
was waiting for me to make the first move. She
wielded no weapon; her hands were stretched out in
front of her. If she managed to get a grip on me she
would immediately start to tear my body to pieces.
The others would rush in to help, and that would be
the end of me.

She opened her swollen lips to reveal the sharp
fangs within, and a nauseating stench wafted over me
– far worse than the breath of a witch who used blood
or bone magic. The maenads fed on carrion as well as
fresh meat and she had strips of putrefying flesh
between her teeth.

Suddenly I heard a loud tap somewhere above –
nothing to do with the maenads. Almost immediately
it was answered by another, much louder and closer.
The sounds began to build towards a deafening
crescendo. Within seconds it was all around us, a
cacophony of rhythmical tapping on the rock. It was
getting louder and louder, an insistent, threatening
thunder.

The maenad lost patience and ran at me. I used my
staff like a spear, jabbing it into her shoulder. She
shrieked and staggered back. All at once, perhaps
loosened by the thunderous noise, rocks began to fall
around us, and there was an ominous rumble
overhead.

Something struck me a glancing blow on the head and
I fell backwards, half stunned. I struggled up onto my
knees and caught a quick glimpse of Alice's terrified
face; then the tunnel came down with a grating, grinding,
rumbling roar, and everything went black.