‘Sir Gilbert has just died and I rule here now. No alliance can be made with witches. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!’ he cried.
‘So if we lay down our arms we die later? What sort of choice is that? I would rather die here, and I tell you this – not all of you will survive. I am Grimalkin, and I have already chosen those whom I will kill!’
‘Surrender to us now,’ said the priest, his voice suddenly softer and more reasonable, ‘and you will receive a fair trial from the Holy Church.’
The flashing lights within my eyes were increasing in intensity. I had to act now if we were to escape.
‘I have heard of such “fair trials”,’ I scoffed. ‘What will you do? Crush our bodies with stones or drown us in the nearest deep pond? This is my answer!’
With that, I drew two blades and pointed them towards the priest. But he smiled grimly and looked confident.
He said just one word:
‘Fire!’
The four bowmen aimed at us and released their arrows.
My speed in combat is not dark magic; it is the magic of my being, the magic of who I am. I am Grimalkin!
A WITCH ASSASSIN needs to be fast. I have that speed. But will it be enough against master archers at such close quarters? And what of Thorne, who is some years short of reaching her full strength?
All these futile thoughts race through my head while my limbs act instinctively.
I have trained my body so that it is a weapon: every sinew, muscle and bone is coordinated; in such a situation it does not need the brain to command it.
Thought is too slow.
I am diving forward, going into a roll. I stop my heart. I lift the blade in my left hand and deflect an arrow with it. Time seems to be passing very slowly. I think of Tom Ward, who has the power to slow time, and I laugh! A witch assassin can do it too – but in a different way. An assassin moves so quickly that it is the movements of others that appear to have slowed down.
It is not dark magic. It is the magic of my being; the magic of who I am; the magic of how hard I have trained. I am Grimalkin!
I exist in the ‘now’ and I deal out death.
I deflect another arrow and glance to my right. Thorne’s actions mirror my own. We divide, converge and divide again, like water flowing over sharp rocks. I have trained her well and could not wish for a better student. When I die, she will replace me. No other Malkin will be able to stand against her in combat.
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.