‘I can’t leave you to die.’
‘You can and must,’ I said, pushing the sack into her hands. ‘Now go!’
I was resigned to dying here. I could do no more. I was spent.
Thorne swung the sack up onto her shoulder – but it was already too late.
There was a howl close behind us and the kretch padded into view.
The beast had changed again since the last time we’d faced it. There was something different about its eyes. They had regenerated since Thorne and I had pierced them with our blades, but not quite in the same way. There was a thin ridge of white bone above each one.
Moreover it was even larger. Its forearms seemed more muscular, the talons sharper and longer. There were more flecks of grey in its black fur too. Was it ageing already? Kretches did usually have a short lifespan. Tibb, the last kretch the Malkins had created, had lived for only a few months.
In one fluid motion, Thorne drew a blade from a shoulder sheath and hurled it straight at the right eye of the beast. It was a good shot, exactly on target. But before the dagger struck, the ridge of bone moved. It flicked downwards, covering and protecting the eye so that the blade was deflected harmlessly away.
With the power inherited from its daemon father, the beast learned and improved itself all the time. Exploit a weakness, and the next time you encountered the creature, that weakness would be no more. Protected by armoured lids, its eyes were no longer easy targets for our blades.
I took a deep breath, tried to steady my trembling body and threw a blade at its throat, targeting a spot just below its left ear. The kretch seemed faster than ever: it brought up its left hand and swatted my blade aside. Again I staggered, and spots flashed within my eyes, bile rose in my throat. Then I saw what Thorne was attempting and cried out, ‘No!’
To no avail. She was brave, but sometimes reckless too, and that latter quality was a dangerous fault that now became her undoing. She was the ten-year-old running at the bear again, a blade in her left hand. And it was that same blade, her first one; the one I had given her as we sat eating bear meat by the fire.
She was faster and far more deadly than the child who had stabbed the bear in the hind leg. However, the kretch was stronger and more dangerous than any bear which had ever walked this earth. And I was unable to repeat the throw that slew the beast before it killed her. I was on my knees, the world spinning, my mind falling into darkness.
The last thing I saw was the kretch opening its jaws wide and biting savagely into Thorne’s left shoulder. She fought back, drawing another blade from a sheath with her right hand, stabbing it repeatedly into the beast’s shoulder and head.
Then I knew no more.
How long I’ve lain here I know not, but I surmise that it is no more than an hour. I come to my knees slowly and am immediately sick, vomiting again and again, until only bile trickles from my mouth.
The kretch has gone. What has happened? Why didn’t it kill me while I lay there, helpless? I stand groggily and begin to search for tracks. There is no evidence that witches have been here – just a muddy circle where the beast and Thorne fought, and then the prints of the kretch setting off northwards.
Has it carried Thorne off in its jaws …?
I begin to follow the tracks. I am still unsteady on my feet but my strength is gradually returning and my breathing begins to slow to a more normal rhythm. I follow the trail of the kretch almost back to the edge of Witch Dell. The trees are still burning, but the magic is no more and the wind has changed direction. It is evident now that perhaps over half of Witch Dell will remain untouched by fire. But it has been cut in two by a broad black belt of burned trees.
Then I see something lying on the ground close to a blazing tree stump. It is a human body.
Is it that of the dead witch who fled the dell? I begin to move towards it, slowing with every step. I do not really want to reach it because, deep down, I already know whose corpse it is. The ground is churned to mud. Many witches have gathered here.
Moments later my worst fears are confirmed.
It is the body of Thorne.
There can be no doubt. No more room for hope.
She is lying on her back, stone dead. Her eyes are wide-open and staring, an expression of horror and pain etched upon her face. The grass is wet with blood. Her hands have been mutilated. They have taken her thumb-bones, cut them from her body while she was still alive.
I kneel beside her and weep.
Grimalkin does not cry.
But I am crying now.
Time passes. How much I do not know.
I crouch before a fire, cooking meat on a spit. I turn it slowly so that it is well-done. Then I break it into two with my fingers and begin to eat it slowly.
There are two ways to make sure that a witch does not return from the dead. The first is to burn her; the second is to eat her heart.
So I have made doubly sure that Thorne’s wishes are carried out. I have already burned her body. Now I am eating her heart. And still I am weeping.
When I have finished, I begin to speak aloud, my voice caught by the wind, spinning it away through the trees to the four corners of the earth.
‘You were brave in life; be brave in death. Heed not the cackle of foolish witches. Your thumb-bones matter nought. They have taken them but cannot take away your courage; cannot negate what you were. For had you lived, you would have become the greatest witch assassin of the Malkin clan. You would have taken my place; surpassed my deeds; filled our enemies with dread.
‘If reputation concerns you, then worry not. Who will be able to say, We took her bones? There will be nobody left to say it because none will live. I will kill them all. I will kill every last one.
‘So rest in peace, Thorne, for what I say I will do.
‘It will all come to pass.
‘I am Grimalkin.’
I am a hunter and also a blacksmith, skilled in the art of forging weapons. I could craft one especially for you; the steel that would surely take your life.
AT DAWN I took stock of the situation and put aside my grief and anger. I needed to be cold and rational. I needed to think and plan.
Why had the kretch not killed me?
Maybe even as she died, Thorne had fought so fiercely, damaged it so badly, that it could not deal with us both? I said that to myself but knew that it was not true. I had been unconscious. It could have killed her, then dispatched me at its leisure.
No – the answer was clear. Even more important than my death was the retrieval of the sack containing the Fiend’s head. That was its prime objective. It was created to kill me, but only as a means to an end – the reclaiming of the head and the resurrection of the Fiend. Thorne had been carrying it over her shoulder. Once the kretch had her in its jaws, it had the sack as well.