The Last Apprentice: Night Of The Soul-Stealer Part 6

I did as I was told, using at least two inches of the dark mixture. Then I boiled the kettle and filled the cup almost to the brim with hot water.

'Drink this, Meg,' the Spook told her as I handed her the steaming cup. 'You'll need this because the weather's turning colder and it might make your bones ache.'

Meg smiled at him and within ten minutes she'd drained the cup and her head was already beginning to nod. The Spook handed me the key to the gate on the stairs and told me to lead the way. Then he picked Meg up as if she were a baby and followed hard on my heels.

I unlocked the gate, then went down the steps and waited at the middle door of the three while my master carried Meg into the darkness inside. He left the door open and I could hear every word he said to her.

'Goodnight, my love' he said. 'Dream about our garden.'

I'm sure I shouldn't have heard that, but I had, and I did feel a little embarra.s.sed to hear my master of all people talk like that.

And what garden was the Spook talking about? Did he mean the gardens at Chipenden? If so, I hoped he meant the western garden with its view of the fells. The other two, with their boggart pits and graves for witches, didn't bear thinking about.

Meg said nothing in reply, but the Spook must have woken her up when he came out and locked the door behind him, because she suddenly started to cry like a child afraid of the dark. Hearing that sound, the Spook paused and we waited outside the door a long time until the crying finally subsided and was replaced by another very faint sound. I could hear the breath whistling out through Meg's teeth as she exhaled,.

'She's all right now' I said quietly to my master. 'She's asleep. I can hear her snoring.'

'Nay, lad!' said the Spook, giving me one of his withering glances. 'It's more like singing than snoring!'

Well, it certainly sounded like snoring to me, and all I could think was that the Spook didn't like even the slightest criticism of Meg. Anyway, that said, we went up, locked the gate behind us and packed our things for the journey.

We went east, climbing deeper into the clough, until it grew so narrow that we were almost walking in the stream and there was just a tiny crack of grey sky above us. Then, to my surprise, we came to some steps cut into the rock.

They were narrow, steep steps, slippery with patches of ice. I was carrying the Spook's heavy bag, which meant that, if I slipped, I only had one hand free to save myself.

Following my master, I managed to get to the top in one piece and it was certainly worth the climb because I was back in the fresh air again, with wide open s.p.a.ces on every side. The wind was gusting fit to blow us right off the moor and the clouds were dark and menacing, racing so close above our heads that it felt like you could almost reach up and touch them.

As I told you, being a moor, Anglezarke was high but a lot flatter than the fells we'd left behind in Chipenden. There were some hills and valleys though, some of them very strange shapes. One in particular stood out because it was a smallish mound, too rounded and smooth to be natural. As we pa.s.sed close to it, I suddenly recognized it as the barrow where I'd seen the Hursts' son.

'That's where I saw Morgan,' I told the Spook. 'He was standing right on top of it.'

'No doubt he was, lad. He always was fascinated by that barrow and just couldn't stay away. They call it the Round Loaf, you know, because of its shape,' said the Spook, leaning on his staff. 'It was built in ancient times, by the first men who came to the County from the west. They landed at Heysham, as you well know.'

'What's it for?' I asked.

'Few know for sure, but many are daft enough to make a guess. Most think it's just a barrow where an ancient king was laid to rest with all his armour and gold. Greedy folks have dug deep pits, but for all their hard work, they found nothing. Do you know what the word Anglezarke means, lad?'

I shook my head and s.h.i.+vered with cold.

'Well, it means 'pagan temple'. The whole moor was a vast church, open to the skies, where that ancient people wors.h.i.+pped the Old G.o.ds. And, as your mam told you, the most powerful of those G.o.ds was called Golgoth, which means Lord of Winter. This mound, some say, was his special altar. To begin with, he was a powerful elemental force, a spirit of nature who loved the cold. But because he was wors.h.i.+pped so long and so fervently, he became aware and wilful, sometimes lingering long after his allotted season and threatening a year-long grip of ice and snow. Some even think that it was Golgoth's power that brought about the last Ice Age. Who knows the truth? In any event, in the depths of winter, at the solstice, fearing that the cold would never end and that spring would never return, people made sacrifices to appease him. Blood sacrifices, they were, because men never learn.'

'Animals?' I asked.

'Humans, lad - they did it so that, gorged on the blood of those victims, Golgoth would fall satisfied into a deep sleep, allowing spring to return. The bones of those sacrificed still remain. Dig anywhere within a mile of this spot and it won't be long before you find bones a-plenty.

'This mound is something else that's always bothered me about Morgan. He couldn't keep away from the place and was always interested in Golgoth -far too much for my liking - and he probably still is. You see, some folks think Golgoth could be the key to achieving magical supremacy, and if a mage like Morgan were to tap into the power of Golgoth, then the power of the dark could overwhelm the County.'

'And you think Golgoth is still here, somewhere on the moor ...'

'Aye. It's said that he sleeps far beneath it. And that's why Morgan's interest in Golgoth is dangerous. The thing is, lad, the Old G.o.ds wax strong when they're wors.h.i.+pped by foolish men. Golgoth's power waned when that wors.h.i.+p ceased and he fell into a deep slumber. A slumber we don't want him waking from.'

'But why did the people stop wors.h.i.+pping him? I thought they were afraid that the winter would never end?'

'Aye, lad, that's true, but other circ.u.mstances are sometimes more important. Perhaps a stronger tribe moves onto the moor with a different G.o.d. Or maybe crops fail and a people have to move on to a more fertile area. The reason is lost in time, but now Golgoth sleeps. And that's the way I want it to stay. So keep away from this spot, lad, that's my advice. And let's try to keep Morgan away from it too. Now come on, there can't be much daylight left, so we'd better press on.'

With those words the Spook led us away, and an hour later we came down off the moor and moved northwards, arriving at Stone Farm before dark. William, the farmer's son, was waiting for us at the end of the lane, and we made our way up the hill towards the farm just as the light was beginning to fail. But before visiting the farmhouse, the Spook insisted on being taken up to the place where the body had been found.

A track from the back farmyard gate led straight up onto the moor, which was dark and threatening against the grey sky. Now that the wind had dropped, the clouds were moving sluggishly and looked heavy with snow.

About two hundred paces brought us to a clough far smaller than the one where the Spook's house was built but no less gloomy and forbidding. It was just a narrow ravine full of mud and stones, split in two by a fast-moving shallow stream.

There seemed nothing much to see but I didn't feel at ease and neither did William. His eyes were rolling in his head and he kept spinning round suddenly as if he thought something might be sneaking up on him from behind. It was funny to watch but I was too scared to manage even a smile.

'So this is the place?' asked the Spook as William came to a halt.

William nodded and indicated a patch of ground where the tussocks of gra.s.s had been flattened.

'And that's the boulder we lifted from his head,' he said, pointing at a large lump of grey rock. 'It took two of us to lift it!'

The rock was big and I stared at it gloomily, scared to think that something like that could drop from the sky. It made me realize how dangerous a stone-chucker could be.

Then, very suddenly, stones did start to fall. The first was a small one, the noise of it hitting the gra.s.s so faint that I only just heard it above the gurgling of the stream. I looked up into the clouds just in time to see a far larger stone fall, narrowly missing my head. Soon stones of all sizes were dropping around us, some large enough to do us serious damage.

The Spook pointed back towards the farm with his staff and, to my surprise, began to lead the way back down the clough. We moved fast, and I struggled to keep up, the bag getting heavier with every step, the mud slippery beneath my feet. We only came to a breathless halt when we reached the farmyard.

The stones had stopped falling but one of them had already done some damage. There was a cut on the Spook's forehead and blood was trickling down. It wasn't serious and no threat to his health, but seeing him injured like that made me worried.

The stone-chucker had killed a man, and yet somehow my master - who wasn't in his prime - was going to have to deal with it. I knew he really was going to need his apprentice tomorrow. I knew it would be a terrifying day.

Henry Luddock made us very welcome when we got back to the farm. Soon we were seated in his kitchen in front of a blazing log fire. He was a big, jovial, red-faced man who hadn't let the threat from the boggart get him down. He was sad at the death of the shepherd he'd hired, but was kind and considerate towards us and wanted to play the host by offering us a big supper.

'Thanks for the offer, Henry' the Spook told him, declining politely. 'It's very kind of you but we never work on a full stomach. That's just asking for trouble.

But you just go ahead and eat what you want anyway' To my dismay that's exactly what the Luddock family did. They sat down and tucked into big helpings of veal pie, while a measly mouthful of pale yellow cheese and a gla.s.s of water each was all the Spook allowed us.

So I sat there nibbling my cheese, thinking about Alice in that house where she was so unhappy. If it hadn't been for this boggart, the Spook might have dealt with Morgan and made things better. But with a stone-chucker to face, who knew when he would get round to it now.

There were no spare bedrooms at the Luddocks' and the Spook and I spent an uncomfortable night, each wrapped in a blanket on the kitchen floor, close to the embers of the fire. Cold and stiff, we were up the following morning well before dawn and set off for the nearest village, which was called Belmont. It was downhill all the way, which made progress easy, but I knew that soon we'd have to retrace every step, making the hard climb back up to the farm.

Belmont wasn't very large - just a crossroads with half a dozen houses and the smithy we'd come to visit. The blacksmith didn't seem very pleased to see us, but that was probably because our knocking got him out of bed. He was big and muscular like most smiths, certainly not a man to trifle with, but he looked at the Spook warily and seemed ill at ease. He knew my master's trade all right.

'I need a new axe,' said the Spook.

The smith pointed to the wall behind the forge, where a number of axe-heads were displayed, roughly shaped ready for their final finish.

The Spook chose quickly, pointing to the biggest. It was a huge double blade and the blacksmith looked my master up and down quickly, as if judging whether he was big and strong enough to wield it.

Then, without further ado, he nodded, grunted and set to work. I stayed by the forge, watching while the blacksmith heated, beat and shaped that axe-head on his anvil, every so often quenching it in a tub of water with a great sizzle and cloud of steam.

He hammered it onto a long wooden shaft before sharpening it at the grindstone, the sparks flying. In all, it was almost an hour before the blacksmith was finally satisfied and pa.s.sed the axe to my master.

'Next I need a large s.h.i.+eld,' said the Spook. 'It has to be big enough to protect the two of us yet light enough for the lad to hold at arm's length above his head.'

The blacksmith looked surprised but went into his store at the back and returned with a large circular s.h.i.+eld. It was made of wood with a metal rim. It also had an iron centre-boss with a spike, so the blacksmith began by removing this and replacing it with more wood to make the s.h.i.+eld lighter. Then he covered the outside of the s.h.i.+eld with tin.

By gripping its outer edge, I was now able to hold the s.h.i.+eld above my head with both arms outstretched. The Spook said that wouldn't do because my fingers could get hurt and I might drop the s.h.i.+eld. So the usual leather strap was replaced by two wooden handles just inside the rim.

'Right, let's see what you can do,' said the Spook.

He made me hold the s.h.i.+eld in different positions at different angles and then, satisfied at last, he paid the blacksmith and we set off back towards Stone Farm.

We went up onto the fell right away. The Spook had to leave his staff behind because he had his hands full carrying the axe and his own bag. I was struggling with the heavy s.h.i.+eld, glad that he didn't expect me to carry his bag as well. We climbed until we reached the place where the man had died. Then the Spook paused and looked hard into my eyes.

'You need to be brave now, lad. Very brave. And we have to work quickly,' he told me. 'The boggart's living under the roots of an old thorn tree up yonder. We have to cut down and burn the tree to drive it out.'

'How do you know that?' I asked. 'Do stone-chuckers usually live under tree roots?'

'They live anywhere that takes their fancy. But generally boggarts do like living in cloughs, and particularly under the roots of thorn trees. The shepherd was killed at the foot of this clough right here. And I know there's a thorn tree further up because that's exactly where I dealt with the last one, almost nineteen years ago, when young John was just a babe in arms and Morgan was my apprentice. But that's given us a problem because whereas that boggart listened to a bit of friendly persuasion and moved on when I asked, this is a rogue stone-chucker that's already killed so words won't be enough.'

So then, heading due north, we entered the western edge of the clough, the Spook setting a fast pace ahead of me: soon we were both breathing hard. The mud gradually gave way to loose stones, making it difficult underfoot.

At first we kept close to the top of the clough, but then the Spook led the way down the scree until we reached the edge of the stream. It was shallow and narrow but still it boiled across the stones, rus.h.i.+ng downwards with such force that it would have been difficult to cross. We continued upwards against its flow, the banks on either side rising up steeply until only a narrow crack of sky was visible overhead. Then, despite the noise of the stream, I heard the first pebble drop into the water just ahead.

It was something I'd been expecting, and soon there were others, forcing me to take the s.h.i.+eld from my back and try to hold it over our heads. The Spook was taller than me so I had to hold it up high, and it wasn't long before my shoulders and arms began to ache. Even though I held it at arm's length, the Spook was forced to stoop and progress wasn't comfortable for either of us.

Soon we came in sight of the thorn tree. It wasn't particularly big but it was an ancient tree, black and twisted, with gnarled roots that resembled claws. It stood defiant, having survived the worst of the weather for a hundred years or more. It was a good place for a boggart to make its home, especially a stone-chucker like this, a type that avoided human company and liked to be alone.

The falling stones were getting larger by the minute, and just as we reached the tree, one bigger than my fist clanged onto the s.h.i.+eld, nearly deafening me.

'Hold it steady lad!' the Spook shouted.

Then the stones stopped falling.

'Over there . . .' My master pointed, and in the darkness below the tree's branches I could see the boggart starting to take shape. The Spook had told me that this type of boggart was really a spirit and had no flesh, blood and bone of its own; but sometimes, when it tried to scare people, it covered itself with things that made it visible to human eyes. This time it was using the stones and mud from beneath the tree. They rose up in a big whirling wet cloud and stuck to it so that its shape could be seen.

It wasn't a pretty sight. It had six huge arms which, I suppose, were pretty useful for throwing stones. No wonder it could hurl so many so fast. Its head was enormous too, and its face covered with mud, slime and pebbles that moved when it scowled at us, just as if an earthquake were taking place underneath. There was a black slit for a mouth and two large black holes where its eyes should have been.

Ignoring the boggart and wasting no time, as stones started to shower down again, the Spook went straight for the tree, the axe already swinging down as he reached it. The gnarled old wood was tough and it took quite a few blows to lop off its branches. I'd lost sight of the boggart, being too busy trying to hold the s.h.i.+eld up and ward off the worst of the stones that came our way. The s.h.i.+eld seemed to be getting heavier by the minute and my arms were trembling with the effort of holding it aloft.

The Spook attacked the trunk, striking at it in a fury. I knew then why he'd chosen an axe with a double-blade: he swung it both forehand and backhand in huge scything arcs, so that I felt in danger of my life. Looking at him, you'd never have guessed he was so strong. He was a long way from being young, but I knew then, by the way the axe-blade bit deep into the wood, that despite his age and recent ill health he was still at least as strong as the blacksmith and would have made two of my dad.

The Spook didn't chop the tree right down; he split the trunk, then put down the axe and reached into his black leather bag. I couldn't see what he was doing properly because the stones began to rain down harder than ever. I glanced sideways and saw the boggart begin to ripple and expand: huge bulging muscles were erupting all over its body like angry boils. And, as more mud and pebbles flew up, it almost doubled in size. Then two things happened in quick succession.

The first was that a huge boulder fell out of the sky to our right and buried itself half in the ground. If that had landed on top of us, the s.h.i.+eld would have been useless. We'd both have been flattened. The second was that the tree suddenly burst into flames. As I said, I didn't get a chance to see how the Spook managed it, but the result was certainly spectacular. The tree went up with a great whoosh and flames lit up the sky, sparks crackling away in every direction.

When I looked left, the boggart had vanished, so with trembling arms I lowered the s.h.i.+eld and rested its lower edge on the ground. No sooner had I done so than the Spook picked up his bag, leaned the axe against his shoulder and, without a word or a backward glance, set off down the fell.

'Come on, lad!' he called after me. 'Don't dawdle!'

So I picked up the s.h.i.+eld and followed, not risking even a glance backwards.

After a while the Spook slowed down and I caught him up. Ts that it?' I asked. Ts it over?'

'Don't be daft!' he said, shaking his head. 'It's only just begun. That was just the first step. Henry Luddock's farm is safe now but that boggart will strike again somewhere else very soon. There's a lot worse to come yet!'

I was disappointed because I'd thought the danger was over and our task completed. I'd been really looking forward to a hot, tasty meal, but now the Spook had dashed my hopes because we'd have to carry on fasting.

As soon as we got back, he told Henry Luddock that he'd got rid of the boggart. The farmer thanked him and promised to pay him the following autumn, directly after the harvest; five minutes later we were on our way back to the Spook's winter house.

'Are you sure that boggart will come back? I really thought the job was done,' I told the Spook as we crossed the moor, the wind bl.u.s.tering at our backs.

'In truth, the job's half done, lad, but the worst is yet to come. Just as a squirrel buries acorns to eat later, a boggart stores reserves of power where it lives. Mercifully, that's now gone, burned away with the tree. We've won the first big battle, but after a couple of days spent gathering strength, it'll start plaguing somebody else.'

'So are we going to bind it in a pit?'

'Nay lad. When a stone-chucker kills so casually, it needs to be finished off for good!'

'Where will it get new strength from?' I asked.

'Fear, lad. That's how it'll do it. A stone-chucker feeds upon the fear of those it torments. Some poor family nearby is in for a night of terror. I don't know where it'll go and who it'll choose so there's nothing I can do about it and no warnings to be given. It's just one of the things we have to accept. Like killing that poor old tree. I didn't want to do it but I had little choice. That boggart'll keep moving, gathering strength, but within a day or two it'll find itself a new, more permanent home. And that's when somebody will come and ask us for help.'

'Why did the boggart become rogue in the first place?' I asked. 'Why did it kill?'

'Why do people kill?' asked the Spook. 'Some do and some don't. And some who start out good end up bad. I reckon this stone-chucker got fed up with being just a hall-knocker and lurking around buildings scaring people with raps and b.u.mps in the night. It wanted more: it wanted the whole hillside to itself and planned to drive poor old Henry Luddock and his family out of their farm. But now, because we've destroyed its home, it'll need a new one. So it'll move further down the ley'

I nodded.

'Well, maybe this'll cheer you up,' he said, pulling a piece of yellow cheese out of his pocket. He broke a small piece off and handed it to me. 'Chew on this,' he told me, 'but don't swallow it all at once.'

Once back at the Spook's house, we brought Meg up from the cellar and I settled back into my routine of ch.o.r.es and lessons. But there was one big difference. As we were expecting boggart trouble, the fast continued. It was torture for me to watch Meg cook her own meals while we went hungry. We had three full days of starving ourselves until my stomach thought my throat had been cut, but at last, about noon on the fourth day, there came a loud knocking on the back door...

'Well, go and see to it, lad!' commanded the Spook. 'No doubt it's the news we've been waiting for.'

I did as I was told, but when I opened the door, to my astonishment, I found Alice waiting there.

'Old Mr Hurst sent me,' Alice said. 'There's boggart trouble down at Moor View Farm. Well? Aren't you going to ask me in?'

Chapter 8.

The Spook had been right in his prediction but he was as surprised as I'd been when I showed our visitor into the kitchen. 'The boggart's turned up at the Hursts' farm' I told him. 'Mr Hurst's asked for help.'