GRIMALKIN’S TALE
GRIMALKIN, the witch assassin, is deadly indeed and this plays an important role in the adventures of Tom Ward. The challenge is that she belongs to the dark, while Tom fights for the light. Their temporary alliances are frowned on by the Spook, who cannot tolerate any compromise with evil.
This is the story of how the young Grimalkin first decided to become a witch assassin; of how that seventeen- year-old girl challenged Kernolde the Strangler and fought her and her allies in the dark dell east of Pendle Hill.
The Witch Assassin
MY name is Grimalkin, and I fear nobody. But my enemies fear me. With my scissors, I snip the flesh of the dead, the clan enemies that I have slain in combat. I cut out their thumb bones, which I wear around my neck as a warning to others. What else would I do? Without ruthlessness and savagery I could not survive even a week of the life I lead. I am the witch assassin of the Malkin clan.
Are you my enemy? Are you strong, with speed and agility? Have you had the training of a warrior? It matters not to me. Run now! Run fast into the forest! I’ll give you a few moments’ start. An hour if you wish. Because no matter how hard you run, you’ll never be fast enough, and I’ll catch and kill you before long.
All the prey that I hunt I will slay. If it is clothed in flesh, I will cut it. If it breathes, I will stop its breath. And your magic daunts me not, because I have magic of my own. And boggarts, ghosts, and ghasts are no greater threat to me than they are to a spook. For I have looked into the darkness—into the blackest darkness of all—and now I am no longer afraid.
My greatest enemy is the Fiend, the dark made flesh, to whom a witch must make obeisance. But there is one way that a witch can free herself from his fearsome majesty—one way to ensure that he keeps his distance. She need be close to him just once, then bear his child. After that, after he has inspected his offspring, he may not approach her again.
Most of the Fiend’s children prove to be abhumans, evil creatures that will do the bidding of the dark. Others are born to be powerful witches. But a few—and it is rare indeed—are born perfect human children, untainted by evil. Mine was such a child, but I was not prepared for the Fiend’s reaction. With a roar of anger he picked up my innocent baby boy, lifted him high, and smashed his fragile head against a rock. Then he vanished.
For a long time I was insane with grief. And then thoughts of revenge began to swirl within my head. Was it possible? Could I destroy the Fiend? Impossible or not, that became my goal. My only reason to continue to live. I was still young; just turned seventeen, although strong and tall for my age. I had chosen to bear the Fiend’s child as a means to be free of him forever, and once I’d decided to pursue that course nothing could have stopped me. With the same dedication, I now sought the role of witch assassin as the first step to achieving revenge.
A scryer had placed the thought within my head. Her name was Martha Ribstalk, an incomer from the far north. At that time, before the rise of Mab, the young scryer of the Mouldheels, she was the foremost practitioner of that dark art. I visited her one hour after midnight as we had arranged. One hour after she had drunk the blood of an enemy and performed the necessary rituals.
“Do you accept my money?” I demanded.
She nodded, so I tossed three coins into the cauldron.
“Be seated!” she commanded sternly, pointing to the cold stone flags before the bubbling cauldron. The air was tainted with blood, and each breath that I took increased the metallic taste on the back of my tongue.
I obeyed, sitting cross-legged and gazing up at her through the steam. She had remained standing beyond the cauldron, so that her body would be higher than mine, a tactic often practiced by those who wish to dominate others. But I was not cowed and met her gaze calmly.
“What did you see?” I demanded. “What is my future?”
She did not speak for a long time. It pleased her to keep me waiting. I think Ribstalk was annoyed because I had asked a question rather than waiting to be told the outcome of her scrying.
“You have chosen an enemy,” she said at last. “The most powerful enemy any mortal could face. The outcome should be simple. The Fiend cannot approach you, but he can send many against you. He will await your death, then seize your soul and subject it to everlasting torments. But there is something else. Something that I cannot see clearly. An uncertainty. Another force that may intervene. For you, just a glimmer of hope.”
She paused, stepped forward, and peered into the steam. Once again there was a long pause. “There is someone there. A child just born …”
“Who is this child?” I demanded.
“I cannot see him clearly. Someone hides him from my sight. But even with that intervention, only one highly skilled with weapons could hope to survive with the Fiend as her enemy. Only one with the speed and ruthlessness of a witch assassin. Only the greatest of all witch assassins, more deadly even than Kernolde, could do that. Nothing less will do. So what hope have you?” Ribstalk mocked.
Kernolde was then the assassin of the Malkins. A fearsome woman of great strength and speed who had slain twenty-seven challengers for her position. Three each year, as this was the tenth year of her reign.
I rose to my feet and smiled down at Ribstalk. “I will slay Kernolde and then take her place. I will become the witch assassin of the Malkins. The greatest of them all.”
I turned and walked away, listening to the scryer cackling with mocking laughter behind me. But mine were not vain boasts. I believed that I could do it. I truly believed.
Three pretenders to the position of assassin were trained annually, but this year only two had come forward. No wonder, for most believed it was certain death to face Kernolde. The other two had been in training for six months. Thus half a year remained before the three days assigned for the challenges. I was given just that time to gain some of the skills necessary. Barely time for most to learn the rudiments of the assassin’s trade.
But I walked out of that training school after less than a month. The other two trainees had no confidence, and death was already written on their foreheads. Grist Malkin, our mentor and trainer, had already prepared twenty-seven defeated challengers before us. What could he teach me but how to lose and how to die? And one more thing that I have not yet told you. Grist had trained my older sister, Wrekinda. She was Kernolde’s fifth victim. One more reason to kill the assassin.
It was fortunate that I was a hunter and an able blacksmith; fortunate that I was already skilled in the ways of the forest and crafting weapons. Fortunate, too, that as the third accepted for training, I’d be the last to face Kernolde. Even in defeat the other challengers might injure her or, at least, drain some of her strength.
So I trained myself. Worked hard. Invited danger. In a forest, far north beyond the boundaries of the County, I faced a pack of howling wolves. They circled me, moving ever closer, death glittering in their eyes. I held a throwing knife in each hand. The first wolf leaped for my throat. Leaped and died as my blade found its throat first. The second died, too. Next I drew my long blade, awaiting the third attack. With one powerful sweep I struck the animal’s head from its body. Before the pack turned and fled my wrath, seven lay dead, their blood staining the white snow red.
I crafted the best blades of which I was capable. I wore them in sheathes about my body, which grew stronger and faster by the day. I ran up and down the steep slopes of Pendle to improve my stamina, readying myself for combat against Kernolde.
Did I say I hoped the other challengers would weaken the witch assassin? My hopes were short-lived. She slew each with ease; both were dead in less than an hour. On the third night, it was my turn.
The challenge always takes place north of the Devil’s triangle, where the villages of the Malkins, Deanes, and Mouldheels are located. Kernolde chose Witch Dell as her killing ground, where witches are taken by their families after death. Taken there and buried among the trees to rise with the full moon, scratching their way back to
the surface to feed upon small animals and unwary human intruders. Some of the dead witches are strong and can roam for miles, seeking their prey. Kernolde used these dead things as her allies, sometimes as her eyes, nose, and ears; other times as weapons. More than one challenger had been drained of blood by the dead before Kernolde took her thumb bones as proof of victory. But Kernolde often proved victorious without these allies. She was skilled with blades, ropes, traps, and pits full of spikes; once they were captured or incapacitated, she invariably strangled her opponents.
All this I knew before my challenge began. I had thought long and hard about it. In the shadow of the trees I stood outside the dell just before midnight, the appointed time for combat to begin. High to my left was the large brooding mass of Pendle Hill, its eastern slopes bathed in the light of the full moon that was high to the south. Within moments a beacon flared at the summit, sparks shooting upward into the air, signaling the witching hour had begun.
Immediately, I did what no other challenger had done before. Most crept into the dell nervous and fearful, in dread of what they faced. Some were braver but still entered cautiously. I was different. I announced my presence in a loud clear voice.
“I’m here, Kernolde! My name is Grimalkin, and I am your death!” I shouted loudly into the dell. “I’m coming for you, Kernolde! I’m coming for you! And nothing living or dead can stop me!”
It was not just bravado, although that played a part. It was a product of much thought and calculation. I knew that my shouts would bring the dead witches toward me, and that’s what I wanted. Now I would know where they were.
You see, most dead witches are slow, and I could sprint beyond them. It was the powerful ones I had to beware of. One of them was named Gertrude the Grim because of her intimidating appearance, and she was both strong and relatively speedy for one who had been dead more than a century. She roamed far and wide beyond the dell, hunting for blood. But tonight she would be waiting within it, for she was Kernolde’s closest accomplice, well rewarded for aiding each victory.
I waited about fifteen minutes. I’d already sniffed out Gertrude, the old one. She’d been close to the perimeter for some time but had chosen not to venture out into the open and had moved back deeper into the trees so that her slower sisters could threaten me first. I could hear the rustling of leaves and the occasional faint crack of a twig as they shuffled forward. They were slow, but I didn’t underestimate them. Dead witches have great strength, and once they grip your flesh cannot be easily prized free. They begin to suck your blood until you weaken and can fight no more. Some would be on the ground, hiding within the dead leaves, ready to reach out and grasp at my ankles as I sped by.
I sprinted into the trees. I had sniffed out Kernolde. She was where I expected, waiting beneath the branches of the oldest oak in the dell. This was her tree, the one in which she stored her magic; her place of power.
A hand reached up toward me from the leaves. Without breaking my stride, I slipped a dagger from the scabbard on my left thigh and pinned the dead witch to the thick, gnarled root of a tree. I thrust the blade into the wrist rather than the palm, making it more difficult for her to tear herself free.
The next witch appeared from the left, her face lit by a shaft of moonlight. Saliva was dribbling down her chin and onto her tattered gown, covered in dark stains. She jabbered curses at me, eager for my blood. Instead she got my blade, which I plucked from my right shoulder sheath, hurling it toward her. The point took her in the throat, throwing her backward. I ran on even faster.
Four more times my blades cut dead flesh, and by now the other witches would be left behind; the slow and those maimed by my blades. But Kernolde and the powerful old one waited somewhere ahead. I wore eight sheathes in those days; each contained a blade. Now only two remained.
I leaped a hidden pit. Then a second. Although they were covered with leaves and mud, I knew they were there. For I had visited this dell many times during the previous months. I had gone there in daylight when the dead witches were dormant and Kernolde was out hunting prey in distant parts of the County. I had sniffed out every inch of the wood, knew every tree, the whereabouts of every pit and trap.
At last the old one barred my path. I came to a halt and awaited her attack. Let her come to me! Her tangled hair reached down to her knees. She was grim indeed, and well named! Maggots and beetles scuttled within that slimy curtain that obscured all of her face but one malevolent eye; that, and an elongated tooth that jutted upward over her top lip almost as far as her left nostril.
She ran toward me, kicking up leaves, her hands extended to rend my face or squeeze my throat. She was fast for a dead witch. Very fast. But not fast enough.
With my left hand, I drew the largest of my blades from its scabbard at my hip. This was not crafted for throwing; it was more akin to a short sword with razor-sharp double edges. I leaped forward to meet her and cut Grim Gertrude’s head clean from her shoulders. It bounced on a root and rolled away. I ran on, glancing back to see her searching among the pile of moldy leaves where it had come to rest.
Now for Kernolde. She was waiting beneath her tree; ropes hung from the branches, ready to bind and hang my body. She was rubbing her back against the bark, drawing strength for the fight. But I was not afraid, and she looked to me like an old bear ridding itself of fleas rather than the dreaded witch assassin feared by all. Running at full pelt directly toward her, I drew the last of my throwing knives and hurled it straight at her throat. End over end it spun, my aim fast and true, but she knocked it to one side with a disdainful flick of her wrist. Undaunted, I increased my pace and prepared to use the long blade. It was then that the ground opened beneath my feet, my heart lurched, and I fell into a hidden pit.
The moon was high, and as I fell I saw the sharp spikes below, waiting to impale me. I twisted desperately, trying to reposition my body, but to avoid every spike was impossible. All I could do was contort myself so that the one spike I couldn’t avoid was the one that would do me the least damage.
The least, did I say? It hurt me enough. Damaged me badly. The spike pierced my outer thigh. Down its length I slid until I hit the ground hard and all the breath left my body, the long blade flying from my hand to lie out of reach.
I lay there trying to breathe and control the pain. The spikes were sharp, thin, and very long—more than six feet—so there was no way I could lift my leg and free it. I cursed my folly. I had thought myself safe, but Kernolde had dug another pit, probably the previous night. No doubt she’d been aware of my forays into the dell and had waited until the last moment to do so.
A witch assassin must constantly adapt and learn from her own mistakes. Even as I lay there, facing my own imminent death, I recognized my stupidity. I had been too confident and had underestimated Kernolde. If I survived, I swore to temper my attitude with a smitch of caution. If …
Her broad moonface appeared above, and she looked down at me without uttering a word. Not for nothing did some call her Kernolde the Strangler. Once victorious, she sometimes hung her victims by their thumbs before slowly asphyxiating them. Not this time, though. She had seen what I had achieved already and would take no chances. I would die here.
She began to climb down into the pit. She would place her hands about my throat and squeeze the breath and life from my body. I was calm and ready to die if need be. But I had already thought of something. I had a slim chance of survival.
As she reached the bottom of the pit and began to weave toward me through the spikes, flexing her big, muscular hands, I prepared myself to cope with pain. Not that which she would inflict upon me; that which I chose myself.
My hands were strong, my arms and shoulders capable of exerting extreme leverage. The spikes were thin but sturdy, flexible, not brittle. But I had to try. Seizing the one that pierced my leg, I began to bend it. Back and forth, back and forth I flexed and twisted the spike, each movement sending pain shooting down my leg and up into my body. But I gritted my teeth and
worked the spike even harder until it finally yielded and broke, coming away in my hands.
Quickly I lifted my leg clear of the stump and knelt to face Kernolde, my blood running down to soak the earthen floor of the killing pit. In my hands I held the spike like a spear and pointed it toward her. Before her hands could reach my throat, I would pierce her heart.
But the witch assassin had drawn much of her stored magic from the tree, and now she halted and concentrated, beginning to hurl shards of darkness toward me. She tried dread first of all, that dark spell a witch uses to terrify her enemies, holding them in thrall to fear. Terror tried to claim me, and my teeth began to chitter-chatter like those of the dead on the Halloween sabbath. Her magic was strong, but not strong enough. I braced and shrugged aside her spell. Soon its effects receded, and it bothered me no more than the cold wind that blew down from the arctic ice when I slew the wolves and left their bodies on the snow.
Next she used the unquiet dead, the bone-bound, against me, hurling toward me the spirits she had trapped in limbo. They clung to my body, leaning hard against my arm to bring it downward so that it took all of my strength to keep my grip upon the spike. They were strong and fortified by dark magic, one being a strangler that gripped my throat so hard that Kernolde herself might have been squeezing it. The worst of these was an abhuman spirit, the ghost of one born of the Fiend and a witch. He darkened my eyes and thrust his long, cold fingers into my ears so that I thought my head was about to burst, but I fought back and cried out into the darkness and silence.
“I’m still here, Kernolde! Still to be reckoned with. I am Grimalkin, your doom!”
My eyes cleared, and the abhuman’s fingers left my ears with a pop so that sound rushed back. The weight was gone from my arms, and I struggled to my feet, taking aim with the spike. She rushed at me then, that big ugly bear of a woman with strangler’s hands. But my aim was true. I thrust the spear right into her heart, and she died at my feet, her blood soaking into the earth to mix with my own.
Joseph Delaney Page 6
