Read Online Fury of the Seventh Son (Book 13) by Joseph Delaney - Free Book Online

exhausted her.
    I quickly left the room and went to find the Spook. As I expected, he was sleeping in his chair in the kitchen, close to the embers of the fire.
    â€œMy turn, is it, lad?” he asked, opening his eyes at the sound of my boots crossing the flags toward him. He thought I’d come to wake him for his turn to watch over Grimalkin.
    I realized I had to make my mind up about how much to tell him. I decided to leave out any reference to Alice and Grimalkin’s use of the Doomdryte . He would have considered that unforgivable, and the greatest of follies. I just concentrated on the need to recapture the sack and its contents.
    I shook my head. “Grimalkin said I had to go after those witches and try to recover the Fiend’s head.”
    â€œThe odds against you are very great, lad. You might well be going to your death.”
    â€œIt’s death and worse for all of us if those witches reunite the head with the body.”
    I thought my master would protest more, but all he did was apologize.
    â€œI’d go with you if I could,” he said sadly, “but I haven’t the speed for such a pursuit. You’d never catch them with me dragging at your heels.”
    As quickly as I could, I prepared for my journey. I didn’t take my bag because it would only hinder me. I wouldn’t need my silver chain—I wouldn’t be taking any prisoners to bind in pits. Salt and iron would also be an unnecessary encumbrance. So I wore the sword and the two daggers in their sheaths and, carrying my staff, prepared to set off into the night.
    The Spook was waiting at the door. He had a small parcel of cheese for me, which I stuffed into the inside pocket of my cloak.
    â€œI fear for you, lad,” he said, patting my shoulder. “If anyone else were setting out alone after them, I’d think it a hopeless task. But I’ve seen what you can do.”
    Then he did a strange thing: He shook my hand—something that happened very rarely, because nobody wanted to shake hands with a spook. Even when my dad and John Gregory had agreed on the terms of my apprenticeship, they hadn’t shaken hands. He’d certainly never taken mine before.
    It made me feel strange. In one way it was as if he was treating me as an equal—a fellow spook rather than just the apprentice that he was training. Yet I felt a chill in my heart. It seemed like the end of something.
    I headed west at a fast walking pace. When I came to the River Ribble, I had to make a decision: which bank should I follow toward the sea? Had they gone north or south? Soon the river would become too wide and deep to cross. If I got it wrong, I would have to go into Priestown, a place where spooks weren’t welcome, and cross the bridge there. It would mean several hours’ delay.
    I found no evidence of tracks to the north, so I took a chance and crossed at the next ford, opting for the south bank of the Ribble. Then I pressed on, breaking into a jog. Those I hunted had over twelve hours’ start on me. Would they have made camp for the night? That was surely my only real chance of catching them before it was too late.
    According to Grimalkin, there were over a dozen of the Fiend’s servants, with perhaps more joining them on their journey. But such a large group would draw attention, especially as many of them were witches. So would they split up into smaller units? After all, their main objective would be to get the Fiend’s head to the pit where his body was bound—in Kerry, in the southwest of Ireland. One person could do that. They could all converge later.
    Soon after dawn, I had my first piece of good luck. Beside the path was a pond. The earth around it had been churned into mud by cattle, and there were a dozen or more fresh tracks . . . the majority clear imprints of pointy shoes.
    I could find no trace of a man’s boot. I thought Lukrasta might be with the witches, Alice his