I ran straight at her, and Mab flinched to one side as I sped past. I was no longer conserving my strength now. I was running hard through the darkness. Running for my life, imagining Grimalkin closing in on me with every stride I took.At times I was forced to rest. Running made my throat hot and dry, and I had to stop occasionally to slake my thirst from streams. I couldn't afford to halt for long, because Grimalkin would be running, too. They said that she was strong and tireless. My knowledge of the County wouldn't help me too much either. No advantage in taking shortcuts. Grimalkin was County, too-and a skilled assassin, able to track me whichever obscure path I chose.Soon I had another problem. Things started to feel very wrong. Since becoming the Spook's apprentice I'd often been scared, and mostly with good reason. I had two very good reasons now: My pursuit by Grimalkin, and the threat conjured up by Wurmalde and the three covens. But it was more than that. I can only describe it as a sense of foreboding and anxiety. The feeling that usually only comes in nightmares -an extreme dread, a mortal fear. One moment the world was the way it had always been; the next, it had changed forever.It was as if something had entered my world as I ran toward Jack's farm -something as yet invisible-and I knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

That was my first warning that things were terribly wrong. The second was to do with time. Night or day, I've always known what time it is. Give or take a minute or so, I can easily tell the time by the position of the sun or the stars. Even without them, though, I always just know. But as I ran, what my head told me didn't match what I could see. It should have been dawn, but the sun hadn't come up. When I looked toward the eastern horizon, there wasn't even the faintest glimmer of light. There were no clouds now-the wind had torn them to tatters and wafted them east. But when I looked up, there were no stars either. No stars at all. It just wasn't possible. At least, not possible in the world as it had once been.But there was one object very low in the sky: the moon-which shouldn't have been visible. The final stage of the waning moon is a very thin crescent with its horns pointing from left to right. I'd seen that yesterday before the storm struck Pendle. Now the moon should have been totally dark. Invisible. Yet there was a full moon, very low on the eastern horizon. A moon that didn't shine with its normal silvery light. The moon was blood red.There was no wind either. Not a leaf moved. Everything was utterly still and silent. It was as if the whole world was holding its breath and I was the only living, breathing, moving creature on its surface.

It was summer, but it suddenly became very cold. My breath steamed in the freezing air, and the grass at my feet whitened with hoarfrost. Hoarfrost in August!So I ran on toward Jack's farm, the only sound that of my boots beating a rhythmical tattoo on the hardening earth.I seemed to be running for an eternity, but at last I saw Hangman's Hill ahead of me. Beyond it was the farm. Soon I was jogging up into the trees that shrouded its upper reaches. I was so close now; so close to the refuge that Mam had prepared. But the moon was red -so red, bathing everything in its lurid, baleful light. And the hanging men 'were there. The ghasts. The remnants of those -who had been hanged long ago, during the civil war that had torn the whole land asunder, dividing the County, ripping families apart, setting brother against brother.I'd seen the ghasts before. The Spook had made me confront them as -we set off from the farm in the first minutes of my apprenticeship. As a young lad, I'd heard them from my bedroom. They were a fact; they scared the farm dogs, keeping them from the pastures immediately below. But even when I'd confronted them with the Spook, they had never seemed so vivid, never so real. Now they groaned and choked as they slowly turned, suspended from the creaking branches. And their eyes seemed to be staring toward me in accusation -eyes that seemed to be saying that it was somehow my fault; that I was to blame for them hanging there.But they were just ghasts, I told myself, remembering one of the very first things the Spook had taught me. They weren't ghosts -lingering sentient spirits, bound to the scene of their death. They were just fragments, memories remaining while their spirits had passed on, hopefully to a better place. Still, they stared hard at me, and their gaze chilled me to the bone. And then there was a sudden alarming sound: Someone was running up the hill toward me, feet thundering on the hard, frozen ground!Grimalkin, the witch assassin, was behind me, and she was closing in for the kill.

Chapter XXIV

Despair

THE witch was chasing me through the dark wood, getting nearer and nearer by the second.I was running as fast as I was able, weaving desperately, with branches whipping into my face. Twice I ducked aside as cold, dead fingers brushed my forehead. Ghast fingers. The Fingers of the hanging men.Ghasts were mostly phantasms -images without substance. But fear gave them strength and solidity, and I was terrified: terrified of the assassin, terrified of the death that chased me through the wood. And my terror was feeding the dark.I was tired and my strength was failing, but I drove myself harder and harder toward the summit of Hangman's Hill. Once I'd reached it, a faint hope quivered within me. Downhill, the going was easier.

Beyond the trees -was the fence that bordered the northern pasture of the farm. Climb over that fence, and it -wasn't more than half a mile or so to the farmyard and the back door of the house. Then up the stairs. Turn the key to Mam's room. Get inside. Lock it behind me. Do that and I'd be safe! But would I have time for any of that?Grimalkin might pull me back as I climbed over the fence. She could catch me crossing the pasture. Or the yard. Then I would have to wait while I unlocked the door. I imagined my trembling fingers trying to insert the key into the lock as she ran up the stairs behind me.But would I even reach the fence? She was getting nearer now. Much nearer. I could hear her feet pounding down the slope toward me. Better to turn and fight, said a voice inside my head. Better to face her now than be cut down from behind. But what chance did I have against a trained and experienced assassin? What hope against the strength and speed of a witch whose talent was murder?In my right hand I gripped the Spook's staff; in my left was my silver chain, coiled about my wrist, ready for throwing. I ran on, the blood moon flickering its baleful light through the leaf canopy to my left. I'd almost reached the edge of Hangman's Wood, but the witch assassin was very close now. I could hear the pad-pad of her feet and the swish-wish of her breath.As I ran beyond the final tree, the farm fence directly ahead, the witch sprinted toward me from the right, a dagger in each hand, the long blades reflecting the moon's red light. I staggered to my left and cracked the chain to send it hurtling at her.

But all my training proved useless. I was weary, terrified, and on the verge of despair. The chain fell harmlessly onto the grass. So, exhausted, I finally turned to face the witch.It was over, and I knew it. All I had now was the Spook's staff, but I barely had the strength to lift it. My heart was hammering, my breath rasping, and the world seemed to spin about me.Now I could see Grimalkin for the first time. She wore a short black smock tied at her waist, but her skirt was divided and strapped tightly to each thigh to aid running. Her body was crisscrossed with narrow leather straps to which sheaths were bound, each holding a weapon: blades of different lengths; sharp hooks; small implements like shears…Suddenly I remembered what the Spook had pointed out carved on the oak tree soon after we'd entered Pendle. They weren't shears. They were sharp scissors, used to cut flesh and bone! And around the witch's neck was a necklace of bones. Some I recognized as human -fingers and toes -and thumb bones hung from each ear-lobe. Trophies from those she'd slain. She was powerful and also beautiful in a strange sort of way, and looking at her made my teeth tingle. But her lips were painted black, and when she opened her mouth in a travesty of a smile, I saw that her teeth had been filed to points. And at that moment I recalled Tibb's words.I was looking into the mouth of death.