I was up in an instant, whirling my staff again desperately, trying to fend the three dogs off. But they were brave hunters, trained by Bill Arkwright to hunt dangerous water creatures across the marshes north of Caster. If they could attack a water witch, despite the threat from her deadly talons, they would certainly not fear me. This was to the death. It was them or me.

Then I surprised even myself. With a click I released the retractable blade in my staff. It wasn’t a conscious decision: something deep inside me had chosen not to die. Not here. Not now.

I was shocked at what I’d done. Could I really bring myself to kill these dogs? My head was suddenly filled with justifications for my instinctive act…

I had work to do, the County to defend. Then a whole new terror gripped me. If I died now, I remembered, the Fiend would take my soul! I had to destroy him before that happened or my fate would be an eternity of terror and torment in the dark.

All three dogs now attacked together, and before I could use my staff, they were upon me. Their combined weight brought me to my knees again. My staff was knocked out of my hand with the force of the blow. Bone fastened his teeth on my ankle; Claw had a grip on my shoulder; and Blood went straight for my throat. I thrust out my right hand to fend off those huge jaws, and the teeth closed around my hand, biting hard. I had to get up or I was finished…

But suddenly the dogs released me. Simultaneously I heard a gasp of fear from the audience and the lights in the long room flickered and dimmed. I moved into a crouch and picked up my staff again.

The torches were threatening to go out at any moment. In the gathering darkness, close by, a luminous spectral shape was starting to form. It was man-shaped but at least twice normal size, and it was glowing an ominous blood-red.

I gazed at it in awe, but those feelings quickly gave way to shock and surprise. The figure was in the garb of a spook and was holding a staff in his left hand – a staff that was blackened and burned; so too was the left side of the face – terrible disfiguring burns, with one eye gone. The cloak was in tatters, the hands covered in blisters.

It was the ghost of Bill Arkwright!

I’d last set eyes on Bill Arkwright the previous summer, in Greece, when he’d stayed behind in the Ord, volunteering to hold off a cluster of fire elementals while we made our escape.

We had assumed he’d made the ultimate spook’s sacrifice and died, and now we were proved correct. He’d been burned to death, as was now horribly plain to see. But what was he doing here? Had Bill Arkwright been trapped in the dark when the Ord had collapsed back through its fiery portal? Or was he in Limbo, that fringe area between life and death where traumatized spirits sometimes linger for years before finding their way to the light?

At first I thought Arkwright’s ghost was looking at me. But no – his one eye was staring directly at the dogs. And although the room was emptying fast, filled with the cries of men driven close to insanity by fear, all three were wagging their tails with pleasure at the sight, grim though it was, of their former master.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the shaman slowly rise to his feet and take a step towards us, a look of puzzlement on his face.

The figure suddenly stretched out its right arm and pointed directly at me, and then Arkwright’s voice cried out, filled with the power of command, echoing around the room.

‘That boy is your friend, not your enemy!‘ he told the dogs.

The ghostly arm swung slowly to the right to indicate the shaman. ‘The man over there! That’s your true enemy! Kill him now!‘

As one, the dogs surged forward and leaped at the shaman, their jaws open. He raised an arm to defend himself, his mouth wide in shock, but it was hopeless. All his power over the animals was now useless. The three wolfhounds dragged him to the floor and began to savage him, their teeth biting and tearing at his flesh. He screamed – and the long drawn-out sound could be clearly heard over the snarls of his attackers. I began to retch at the sight and sound of his agony.

As the ghost of Bill Arkwright slowly faded away, the torches guttered out, plunging us into total darkness. The dogs had finished their grim work and, but for their panting, there was silence. I knelt, utterly spent and shaking all over. After a while there was a noise from the tunnel. Someone was approaching. Was it the buggane?

Shakily I got to my feet, but the figure that emerged was Bony Lizzie, clutching her lit candle stub. Behind her was Alice.

‘That went well, boy,’ said the witch, staring down at the shaman, her face exultant. ‘Wasn’t as strong as he thought, was he? Doesn’t pay to mess with me! Well, waste not, want not – that’s what Old Mother Malkin used to tell me…’

And with those words Lizzie placed the candle on the floor, then pointed at the two nearest wall-torches, which obediently flared into life. Next she pulled a knife from the hip pocket of her dress and lifted the shaman’s left hand. I heard Alice groan, and we both turned our backs on the grisly sight as Lizzie took the thumb-bones of her dead enemy.

She must have planned this all along, I realized. She’d never intended to make her escape. Never for a moment had the shaman suspected that she’d attack rather than retreat. And she’d used the ghost of Bill Arkwright to achieve her aim. That meant his spirit must be in her power. After all, she was a powerful bone witch, and necromancy – control of the dead – was amongst her dark weapons.

While she crouched down to take the shaman’s bones, Lizzie was a perfect target for my silver chain. But when I reached for it, I could get my fingertips nowhere near my pocket. I tried with all my strength, and although my hand strained and trembled, I could not reach the chain. Lizzie was still exerting some special power over me.

She looked up at me and Alice, clutching the bloody bones, an ecstatic expression on her face. ‘Feel good, these do!’ she cried, stuffing them into her pocket along with the knife and rising to her feet. ‘There’s power here all right! Now, let’s take a little walk upstairs and see what’s what! But first we’ll get the dogs back into their cages…’

She clapped her hands three times, just as the shaman had done, and Claw, Blood and Bone emerged from the shadows and trotted back to their cages obediently. ‘Right, boy, fasten them in!’

It was clear that the witch could control the dogs now, but did she have all the shaman’s powers? With his death, had they passed to her? As if in a dream, unable to resist, I went over and closed the cage doors, snapping the clasps across. As I attended to Claw’s cage, she gave a little whine and tried to lick me through the bars. I felt a surge of hope. Had that been Arkwright’s doing? Although forced by Lizzie to make the dogs kill the shaman, his ghost had first pointed to me and said: That boy is your friend, not your enemy!

With those words, had he given the dogs back to me? Had he done his best to help? Alice and I followed Bony Lizzie along the damp corridors. As we reached the stone steps and started to climb, I felt the pulse of fear radiate from the witch once more. She was using it as a weapon to clear the areas ahead of any opposition to our progress. Three flights up, we emerged in the guardroom that I’d crossed on my way down to the cells. Spears, pikes and clubs stood in racks along the wall and a fire blazed in the grate; half-eaten meals had been abandoned on a long table. The plates were still steaming. The occupants of the room must have fled very recently.

I’d expected Lizzie to lead us out of Greeba Keep, and wondered if the inner portcullis would be raised. Even if it was, there was still the one barring the main entrance to contend with. But, to my surprise, Lizzie continued up into the tower. She seemed supremely confident: with the shaman dead, perhaps she was no longer in any danger. As we climbed, she tried every door and peered into the rooms: bedrooms, drawing rooms and the extensive kitchens – all deserted. Then, at the top, we came to the largest room of all. It was clad in white marble and the walls were hung with tapestries. A long narrow crimson carpet ran the length of the room, right up to a dais seven steps high; atop it was an ornate throne made of jade.