A New Darkness by Joseph Delaney Read Free Book Online Page A

Starblade
    A FTER my master’s death at the Battle of the Wardstone, Grimalkin wanted me to keep the Starblade and accompany her to face an even greater threat that she had scryed—from a savage people to the north, the Kobalos. I’d had no stomach for any more fighting and had offered the sword to her, but she had refused. However, I had made sure that it would never fall into the wrong hands. While the protection against magic worked only for me, the ore was very valuable and rare and could be crafted into a different weapon for someone else. I had hidden the sword in a place where only someone strong enough to get past the boggart would have been able to reach it: under my master’s coffin. At the time, I couldn’t imagine ever desecrating the grave to retrieve it.
    Now, however, I had urgent need of it. I lit the lantern and hung it from a low branch so that it cast its light over the area. Then, with tears running down my cheeks, I attacked the grave, throwing spadefuls of soil over my shoulder.
    “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I called out as I worked, my words addressed to John Gregory, my dead master. “I’m so sorry!”
    What a fool I had been. Could I not have foreseen such a situation when I would need protection against dark magic?
    The Starblade should give me a chance against the beast, a chance to save Jenny. I was sure of it.
    At last there was the thud of metal against wood. I’d dug down as far as the Spook’s coffin. Now, despite my need for haste, my digging became less frantic and more careful. I didn’t want to damage the casket in which his body lay.
    I dug to one side and, once my pit was level with the bottom of the coffin, threw aside the spade and scooped soil away with my hands, trying to excavate underneath it. I was careful at first, because the blade of the sword was really sharp. But then, realizing that time was running out, I threw caution to the wind.
    But I couldn’t find the sword!
    I broke out in a cold sweat. Had someone stolen it? I wondered. How could that have happened when the boggart guarded the garden?
    I wondered if Grimalkin had taken it with her after all. That night, after burying my master, she had worked her magic to lessen the disfiguring scar where the mage Lukrasta had sliced open my face. Afterward we had both slept, and then, after saying a brief farewell, she had taken her leave. She’d had time to dig it out and put back the soil; after all, I had offered it back to her. It was her right to take it, but how dearly that might cost me now . . . without it, I would be vulnerable to this creature’s powerful magic.
    Hope fading, my fingers continued their desperate search beneath the coffin. At last, to my relief, they touched metal. But pulling the sword free wasn’t easy. My fingers found the edge of the blade, and that was enough to cut them and draw blood. I struggled to free the hilt, aware that the threat to Jenny was growing with every passing second. At last I got a firm grip, and moments later I had pulled the blade out of the soil and was sprinting back in the direction of the beast’s lair.
    Would I be in time to save Jenny? I feared that she might already be dead.
    Once again the moon was out, and by its light I saw the oak tree ahead, clearly visible from a distance, a colossus that towered over the rest of the wood. I stopped running a couple of hundred yards short of it and continued more cautiously.
    Speed was important, but I didn’t want to give the creature any warning of my arrival. Surprise might make all the difference here.
    The wood was totally silent. Nothing moved in the undergrowth. I could hear nothing from the huge tree, either.
    Gripping the sword in my right hand, I approached the massive trunk, searching for the ground-level door. I expected to find it closed and perhaps impossible to open. In that case, I would hammer on the trunk. I would lose the element of surprise, but I would at least draw him out, away from Jenny.
    But,