Spook's: The Dark Army (The Starblade Chronicles) by Joseph Delaney Read Free Book Online

to reach the ground. She had called it a well, but I was certain it was really some sort of portal to the dark.
    Prince Stanislaw was busy dealing with affairs of state and it was late afternoon before he found time to receive me. As we walked along the battlements, our breath steaming in the cold air, I gave him an account of what Jenny had experienced.
    ‘I expected to find the ghosts of people in those attics,’ I explained. ‘I think that what Jenny faced was some type of daemon.’
    ‘Is daemon not same as ghost? No?’
    ‘Daemons are far more powerful and dangerous.’
    The prince nodded thoughtfully. ‘Many years ago – before my lifetime, before my father lifetime and his father – this castle was captured by Kobalos. Wicked enemy live here many years before driven back. Many years when they do as they wish. Their mages talk to dark ghosts in that attic. They whispered to dark things in dark pit that leads to Hell. Some magowie who entered that room were never seen again. Others blasted by heat. Only bits of burn flesh remained.’
    I nodded. So we were dealing with dangerous Kobalos dark entities.
    ‘Your apprentice chose most dangerous room to enter. Others not so bad. One has ghost of a Kobalos. We think he once mage but power now gone. He mutter to himself. Scare people but do no harm.’
    ‘Then I’ll go and talk to his ghost next,’ I said. Maybe that ghost would know something about the entity that Jenny had encountered. Grimalkin had told me that most Kobalos mages spoke our language as well as Losta.
    ‘Where is he to be found?’ I asked. ‘In which attic?’
    ‘The tallest tower in north-east. But rest tonight and save strength. We are almost ready to cross river and attack,’ the prince continued, gesturing down at the army below. ‘You speak to us tomorrow? Talk about plan?’
    ‘Yes, I’ll talk tomorrow,’ I told him. Grimalkin had finished helping me to rehearse my speech. She had already warned me about tomorrow. I was as ready as I would ever be.
    ‘Just one thing,’ Stanislaw said. ‘Remember, we not tell them you just farmer boy. It is for the best. Keep to sorceress’s plan, no? You agree? They follow better if it is so.’
    I smiled in agreement and then went off to tell Jenny that she wouldn’t have to face the monstrous thing in the attic again until we’d talked to the ghost of a mage.

TOM WARD
    I WAS NERVOUS at the prospect of addressing the rulers of the principalities, even though I knew exactly what to say and how to behave.
    When I arrived, they were already gathered around a large square wooden table in Prince Stanislaw’s throne room. The mullioned window above showed scenes of forests, glades and lakes.
    Grimalkin followed me in, carrying the map. Jenny was still posing as my personal servant, so her presence wasn’t required. She’d been annoyed about that – her natural curiosity had made her eager to attend.
    I looked around. Despite all my rehearsals, would I be able to carry it off? I wondered. Guards resplendent in ceremonial dress were stationed along the walls, each armed with a sharp spear and a stout club.
    Despite the log fire burning in the grate behind the throne, the long room was chilly. It would be a miserable place in winter. It had a high vaulted ceiling; torches flickering in brackets dispelled most of the gloom, but pools of darkness lingered in the far corners of that vast space. And high above us, in the attic, was the portal to the dark that Jenny had seen.
    I looked up at the ceiling, remembering her account of the dark entity that had emerged from it, and shivered.
    I was dressed in the garments that Grimalkin had brought with her from the County – garments that befitted my station as a prince. On each shoulder was embossed the red rose of the County; she had sewn them on herself. Those here to meet me were clad in their finery and I had to look the part. As Prince Stanislaw had explained, it was in all our interests not to reveal