Acolyte (The Wildermoor Apocalypse Book 1) (17 page)

The beast had once again forced its own body on the blade, which had entered through the thinner flesh on the underside of its chin, riding through piercing its jaw, then the tongue and finally the roof of its mouth, meeting the nasal capacity before appearing again through the small area between its ghastly eyes.

It lay there limp but still snorting as it drew its final breaths.  It did not appear to die, but Stamwell decided not to wait around to witness the finale.  Both arms now felt useless to him, and betrayed his every move, but his legs were still his friends.  They helped push his own massive frame from the floor and his heart was able to once again force blood to his injured limbs.

Stamwell could see the prisoner – now just another limp body amongst the debris that scattered the chamber floor – but he could hear the faint exhalations brush the dirt under where he lay, as the breath still struggled in and out.  Stamwell staggered over to one of the mangled bodies of the Council members - not sparing a thought for the lost lives as they had all had it coming, he   grabbed one of the thick, black hooded robes from beneath the corpse. Stamwell’s near-superhuman strength returning to him, he wrapped the robe around his shoulders, hoisted Ewan’s body, over his left shoulder and quickly headed for the exit.

He looked around the room once more, sparing a thought for the evil that the Council had raised – the still-snorting body of Apollyon laying on its front, its royal sceptre rising from the top of its head, covered in its own mix of grey and blood – as its hands began to claw once more and the earth around him.  Stamwell spared a thought also for the man who he had loved, his Father in life – William Archibald – as his mutilated body lay surrounded, and covered in, the product of a life misled.

Stamwell turned and ran towards the darkness of the tunnel leading out of the cave.  This time, he did not look back.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Stamwell welcomed the warmth rising throughout the day whilst he worked.  The breeze was still cold at this time of year, particularly on the wide, unbroken expanse of Wildermoor but the sun chased away the chill and kept at bay the shivers he had woken with.  As he did every day, he spent the hours breaking down the wilting and dead remnants of the winter harvest, to clear the ground for the next phase of growth.  He wanted to make this land his own. Ewan had promised it to him and it would become the home he had promised Katrina.

He wondered if he was being led down a similar path once again.  Was Ewan just building him up to cut – or chain – him down again? Was he to adhere to the needs that the Childs family history dictated rather than carve out a life of his own?

He banished the thoughts to the back of his mind.  What nonsense.  Ewan was indebted to him for saving his life and had rewarded him with a new start and the love of an angel.  Why spoil it all with baseless paranoia?  This was his new start.

He hacked away at more of the rotten greenery, as if he were hacking down the thoughts that taunted and the dreams that haunted him.

*****

As the sun slowly set beneath the heavy storm clouds gathering, Stamwell returned to the derelict steel structure of the barn that had once housed the prized herd of the famed Childs cattle. He wiped a mixture of dirt and dew from the blade of the scythe and placed it gently, proudly, in its rightful place on the back wall above the dusty workbench.  His thoughts ran for a moment back to a better time, years ago, when that place would have been the nerve centre for the family business; cattle reared and raised, prepared for the inevitable trip to the slaughterhouse.  The crops growing strong from the tender ground.  A cruel life, but an honest one. Ewan had explained that the entire village reaped the benefits during the winter months of a strong store of the finest beef and potatoes in the South West.  The crops grown across the James plantation, combined with the Childs’ beef market, were supposed to have been the beginning of a new empire, as the two heads-of-house planned over many nights in the Weary Traveller.

Stamwell often sympathised with the cattle.  It was a life that Stamwell was familiar with, having seen the streams of innocents marched through the corridors of the Ministry – the name Archibald bestowed upon the dark, damp and suffocating depths of the cavern below Devil’s Pit.  Many of the innocents were marched by Stamwell himself.  He felt bitter about his past, blaming those around him for never offering him a life where sacrifice was actually rewarded.  His parents, the Council, Archibald…the list went on.

Turning his attention back to the cooling air around him, Stamwell spied an envelope laying to the far right of the workbench.  He picked it up and examined it.  It was sealed with a red ribbon, his name written on the front in handwriting he recognised.

*****

With a trembling hand Stamwell managed to tear open the envelope and remove the page from within, his whole body rigid with apprehension and fear.  Many a letter, written by the same hand, had passed through Stamwell to William Archibald.  They had never born good news.  Archibald had known that his brother Julius only contacted him with demands.

Julius’ mind had been far more poisoned than that of his brother’s and Stamwell had always blamed him for his master’s downfall.  Aside from being a controlling, devious sibling, Julius also ruled the Council of Eternal Light with an iron and blood-stained fist.

Somehow, Julius and the remaining Council members had found where Stamwell was living.  He doubted that Julius had been present that night in the cavern, as he never got his hands dirty, and had too high a standing to keep his face covered in the presence of the rest of the Council.  He had no faith in his brother’s ability to deliver on his promises, and Julius’ absence that night had further displayed the distrust he held for William.

Stamwell stared at the words beautifully and carefully written on the page.

A son for a brother; a simple trade to cleanse the blood from your hands.  Return home tonight, or we will claim her too.  Come alone
.

A son for a brother
. William Archibald had made no secret he had viewed Stamwell as the heir he never sired.  Stamwell understood the message loud and clear; Julius was asking for his life in exchange for that of his brother. 

The second line of the letter took his breath away and caused him to tear the letter into pieces before bolting straight out of the barn, his legs not stopping until he reached the homestead of Tewke’s Range. 
Home
was not the house at the top of the hill; it referred to the pit and caves that he had left behind.

Katrina. 

She had been peaceful in their bed when he rose that morning. She had not disturbed his day’s toil with her usual cheery insistence that he come in for lunch.  He had not thought this odd at the time. His efforts had been concentrated on clearing the remainder of the land ready for the next month’s harvest.  He had thought she was spending the afternoon cooking the usual evening feast that would fill their bellies before they saw the rest of the night out at The Weary Traveller. That had quickly become the lovers’ tradition.

The guilt was overwhelming as the dastardly thoughts and images plagued his mind all the way back to the house.  He had left Katrina alone, unprotected, and had not given a second thought to the dangers that might await her.

It may already be too late.  Stamwell readied himself for a second at the front door of the stone house.  As he grabbed the brass handle to turn it, the pain in his shoulder returned, burning deep under the flesh and spreading.  Stamwell’s breath was shallow as he forced open the door and stood in the cold, odourless kitchen.

The only smell that filled his nostrils was light and coppery. A streak of blood traced from the staircase on the opposite side of the kitchen to where he stood at the door.

He screamed her name as he crossed the breadth of the kitchen with two steps.  His voice echoed throughout the ground floor of the building but no reply came.  He rushed between the rooms either side of the kitchen – the living room to the right and the cool, dark pantry to the left. There was no trace of Katrina.

He ascended the staircase two steps at a time yelling her name again.  By the time he reached the landing at the top he knew she was gone.  He could find no evidence she ever had been there.  The bed was neatly made, the curtains open in each of the upper floor rooms as if she had greeted the new day and then vanished.

Stamwell lingered in their bedroom, his mind replaying the last moments they shared together that morning. It had all seemed so normal, so peaceful, so right.  Why would he think anything could go wrong?  He had changed so much within a week, letting his guard down; the very strength that William Archibald had beaten into him, in order to protect their underground coven. He had abandoned everything that had made him the protector in his previous life at Harper Falls.

Stamwell staggered towards Katrina’s small dressing table that sat at the foot of the bed, his legs feeling weak.  He stared into the gold-framed mirror. His face had become drawn, his eyes rimmed with black and his hair hung lank from his head.  The image of him was of a man who no longer had the strength to hold himself together.  As he stared at himself there was a faint titter inside his head.  Laughter. 
Cruel laughter
.

His shoulder still burned.  He touched the flesh to convince himself he was not being consumed by flames. The pain pulsed when he touched the wound causing him to throw his arm back to his side.

Return home tonight
. 

There must be a chance.  He could not let Katrina pay for his sins or for his negligence and betrayal to Archibald.

Stamwell tried walking away from the dresser but his legs buckled beneath him.  As he fell to the wooden floor, his arm caught hold of the wardrobe door causing it to fly open as his weight pulled it behind him.

He hit the floor landing on his right hip but managed to catch himself in a half-sitting position.  He stared up into the wardrobe and instantly the pain in his shoulder eased.  His mind cleared of the fog that had clouded his thoughts.  The hooded black gown hung like a beacon.

Stamwell hauled himself to his feet, grabbed the garment and threw it roughly over his head.  The warmth returned to his body but did not burn like before.  He suddenly felt he could breathe again.  He stomped down the stairs, out of the front door and ran back to the barn. 

He gazed around the length of the workbench, his feet pressing the pieces of the torn letter into the dirt as he marched over them.  The written words were now buried in the earth, just as the words were buried deep in his soul and burned into his memory.  They had awoken something deep within him, powering the cogs of something powerful, pumping a new resurgence of life through him.

Stamwell surveyed the collection of silver on the wall above him; blades each with their own design and purpose.  But there was one that he felt compelled to call upon.
One he could trust
. It hung there like proudly where Stamwell had rested it less than an hour earlier.  He still felt chills as he gazed lovingly at the tool that had become his showpiece since moving to Tewke’s Range.  Ewan had marvelled at how swiftly, concisely and expertly Stamwell handled the scythe.

Stamwell craned his body to lift it down from the wall and stood with it as he ran his hand up the full six-foot-tall shaft, caressing the top of the three-foot-long curved blade.  The scythe was an extension of his power; the power that he had been promised all of his adult life.

Returning to the barn doors he stared out at Tewke’s Range once more, knowing that it might be his last time.  The sun remained high in the sky and despite the heat already radiating through the thick dark material shrouding his body, he pulled the heavy hood over his head.  It hung low covering much of his face, so that all he could see was the earth passing beneath him. He set out across the land that with love he had rejuvenated over the last week.  At least he would depart leaving behind new life in this place.

As he walked heavily across the field, covering half the distance within quarter of an hour, his thoughts returned to Katrina, the one who had stolen his heart and clouded his mind. He gripped the shaft of the scythe tighter.  He would bring justice down on the Council, at any cost to himself, but not Katrina.  No, she must return to Tewke’s Range and carry on the work that they had promised they would carry together.

He should not have been expected to be able to run from his past or that it would never find him.

He had to move fast, there was much ground to cover that day; the same distance it had taken two battered bodies four days to cross when he and Ewan had fled the cave.

This time was different though.  He knew where to go.  He knew these woods better than most and as he pictured Julius Archibald’s sneering face, his mind acted like a compass, leading him down the pathways and between the trees that would lead him to the Council.

By nightfall they would all die.  But not his Katrina.

As he crossed the ground left between Tewke’s Range and the forest edging towards Harper Falls, he heard someone calling in the far distance back from home.

They called a name but it was a name that he was steadily failing to recognise.