Starblade Chronicles the Dark Army Read Online

  Contents

Cover

Near the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Map

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1: Like a Boob

Chapter 2: Lukrasta

Chapter 3: Farmer Boy

Chapter 4: A Council of War

Chapter 5: The Haunted Attics

Affiliate vi: A Little Detour

Chapter 7: The God-Maker

Chapter 8: The Dead Prisoners

Chapter ix: An Anvil of Pain

Chapter 10: Beaten and Controlled

Chapter 11: Countless Nightmares

Chapter 12: Shape-Shifting

Affiliate 13: Claret and Spittle

Affiliate xiv: Prisoner of the Kobalos

Affiliate 15: The Shameful Death

Chapter xvi: Pause for Idea

Affiliate 17: The Earth Witch

Affiliate 18: Grimalkin'south Plans

Chapter 19: The Terminal Winter

Chapter twenty: The Infinite Betwixt Worlds

Affiliate 21: A Globule of Acid

Chapter 22: Poison

Affiliate 23: The Earth Screamed

Chapter 24: White Cord

Affiliate 25: Wolf Meat

Affiliate 26: Not Safe Anywhere

Chapter 27: The Body in the Sack

Chapter 28: The Promise

Affiliate 29: The Butcher God

Chapter 30: The Dark Set on

Chapter 31: Mirrors

Chapter 32: The Winter Firm

Chapter 33: The Circular Loaf

Chapter 34: Toppling Like a Tree

Chapter 35: Male child of Tears

Glossary of the Kobalos World

About the Author

Also by Joseph Delaney

Sneak Preview

Copyright

About the Volume

Terrifying warriors of the night have formed an army,

the like of which has never been seen before.

They will spill human blood – enough to brand the

waters that divide our lands from theirs run red.

Thomas Ward, the County Spook, fought the dark with his own apprentice. He travelled far from home to lead an insurgence against a legion of beasts intent on locking the whole world in a never-catastrophe winter.

Only Tom at present lies cold in his grave, and those who remain are in despair.

Who tin can at present take up the battle – before the dark army brings the fight dorsum to the County, and the world is changed for always?

The clash with the forces of darkness continues in this terrifying new tale from the bestselling author of The Spook's Apprentice.

For Marie

Nosotros face up a nighttime army, simply its whole is greater than merely the Kobalos armed services might, and far larger than the terrible boxing-entities that they have created.

It includes the gods who back up them – deities such every bit Golgoth, the Lord of Winter, who will blast the green from the World and create a route of ice forth which their warriors may glide to victory.

Grimalkin

ABOUT AN Hr after dark, Jenny began to climb the spiral steps that led to the tallest of the high eastern turrets. She was slightly breathless, but it was not just considering of the exertion of the steep climb.

She was nervous. Her palms were sweating and she could feel a weakness in her knees. The attic she was heading for was haunted.

She was only an apprentice and it would be many years earlier she'd become a spook. Was she taking on too much? she wondered.

It was cold, and her breath was steaming from her nostrils. Pace later pace she forced herself upwards.

Jenny was carrying a lantern; i pocket was filled with salt and the other with iron; additionally she had tied the silver chain around her waist and was also gripping a rowan staff. She was set up for any threat from the night.

The way to deal with ghosts was to talk to them – to try and persuade them to get to the light – but Jenny wasn't taking whatsoever chances. In this cold northern country, so far from the Canton, who knew what she might encounter? Ghosts might exist very different here. She felt amend with her pockets full and a weapon in her hand.

She reached the stout wooden attic door and tried one of the eight large keys on the heavy bunch. She was lucky: although the lock was stiff, the second key turned.

The door creaked open on rusty hinges, the lesser juddering towards her over the flags as she dragged information technology open. Information technology had swollen with the damp and probably hadn't been opened for many years.

Jenny took a deep breath to steady her nerves and stepped into the room. She was a 7th daughter of a seventh girl with the gift of sensitivity to the night; instantly she sensed that something threatening was nearby. She raised the lantern high and examined her surround: a small room, the wooden panelling stained with patches of fungus, and the table and 2 chairs were covered in a thick layer of dust. Some other door was straight ahead of her, no dubiety leading to the main sleeping accommodation.

She shivered. It was cold enough to make her glad of her sheepskin jacket. But the worst affair was the smell. This was just about one of the stinkiest places she'd ever been in. Dorsum in the Canton, she'd once walked out onto the Morecambe Bay sands to encounter what a crowd of people were staring at. There'd been a shoal of huge fish done upwardly on the beach. They'd been dead for some time and they stank. What she smelled now was similar, merely at that place was some kind of living animal smell mixed in. It was a bit similar walking into a stable of sweating horses and sodden sawdust. Then at that place was a third element to the mix – a hint of burning mankind and a gustatory modality of sulphur on her natural language.

By the yellow light of the lantern she saw a big spider loftier on the wall above the inner door. As she approached, the creature scuttled off towards a huge spider web in the corner.

There was no lock – just a metallic handle. She turned it and tried to open the door by pushing it abroad from her. There was resistance so she reversed direction, pulling it smoothly outwards.

Her sense of a threat from the dark was growing.

The lantern illuminated what had in one case been someone'southward opulent living quarters, now ruined by damp and neglect. 3 huge fireplaces gaped like monstrous mouths, their rusty metal grates filled with ashes. Water dripped from the ceiling onto a rusty chandelier. There were the remnants of fine carpets on the flooring; now they were damp, dirty and mildewed.

Then something unexpected caught her attention: 4 couches at the center of the room formed a square, facing inwards towards something very unusual – a dark round hole about ten feet in diameter. Information technology was ringed with stones – someone had left a wine glass precariously balanced there. It looked as if the slightest disturbance would send it plummeting downwardly into the darkness. The stones themselves glistened with h2o.

Jenny approached the ring of stones and gazed down into the dark hole, holding the lantern over it. Information technology looked like a well. Was there water at the bottom?

Then Jenny realized that there was something incommunicable about what she was seeing: how could it be a well?

She was standing in an attic correct at the top of a turret. There were rooms beneath. Directly beneath them in the palace was a kitchen and then, on the lowest level, the second largest throne room where Prince Stanislaw, the ruler of this state, received petitions, held meetings and dispensed justice.

She had been given a tour of this office of the castle a solar day or so earlier. If this dark shaft ran through the turret rooms and and then down into the ground, and so there would have had to be some sort of circular stone structure, like a chimney, in each of the big rooms near the footing. Surely she would have noticed such a thing?

Except for the sound of her muffled footsteps across the damp carpet and the water dripping onto the chandelier, the room was tranquility. Simply Jenny co

uld hear something new: a trickling, equally if h2o was existence poured into some small vessel.

She stared at the wine drinking glass. It was slowly filling with ruddy wine. A thin stream was falling into the glass but there was no visible source for the liquid. Was it being poured by an invisible paw?

A 2nd afterwards an unmistakable metallic odour told her that she was incorrect well-nigh the liquid. Information technology wasn't wine. It was blood.

Jenny watched in fearful fascination as the glass slowly filled. The blood reached the skirt and and so spilled over onto the stone. The droplets began to steam, and the sudden sharp stench made her heave. As she watched, the claret in the glass began to bubble.

So the vessel wobbled and vicious into the dark shaft.

Jenny counted to x only there was no splash, no sound at all. The shaft appeared to be abysmal.

The room had been chilly and cold, but now information technology seemed to be growing warmer. Steam began to rise from the circle of wet stones.

Her sense of danger increased. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand upwardly and her fingertips were tingling. These reactions told her that this attic contained something far worse than a poor soul needing to be coaxed towards the light. She had hoped to demonstrate her bravery and prove her competence to become a spook. She had to acquire to cope lone.

Terror gripped her. She sensed that there was something really bad here; something big and unsafe; something that wanted to kill her.

Jenny stepped away from the circle of stones, away from the couches, pressing her back confronting the wall.

From the depths below, something enormous took a jiff. It was and then vast that the air it sucked in rushed past Jenny with the force of a gale, slamming the inner door shut with a bang. The blast made her stagger forward onto her knees before it swirled away down the dark shaft towards an unseen mouth and cavernous lungs.

She dropped the lantern and was plunged into full darkness.

Jenny cried out in terror equally a monstrous glowing shape bulged up out of the vast impossible space and hovered in the air in a higher place it. Six glowing reddish-cerise eyes stared towards her; eyes gear up deep within a bulbous head.

When it exhaled, the breath of this creature – whatever it was – felt hot and putrid; there was a stench of disuse, of dead things that still slithered or crawled in a subterranean darkness.

Then tentacles were coiling and writhing, reaching out towards her, intending to twine nigh her and elevate her back downwardly into that nighttime incommunicable hole.

She would never live to become a spook now.

She would dice here alone in the darkness.

JENNY CALDER

YESTERDAY WAS THE worst day of my life.

It was the mean solar day that Thomas Ward, the Chipenden Spook, my master, died.

Tom should have been back in the County fighting the dark, dealing with ghosts, ghasts, witches and boggarts. We should have been visiting places such as Priestown, Caster, Poulton, Burnley and Blackburn. I should take spent fourth dimension in the Chipenden library and garden being trained as a spook'due south apprentice. I should have been practising digging boggart pits and improving my skills with a silver chain.

Instead nosotros followed the witch assassinator, Grimalkin, on a long doomed journey north towards the lands of the Kobalos. They're barbaric non-homo warriors with a thick hide of fur and faces like wolves. They plan to make war on the homo race; they intend to kill all the men and boys and enslave the females.

One of their warriors, a shaiksa assassin with deadly fighting skills, had been visiting the river, the divide between the territories of men and Kobalos. He'd been issuing challenges, then fighting homo opponents in single combat, killing his adversaries with ease. Just the holy men of this land, the magowie, had been visited past a winged figure – a figure who had the appearance of an angel and who had made a prophecy:

Ane day soon a human volition come who volition defeat the Kobalos warrior. After his victory he will lead the combined armies of the principalities to victory!

Hearing of this prophecy, Grimalkin had formulated a plan. It was a program that cost Tom his life.

Grimalkin's scheme was for Tom Ward to fight and defeat the warrior and and so lead an army into Kobalos lands so that she could learn of their magical and military abilities.

Tom had indeed defeated the warrior, just the Kobalos's dying act had been to pierce Tom's trunk with his sabre.

So Tom Ward had died besides.

That was yesterday.

Today we are going to coffin him.

Tom's coffin rested on the grass in the open. Prince Stanislaw, who ruled Polyznia, the largest of the principalities adjoining Kobalos territory, stood beside it, flanked by two of his guards. He nodded towards Grimalkin and me, so beckoned 4 of his men forward. They hefted the coffin up onto their shoulders.

He and this armed escort were with us to do honour to Tom. I wished they didn't have to be hither; I wanted to have Tom dorsum to the Canton where his old principal was cached and his family however lived on their subcontract.

I glanced sideways at the prince – a big human with brusk grey hair, a large nose and close-gear up eyes. He was in his fifties, I guessed, and hadn't an ounce of fat on his body. His intelligent eyes looked sad now.

He and his warriors had been impressed past Tom's fighting skill. Despite suffering a mortal wound, he had slain the Kobalos warrior, something that the prince's own champions had been unable to do.

As we trudged up towards the place where Tom was to be buried, thunder crashed overhead, and soon torrential rain had soaked us to the skin. Grimalkin gripped my shoulder. I suppose she meant to exist comforting – in and then far equally someone equally wild and cruel equally a witch assassin can be. But Tom'south death had been brought virtually past her machinations and acrimony began to build within me. Her grip was firm to the point of pain, but I shrugged her off and took a step nearer to the open up grave.

I glanced at the headstone and began to read what had been carved upon it:

HERE LIETH PRINCE THOMAS OF Pulley,

A BRAVE WARRIOR

WHO FELL IN Combat

But TRIUMPHED WHERE OTHERS FAILED

The lie nosotros had created – that Tom was a prince – had gone too far; and at present here it was written upon his gravestone. It made my breadbasket plow. Tom was a immature spook who had fought the night, and this should take been best-selling. This shouldn't take happened, I thought bitterly. He deserved the truth.

But this again had been Grimalkin's doing. Tom had needed to pose as a prince considering the armies of the principalities would not follow a commoner.

I watched as a hooded magowie, one of their priests, prayed for Tom, rain dripping from the end of his nose. The smell of moisture soil was very strong. Soon it would cover Tom's remains.

Then the prayers were over and the gravediggers began to shovel wet earth downwards upon the coffin. I glanced back at Grimalkin and saw that she was grinding her teeth. She seemed more angry than sad; but I was churning with mixed emotions likewise.

Suddenly the men stopped working and looked up. There was move and light in the air loftier above us. I gasped as I spotted a winged figure hovering far above the grave; it glowed with a silvery light, its fluttering wings huge.

Information technology was the same affections-like being that had hovered over the hill while the three magowie made their prophecy, foretelling the coming of a champion to defeat the Shaiksa assassin and atomic number 82 humans across the river to victory.

Suddenly it folded its white wings and dropped towards us like a stone, coming to a stop less than thirty feet above our heads. Now I could brand out a beautiful confront that shone with pale light. Everyone was gazing upwards now, gasping in astonishment.

There was a noise from the grave but, fascinated by the winged figure, I continued to look upward. It was but when the sound came over again that I glanced down.

At offset I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, merely I wasn't the just person staring down into the grave. I saw that the casket was slightly tilted, and the sodden earth that covered it was sliding away to reveal the moisture wooden lid.

Yard

rimalkin hissed in anger and stared up at the winged being. I could understand her annoyance at the interference. Couldn't Tom even exist left to be cached in peace? But and then I saw that the bury was moving. What could exist causing that?

I hardly dared to hope . . . Could it be that Tom was alive . . .?

With a jerk, the coffin rose up into the air to a higher place the grave and began to spin, spraying mud and aerosol of h2o in all directions. The corner caught one of the gravediggers and knocked him backwards into the waiting mound of earth.

I stared open-mouthed as the coffin slowly rose upwards. Grimalkin rushed forward, stretching out her arms as if to grab it. But, spinning faster and faster, it eluded her grasp and whirled towards the winged figure. I heard another hiss of anger from Grimalkin – but it was lost in an ear-splitting smash of thunder that fix my teeth on border.

Suddenly the heavens were split with intense light – not the sheet lightning we had experienced so far: this was a jagged fork of blueish lightning that seemed to come up from the winged effigy. Information technology struck Tom's coffin with a crack that hurt my ears.

Information technology had to exist something supernatural – a wielding of dark magic. Judging by her reactions, it certainly wasn't Grimalkin's doing. But who was responsible?

The coffin immediately disintegrated, splinters of woods falling towards us. I quickly retreated, shielding my caput with my arms, bumping into people in my haste to get clear.

Some of the pieces splashed into the water at the bottom of the empty grave; others fell around me.

When I looked upwardly again, Tom's corpse was spinning above us, his arms and legs flopping and jerking, his torso spiralling down towards the grave again. I stared at him in amazement. His optics were closed in death; he looked like a puppet dangling from invisible decision-making strings. I could hardly bear to watch: that such an indignity should be inflicted upon him!

Suddenly, far above him, the winged creature vanished like a candle flame snuffed out by a behemothic pollex and forefinger. Sail lightning flashed and Tom'south corpse fell twenty feet or more than into the mound of soil beside the grave.

For a moment there was accented silence. I held my breath, stunned by what I had merely witnessed, a whole range of emotions churning through me.

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