The Last Apprentice: The Dark Arts

Chapter III: Death's Approach

Witches poured in from every direction, most coming from where the boggart lay, but others came from the surrounding forest where they'd gone to hide. Now I was the one that should be hiding. Tons of witches approached me, and all I had to save me was my staff. There was no other weapon at my disposal . . .

Except my ability to slow down time.

Desperate, I attempted to draw onto the power that my Mam had passed down to me. But I had to concentrate intently, or else it wouldn't work. In the past I'd learned to control it better, though it was still difficult to manage.

Concentrate! Squeeze time! Make it stop!

I gave everything I had into the effort and suddenly the witches slowed in their approach . . . and came to a halt.

I did it! I'd made time stop!

Right as I thought that, the witches began to move again, if ever so slowly. My heart skipped a beat as I realized my grip on time was already wearing thin. With so many enemies, I couldn't slay them all in time, oh the irony, but there was one thing I could do.

Run.

My body seemed to like the idea because I'd already ran past the lean-to, the backdoor, and was bound for the western garden before I'd even formed the thought. Since I'd gotten a head start, I might just make it!

But just as I was about to break into the tree lining, I heard the witches behind howling in anger, and looked over my shoulder to see some rounding the house. How had time sped up so fast? I almost stopped in my tracks because of my befuddlement, but quickly dismissed it and set my sights for the trees . . .

To see a black figure stride out right before me.

I skidded to a halt with my staff diagonal across my front, silver blade red in blood and glinting in the sun's twilight glow streaming through the trees. The figure wore a black cloak the same as mine and was at least a good bit taller than me. Was it a spook? If so, who? Was it Judd Brinscall from the northern part of the County? I couldn't tell because the person wore their cowl low over their head, obscuring their face.

As I stopped and the figure came out into the open, it raised a hand that, in the dying light, I barely saw that had unfamiliar runes covering it. A single index finger curled out, aimed at my forehead, then the figure said, "I have found you, Thomas Ward. Prepare to die."

***

Leaving me standing there, confused, the figure bounded forward with long strides and, as he got closer, the single outstretched hand began to glow with a lurid purple-blue light that had a weird ambience to it.

I continually backtracked as the figure kept coming nearer and nearer. Whoever they were, whether they be witch, spook, or even mage, they meant ill harm to me and their glowing hand had set me off.

From behind I heard the witches scrambling closer. Soon I would have to deal with them too. I shook my head. No, I had to finish my business with this stranger before very long!

I swung my staff towards their arm . . . and then my blade went through their wrist, severing their hand. The glow instantly stopped as the hand dropped to the grass. Weirdly, I noticed that the wrist of the stranger didn't bleed. That freaked me out so I backed up some more and got ready to attack again . . .

That was until I looked down and saw that my silver blade was glowing in that peculiar light.

Then the metal shattered in an explosion of purple-blue shrapnel, useless.

. . . Crap . . .

The witches were only a few seconds away from reaching me, but how was I to fight back with my silver blade gone? And I was also totally transfixed by this guy; I couldn't avert my gaze. I watched him bend over, pluck up his hand from the ground, place it over his wrist, and heard him whisper a spell that caused the same lurid purple-blue light to sickly shine around the incision. Soon the fingers were beginning to flex, and the hand was as good as new. The strange light ceased. But I saw that the newly sutured wound still glowed a fiery orange, as if the skin were metal and it'd just been welded to another piece.

"Your attack did not work, Thomas Ward," said the man. "See that as the example that you cannot escape. I will end your life, no matter what you may try."

Just then, the witches gathered up behind me, all of them, and some started to go near the man, although hesitantly. I was surrounded.

"Who are you?" I asked the man.

"Why, me? If you must know, Thomas Jason Ward, then I shall tell you. I am the Alchemist, the one who will kill you. Now then . . . here we go."

That must've been some kind of cue because every single witch fell upon me like a furious pack of animals, snarling and trying to get a bite out of their prey. I panicked and whipped my staff every which way I could, not caring that I no longer had the silver blade; I just kept swinging and swinging, doing my best to keep them away and from killing me.

A line cut through the throng: a path for the supposed Alchemist. As he got closer, the witches implacably pressed in, giving me no room to maneuver in. Like a little while ago, I tried spinning in a circle to clear the way with my staff, but they were too stubborn and pushed onward by their urge to seize revenge.

After I struck a witch upon the temple with my staff, another gripped my cloak and pulled me away. I lost balance and almost fell. In that instance a third witch took hold of my left arm, then a fourth. Some tried prying my staff from my hand, but failed as the rowan wood burnt their skin—no matter how hard they might try, they wouldn't have been able to trump my grip, because I was utterly terrified, terrified beyond anything else I'd ever felt in my years of being an apprentice.

Out of nowhere a witch threw a fist at my face, causing me to spin around and fall towards the ground. Upon my rough landing, my elbow slammed against a rock that jarred my entire arm and made me lose my grip on my staff.

The witches wasted no time and pulled it away, screaming as they quickly passed it on to another, and then to another, desperate to get it as far from me—and themselves—as possible.

With no weapon to defend with, I lay helpless on the grass, propped up by my arms and surrounded on all sides by witches.

Except for straight in front of me, because there, stood the black-cloaked man.

He lifted his hand and it shot toward my chest, the sickly purple-blue light trailing after it like a wicked comet.

I yelled in terror and reflexively brought up my right arm just as the man's hand enclosed around my wrist and wouldn't let go. Searing pain met my skin as the ambient light dripped down my arm like thick, putrid molasses. By the second the pain escalated.

I felt like I was dying.

All around the witches gave me wicked smiles and condescending cackling. But none of them attacked with their nasty daggers or knives.

They knew I was done for.

And so did I.

Again and again I screamed out in utter and absolute agony, tearing up my throat raw with those pitiful cries. The hellish fires upon my arm slithered up to my shoulder and seemingly into my body, pervading through me entirely. Just like the boggart, I convulsed violently until my nerves became numb.

Until everything became numb.

I could no longer feel anything. A swift and empty darkness fell over me.

It was over.