Free Fury of the Seventh Son (Book 13) by Joseph Delaney

the gap. She had thrown away her weapon in the interest of speed and was heading back in the direction we’d been traveling. Then I saw the witch I’d previously stunned, perhaps two hundred yards ahead, also running away.
    They were scared.
    I came to a halt and sheathed my sword and dagger, waiting for a minute to regain my breath and composure. Then I turned to head back through the trees and reclaimed my staff. My whole body was trembling, a reaction to the fierce fight and having taken three lives. I felt more and more nauseous, until eventually I came to a halt and was violently sick.
    It was getting dark now, so I decided to rest for a few hours. I found a copse on high ground—a little knoll that would give me a good view over the surrounding countryside. After a while, a half-moon rose above the eastern horizon, and I used its pale glow to search for my enemies. Nothing moved. I was exhausted and settled down with my back against the trunk of a tree and my staff across my lap.
    Eventually I dozed, then awoke, suddenly terrified that I was under attack. But still there was no threat, and the moon was much higher. Each time I nodded off, my sleep was deeper and longer, until finally I had a strange dream.
    It was one of those dreams where you know that you’re dreaming. I was back at the farm. Mam was facing me across the hearth, smiling from her rocking chair. She looked exactly as she had the night before I left the farm to begin my job as the Spook’s apprentice. Her skin was pale, but her eyes were bright; apart from a few gray streaks in her black hair, she looked far too young to have grown-up married sons.
    â€œI’m proud of you, son,” she said to me. “Whatever happens, I want you to know that.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Mam, if I let you down. But I could never perform that ritual. I couldn’t sacrifice Alice.”
    â€œThere’s no need to apologize, Tom. It was your decision to make, and what’s done is done. Maybe the Fiend can be destroyed in other ways. Nothing is certain. At the moment, everything hangs in the balance. You must draw upon your strengths. Some came from your dad, because you’re a seventh son of a seventh son; others came from me, for lamia blood courses through your veins. You are already aware of some of those gifts, but more will become apparent as you grow up. There is one you need now . . . one that would not normally have emerged for many years. But I reached out to bless you with it earlier. It is a gift that a hunter needs—the ability to know the location of his prey!”
    Mam began to rock back and forth on her chair, smiling at me all the while. So I smiled back, hoping the moment would never end. But the dream began to fade. I could still see her smile, and I wanted to hug her, but then she was gone. . . . I woke up to the sound of a distant cock crowing and the eastern sky pink with the promise of sun. The dream was vivid and real in my mind. My head was whirling with thoughts. Was it more than just a dream? I wondered. Could it really have been Mam talking to me?
    If it was, she seemed to have forgiven me for not being prepared to carry out the ritual she had decreed. She had also used the word “hunter”—I would receive the gift that a hunter needs. In the first year of my apprenticeship, she had told me that one day I would be the hunter; then it would be the dark that would be afraid.
    Mam had been giving me important information. She said she had reached out to unlock the gift. Somehow it all made sense. That was why, lying in my bed in the Spook’s house, I’d had the strange feeling that something was wrong. And yes, I’d known exactly which direction to take. My new gift had led me to the cottage where Grimalkin lay gravely injured. It was lovely to think that I might really have been talking to Mam, and for a while I was filled with hope. But as the seconds became minutes,