Clash of the Demons by Joseph Delaney

Author:Joseph Delaney [Delaney, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Young Adult Fiction, Action & Adventure, General, Horror, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780061344640
Google: 6K27b2M_asEC
Amazon: 0061344648
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2010-07-27T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV

Portents

”THE blood ritual . . . what does it involve?” demanded the Spook, staring hard at Mam.

We were in her tent, seated on the ground in a circle. Alice was on my left, the Spook to my right. Also present were Bill Arkwright and Grimalkin. The Spook had given Mam a piece of his mind as soon as we returned to camp. Politely but firmly, he’d demanded to know exactly what we were all facing, especially the delegation; he’d even accused Mam of holding back important information that we badly needed.

This meeting was the result of those hot words. Mam was grim and unsmiling. I sensed there were things she didn’t want to say—certainly not to this gathering. I think she would have preferred to speak to me alone.

“I don’t know everything, far from it,” she admitted. “What I know I’ve learned from talking to the survivors of previous delegations. Some of the accounts were contradictory, probably because their minds had been damaged by the experience. It seems that the servants of the Ordeen demand blood. And they’ll want your blood, Tom.”

“My blood? Why will they want my blood?”

“Because you’ll be the youngest, son. You see, each time a delegation visits, they take the blood of its youngest member. And we really do want to give them your blood—that’s important.”

“You expect your son to give his life?” the Spook demanded angrily.

Mam shook her head and smiled. “This time they won’t be killing the donor—although that’s what has happened in the past. This time they’ll just get a cupful of blood.” Her gaze moved from the Spook to me. “Do you know the story of the fall of Troy?” she asked.

I shook my head. Although she’d taught me Greek, Mam had spoken little of her homeland; my life back at the farm had been filled with tales of the County, its boggarts, witches, and wars.

“In ancient times, we Greeks fought a long and terrible war against Troy,” she continued. “We besieged the city for many years, our forces camped outside its impregnable walls. At last our people crafted a great wooden horse and left it on the plain before Troy and sailed away, pretending to have given up the fight. That huge wooden horse was assumed to be an offering for the gods, and the Trojans dragged it into their city and began to celebrate their victory.

“It was a trick. The horse was hollow, and that night, when the Trojans had retired to their beds, exhausted and drunk with wine, the Greeks who’d hidden inside it crept out and threw open the gates of the city, allowing their returning army to enter. Then the slaughter began. Troy burned, and the war was finally won. Son, you will be my Trojan horse. We will trick the Ordeen’s servants and breach the defenses of the Ord.”

“How?” I asked.

“The Ordeen needs a sacrifice of human blood to awaken her from her sleep in the dark beyond the portal. Your blood will animate her, give her life.

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