The Seventh Apprentice by Joseph Delaney

veered away from the slope and was now moving parallel with it; he seemed to be crawling even faster. In his confused state, he was heading away from the best escape route. I would have to go after him.
    First I picked up the chain. When I found the Spook and led him back to this valley, he would have need of it, I reflected.
    It was then that I heard a terrifying noise, a ferocious scream of rage. I’d dawdled here too long.
    I suddenly saw the witch, sprinting toward me from the direction of the farmhouse, long hair streaming behind her. She had a blade in each hand, and her face was twisted with anger. My heart quailed. Within seconds she would reach me; then she would cut me into pieces.
    I had no time to reach my staff. The chain was my only hope. But I remembered how, even practicing against the stationary post, I had missed more times than I’d succeeded—and now I faced a terrifying moving target. But the pig witch was very close now, and terror spurred me into action.
    Quickly I coiled the chain about my left wrist, just as I’d been taught. I took aim and cast it toward the witch, twisting my wrist widdershins, against the clock, so that it spun out of my hand.
    I watched it form a helix in the air above the witch, still slowly revolving, glinting in the moonlight. My heart was in my mouth, but as I watched, I was filled with sudden hope. It looked good. The elevation was correct. It was falling toward her. I had also achieved what the Spook called spread. The length of the helix, from narrow top to wide bottom, looked spot on. If it dropped over her cleanly, it would bind her from knees to head, ideally tightening against her teeth so that she couldn’t utter a spell.
    It was the best throw I’d managed in months of practice.
    It was close—so very close.
    But close isn’t good enough.

CHAPTER IX
S HARP C LAWS
    T HE silver chain fell a little askew, dropping over the witch’s head and left shoulder. It was enough to bring her down hard, her left leg twisting underneath her, and the impact of the fall shook the knives out of her hands. But it hadn’t rendered her helpless, as it should have.
    She screamed as the deadly silver bit into her skin, and she rolled over and over, fighting to free herself from its coils.
    Forgetting Peter, I ran over to my staff, snatched it up, and sprinted toward the slope that would take me out of the valley. I glanced back once and saw that the witch was already on her feet, free of the chain. She was limping toward me, her face contorted with pain. She must have hurt her leg or ankle, which would slow her down. Now I could escape!
    But then I saw that she was making signs in the air. She was casting spells, and I was the target.
    Instantly my legs grew sluggish and heavy. I seemed no closer to the grassy slope. I struggled, fighting to cast off the power of the magic. I was a seventh son of a seventh son: I would not let her dark spells work on me. . . .
    But now tendrils of mist were rising from the ground, coiling like snakes about my knees, reaching up to my throat. Soon it would envelop me completely again—would this whole nightmare then start all over again? I wondered.
    Then, suddenly, I glimpsed something that turned my legs to jelly. Right at the top of the hill, looking down the slope toward me, was that terrible servant of the witch—the beast that had stripped the farmer’s wife to the bone with its teeth and saliva.
    My escape was blocked. No doubt that was why Peter had changed course; perhaps he wasn’t as confused as I had thought.
    The witch clapped her hands rapidly. At the third clap, the vile creature began to descend the steep incline, approaching rapidly in spite of its awkward waddle.
    Within seconds, the mist had blotted out the moon, and it was lost to view. Now I headed across the valley at an angle, away from where I’d last seen the witch. My legs were starting to feel much better. I seemed to have cast off the spell that had made them feel