The Feast of Ravens Read online

  LIGHT CAN SAVE THE BLACKEST HEART.

  DARKNESS CAN POISON THE PUREST SOUL.

  ONE BOY MUST DECIDE WHICH PATH TO TAKE.

  The year is 1892 and LONDON is in the grip of EVIL. A demonic terror stalks the streets, wreaking chaos as it helps the LEGION, a vicious underground gang, to raise Hell on earth. Only the WATCHERS, a secret society of urchins and warriors, can stop them.

  An ancient prophecy claims one boy, BEN KINGDOM, has the power to end this war. But Ben has a secret so deadly, it could DESTROY everything the Watchers have worked for. Can he find the courage to fulfil his destiny…or will the city fall at the FEAST OF RAVENS?

  WWW.BENKINGDOM.COM

  To my darling Jules, my amazing wife, my blessing, my best friend… This book is for you.

  Contents

  The Prophecy of the Watchers

  About this book

  Dedication

  Map of Ben Kingdom’s London

  Day One: 8th March, 1892

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Roof-runner!

  Chapter 2: The Captain’s Orders

  Chapter 3: A Work of Evil

  Chapter 4: Fun and Games

  Day Two: 9th March, 1892

  Chapter 5: Cutpurses and Cut-throats

  Chapter 6: The Call to Action

  Chapter 7: Dreams of Destruction

  Chapter 8: Lost in the Madness

  Chapter 9: Hide-and-Seek

  Chapter 10: The Midnight Visitor

  Day Three: 10th March, 1892

  Chapter 11: The Living Fog

  Chapter 12: Welcome to the Madhouse

  Chapter 13: Billycocks and Banknotes

  Chapter 14: The Hour of Need

  Chapter 15: Kill or Be Killed

  Chapter 16: No More Tears

  Chapter 17: Paraffin and Matches

  Chapter 18: Ready, Aim, Fire!

  Day Four: 11th March, 1892

  Chapter 19: The Beginning of the End

  Chapter 20: A Death in the Family

  Chapter 21: War!

  Chapter 22: The Walking Wounded

  Chapter 23: Back from the Dead

  Chapter 24: Hero of the Legion

  Chapter 25: The Burning Man

  Chapter 26: No Prisoners

  Chapter 27: The Dark Library

  Day Five: 12th March, 1892

  Chapter 28: Revelations

  Chapter 29: The Light at the End of the Tunnel

  Chapter 30: Death in the Dark

  Chapter 31: The End of the Line

  Chapter 32: The Watcher Spy

  Chapter 33: Wicked Work

  Day Six: 13th March, 1892

  Chapter 34: The Feast of Ravens

  Chapter 35: The Battle of the Bloody Tower

  Chapter 36: The Price of Peace

  Epilogue: 15th March, 1892

  Sneak preview of Ben’s next adventure

  Catch up with Ben’s first battle: The Claws of Evil

  Ben’s Guide to London and Watcher Slang

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  “Ben Kingdom.” Mr. Sweet spoke the words slowly, his voice heavy with anger; a thundercloud waiting to burst. “That boy will curse the day he crossed me.”

  From behind him, in the darkness of the dungeon, there came a muffled sound; the sort of noise that a panic-stricken child might make if they were bound and gagged and in the clutches of a madman.

  “What was that?” Mr. Sweet asked, turning slowly. He took a pace towards his prisoner, sending cockroaches scuttling for safety. “You have something to say?”

  Sweet was a bully of a man and the expensive Savile Row suit he wore did nothing to hide his muscular physique. His face was handsome in a brutal sort of way: the square jaw, the strong nose, the hard slit of a mouth beneath his luxuriant black moustache. The eyes that overflowed with fury.

  It was these eyes that intimidated everyone they fell on. It seemed that no one could defy their glare; not the other members of Parliament, where Sweet served as special advisor to the Prime Minister; not the Legion, the secret army which dwelled beneath the London streets. The boy tied to the chair in front of him stood no chance.

  In the flickering torchlight, Mr. Sweet watched his young captive. He smiled and the boy began to quake.

  “Surely, you must agree with me,” he said, his broad hand caressing his raven-black moustache. “You’ve lived with him, after all. Doesn’t everyone find your brother to be a constant source of annoyance?”

  A scraping sound drew Sweet’s attention and he shot a glance at the other figure standing in the corner. A tall man in a battered leather coat; a man with a dinosaur claw where his right hand should have been.

  Claw Carter chipped idly at the wall with his unique prosthesis, striking sparks that briefly illuminated the hollow lines of his face and the sly smile that lurked at the corner of his lips.

  Carter would do well to tread carefully, thought Mr. Sweet as he returned his attentions to the boy. No one in the Legion was indispensable.

  In spite of the cold in the dungeon, Sweet’s prisoner, Nathaniel Kingdom, was wet with nervous sweat and Sweet could almost taste the fear that rose from the boy’s pores in waves. But there was still some fight left in Nathaniel’s spirit. He was not broken yet.

  Mr. Sweet bent over and brought his eyes level with the boy’s. Nathaniel glared back and began to curse him through the rag that had been used to silence him. Straining against the ropes that bound him to his chair, he bucked wildly, as if he were riding a savage animal; Mr. Sweet only smiled again.

  “What is it with you Kingdom boys?” Sweet mocked. “You never seem to know when you’re beaten.”

  The prisoner started to tear at his gag with his teeth, wrenching it loose with frantic twists of his head. Finally his mouth was free. “Beaten?” Nathaniel Kingdom spat. “It was my brother Ben who outwitted you!”

  “Ben Kingdom,” said Sweet, in a whisper somehow more threatening than his shout, “has achieved nothing. Nothing.” His lips luxuriated over the word. “The Feast of Ravens will soon be upon us and your precious Watchers will be reduced to a stain in the footnotes of history.”

  “Ben stopped you getting your grubby hands on the Coin though, didn’t he? He stuffed you there!”

  Sweet’s nostrils flared. With a snarl that was barely human, the big man swung his open hand violently towards Nathaniel’s face, only to stop it a hair’s breadth away. Nathaniel sat rigid in his chair, cowed and afraid.

  “He has got a point,” said Carter, now using the tip of his claw to pick at dirt beneath the nails of his good hand.

  “How good of you to remind me, Professor Carter,” said Sweet, “and how very brave. Especially considering your role in the whole debacle.”

  “It was I who discovered that the last remaining Judas Coin was at large,” Carter protested. “It was I who found Ben Kingdom—”

  “And it was you who let them both slip through your fingers,” finished Sweet. “Please don’t imagine that the high rank you currently hold in the Legion is something which you can rely on indefinitely. I am not a tolerant man when it comes to failure. The last Coin will be mine.”

  “Ben threw it into the Thames,” Nathaniel continued defiantly. “You can search for it for another thousand years and you still won’t find it!”

  “You can believe what you like if it brings you comfort, boy,” said Sweet with a snort of contempt, “but objects as evil as the Coin do not stay lost.”

  Sweet wasn’t persuaded that the Coin lay somewhere in the silt and filth of the Thames. No, it was still at large, he was convinced of that. Hiding in some pocket or drawer or wallet, doing its work, eating its owner away from th
e inside.

  “Wickedness calls out to wickedness,” said Sweet. “The Coin will come to me and then the Crown of Corruption will be complete…as will my victory. All of Ben Kingdom’s stupid heroics will prove to be a mere setback, an irritation to the Legion, nothing more.”

  A hapless cockroach scurried across the stone floor, its antennae twitching in happy ignorance. Sweet crushed it beneath his foot, and Nathaniel couldn’t stop himself from flinching as he heard the crunch that marked its death.

  “Life can be so fragile,” said Sweet. “Believe me, it would have been better for Ben Kingdom if he had stayed in the gutter where he belongs.”

  “He’s not afraid of you,” said Nathaniel.

  “But you are, aren’t you?” Mr. Sweet goaded. “I always knew that you were the one with the brains.”

  Nathaniel saw the bottomless hatred in Sweet’s eyes and the last of his bravado shrivelled to ashes in his mouth. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Oh no,” Sweet laughed. “You’re worth much more to me alive. You are bait, don’t you see? Something I can use to lure your brother into my clutches. However…” And here he paused, enjoying the moment. “There is an experiment that you can help me with in the meantime. The Legion have a new weapon, but as yet it is untested. Professor Carter, would you do the honours?”

  Nathaniel watched mutely as Claw Carter walked to the other end of the cell. For the first time, Nathaniel’s eyes made out another door in the darkness, and a shot of terror ran through him. There was something about that door that was very wrong. It was made from sturdy wooden planks, criss-crossed with iron bands. Long deadbolts secured it top and bottom, and as Sweet drew them slowly back Nathaniel felt all the hairs stand upright on his arms. The door was only three feet tall.

  What the heck was in there?

  The door swung wide and opened onto utter darkness.

  There was a moment of agonizing stillness.

  “I want you to meet a friend of mine,” said Mr. Sweet. “He has a gift for the whole of London and I’d like you to be the first one to enjoy his…talents.”

  As Nathaniel’s eyes strained to pierce the darkness, he saw a shadow detach itself from the inky black. Claw Carter moved aside and allowed a diminutive figure to step out through the door. Carter’s long face split into a wolfish grin. “Permit me to introduce you to the Nightmare Child.”

  At first, Nathaniel thought that it was just a boy, an odd, almost awkward child with chubby cheeks and pale hair in ringlets. Then, as he watched, it opened its mouth wide, as if it had been told to take a spoonful of medicine. There was a cracking sound and the Nightmare Child’s mouth opened wider still, until it became a gaping maw.

  Nathaniel watched in appalled silence as a stream of fog began to pour from the Child’s mouth and fill the room like rising water. Nathaniel shuddered as the wave reached him and pooled around his feet. As if on command, the fog began to tease at Nathaniel’s legs, growing long white fingers that climbed up his body like a spider.

  Help me! Nathaniel screamed inside his head. HELP ME, BEN!

  “Oh, don’t worry,” said Sweet, as if reading Nathaniel’s mind. “I’m counting on your brother coming for you. And when he does, oh what a welcome I have planned for him.”

  “Benjamin Kingdom! Prepare to defend yourself!”

  Ben was trapped, and he knew it.

  He quickly cast his eyes around, searching for the source of the voice. To his left he saw chimney pots rising up out of a sea of coal dust and ashes. To his right, more chimneys, more choking fumes. Overhead lay a filthy blanket of cloud, and below, three storeys down, lay the cobbled streets. It was a view of London that few were familiar with, but it was as normal as breathing to Ben.

  At the very edge of his vision, Ben thought he caught a phantom of movement, a shape that appeared momentarily from behind a ramshackle stack only to disappear again, leaving just a stirring in the smoke. Without any thought of the danger, Ben pelted along the ridge of a roof, his feet finding purchase at lightning speed, like a tightrope walker at the climax of his act. It was not the easiest escape path, even at the best of times, but for the last ten weeks of his young life, none of his options had been easy.

  Too soon, however, Ben ran out of roof and his feet came stammering to a halt. A tile snapped beneath his weight and slid away into empty space, almost taking him with it. Ben felt the strong hands of gravity reaching for him, doing their best to steal his balance. Instinctively, he grabbed hold of a chimney pot to steady himself while he fought to regain his footing – and not for the first time he was grateful for his skyboots with their studded rubber soles, part of the Watcher uniform he wore.

  When his feet were secure again, Ben paused on the edge of the drop, his heart a racing engine. He lifted his brass-rimmed goggles from his eyes and considered his options. Through the haze spewing from factory chimneys and ten thousand household hearths, Ben could make out the ghosts of church steeples and the great dome of St Paul’s, rising up from the patchwork acres of rooftops. Beneath him were the streets of London, waiting to welcome him with an embrace of broken bones. And behind him, somewhere, was his pursuer.

  Ben hesitated, uncertain which way to turn. Come on, Benny boy, he urged himself. He had to move and move fast, he knew that much. His hunter was not far behind and past experience suggested that he shouldn’t expect things to go easily. Adrenaline surged through his body, making Ben feel vibrant and alive. He was a Watcher, after all; part of a secret army, hiding and surviving on the rooftops of the city: he didn’t scare easily.

  Three months ago, Ben would have laughed at the idea that he had any sort of destiny beyond scratching out a meagre living as best he could. But then three months ago he had been totally ignorant of a lot of things. Such as the battle that had been raging for centuries, with the Watchers on one side and the Legion on the other. The Watchers in the high places and the Legion in their network of tunnels. The Above and the Under. Good and evil. Opposite, but not equal.

  Ben knew about the war now. And his own part in it.

  He faltered, uncertain which way to turn, and the words of his mentor, Mr. Moon, sprang to mind. Stop larking about and focus!

  Jago Moon was a man with many hidden talents, steeped in the knowledge and law of the Watchers. He was a master swordsman, which came as a surprise to people who assumed (as Moon intended them to) that he was a slightly insane bookseller. But that was only the beginning of Moon’s gifts. The old man’s hearing was so acute that he didn’t even need to use his eyes when he was sword fighting. Of course, the old boy didn’t have much choice on that score; he was blind as a bat and twice as scary.

  Ben did his best to imitate Moon now, using all of his senses to prepare himself for fight or flight. You never know when you might not have eyes to help you, Moon had advised him. Moon was full of cheery thoughts like that.

  Fighting against the hubbub of the city, Ben listened for sounds that he could use to pinpoint his position. He had always considered himself to be the king of the streets, but learning to navigate across the rooftops was almost like starting from scratch. He closed his eyes, shut out all the distractions and concentrated.

  A scream: the angry friction of metal against metal. Brakes, Ben recognized immediately. A hiss of steam. The constant rumble of iron wheels. He breathed in and tasted the sharp tang of coal dust in the air. So, I’m near a station. What else?

  Above the drone of other voices, Ben could make out the barking of costermongers trying to outdo each other as they drummed up trade. He pieced the details together, picturing the map of London in his mind. A railway station near a market? That would be Liverpool Street, he realized with some satisfaction. So that would mean I’m on…Lamb Street. Probably.

  He opened his eyes and looked around for some confirmation. As the sea of smoke shifted, he made out that Spitalfields Market was dead ahead. Ben sniffed the air, drawing in the organic rot of vegetables. Nice. The problem now was whether he could mak
e the jump.

  “Arm yourself, Ben Kingdom!” boomed his hunter. “Get ready to fight like a man of destiny.”

  Ben still couldn’t pinpoint where the voice was coming from, but it was undoubtedly closer than before. One thing was for certain – he needed to get onto a flat roof if he was going to stand a chance in one-to-one combat. And by his calculations, the flat roof of the market was less than eight feet away. Well, maybe nine or ten, Ben admitted. Certainly not more than twelve.

  The Watchers were faced with these challenges every day of the week and had devised numerous ingenious methods to help them bridge the gap between one building and another. Ladders, planks, zip wires and ropes were all stashed at strategic locations. Unfortunately for Ben, this particular junction wasn’t one of them.

  “I’m coming!” said the pursuer, from somewhere too close for comfort.

  “I’m going,” said Ben, and he took three careful steps backwards, enough to give him a short run-up. Pushing down with his legs and swinging powerfully upwards with his arms, Ben fixed his sight firmly on the opposite roof and launched himself into the air towards it. No more than twelve feet, he told himself as the air rushed around him. I can do this! And even as he thought it, Ben knew that he was dropping too fast. The arc of his leap had been too shallow. Of course I could be wrong, thought Ben, too late. It might be more like fifteen feet, in which case I’m absolutely stuffed.

  Spitalfields was further away than he had anticipated and Ben’s heart was in his mouth as his feet fell short and the wall loomed up in front of him. He threw up his arms as his body slammed painfully against the brickwork, punching all the air from his lungs. Scrabbling madly, his fingers managed to get a grip on the guttering. Then he hung there for a moment, as helpless as a rabbit in a butcher’s shop window.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, Ben heaved himself up, first getting one elbow up onto the roof, then the other, and finally his whole bruised body.

  “Easy,” he said, with a lopsided grin. “Jago Moon would be proud of me.”

  Then the quarterstaff struck him from behind, catching him in the crook of his knees and sweeping his legs out from underneath him. Or maybe not.