The City of Fear Read online

  “Look!” hissed Lucy. “That’s the signal!”

  Ben followed the line of her pointing finger, trying to penetrate the darkness of the night and the sheeting rain. Nothing. He squinted, then he saw it at the foot of the Wall: the unmistakable flash of a lantern.

  Ben felt his breathing quicken. It was time to act.

  Lucy had drawn a brass telescope from a side pocket in her pack and lifted her single-lensed goggles to search the shadows, as one black shape after another broke away from the buildings below and set off towards the light of the lantern.

  “Here they come,” she said. The escapees were a sorry sight. Frail old women with unsteady legs, mothers with infants clutched tightly to their chests, young children with fear written on their faces. Easy prey, Lucy thought grimly, now scanning the clouds.

  The Wall had grown more impenetrable by the day and it was getting harder and harder for Ben and the Watchers to find chinks in the Legion’s armour. At the start, when the Wall was first being raised, hundreds had made a break for it. Ben had led escapes where the Wall was at its weakest, where there were blind spots between the watchtowers, or where the Wall was still low enough to be scaled. Under Watcher protection, people had fled across the bridges, even through the Legion’s own tunnels, taking nothing with them but the clothes on their backs. But now the last of the tunnels had been sealed and the bridges had all been broken.

  Far below, Ben could see the wreckage of Westminster Bridge and the gap where Lambeth Bridge used to stand. He closed his eyes briefly as he remembered the surge of people who had tried to make it to the other side of the river, and the terrible explosions that had halted them in their tracks. There wasn’t even much to escape to, he thought bitterly. South of the River Thames, London had become a wasteland. Newington, Bermondsey, Southwark, Kennington. All gone. Reduced to dust and bricks and bones. The dead city.

  A shot pierced the night air and Ben snapped back into the moment. He saw his father send a rope ladder rattling down from his exposed position on top of the Wall. Seconds later a stream of escapees began to scramble up like ants, up and over the Wall to the steam barges waiting on the other side. But a line of bobbing lanterns told him that the Legion patrols were approaching far too quickly.

  A woman passed her baby up into Jonas’s waiting hands. Another shot splintered the darkness. The woman was scrambling onto the Wall to join her child when the Legion bullet clipped her, spinning her off balance. She fell, only to be caught by Jago Moon at the foot of the ladder, but she screamed. And her baby screamed. Then the panic spread.

  “I can’t wait,” said Nathaniel, climbing up on top of the balustrade and preparing to launch himself over the edge. “I can’t just sit here and watch this.”

  “Not yet!” ordered Ben.

  “Pa’s down there!” Nathaniel was shouting now, as more shots rang out.

  “I know!” Ben shouted back. “But we wait.”

  Ghost placed a firm hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder and drew him back from the edge. The look in Ghost’s eyes brooked no argument; he was with Ben.

  Down on Horseferry Road, one of the Legion searchlights burst into life. A long finger of light raked the Wall, stopping once it had the escapees in its gaze.

  “They’re sitting ducks!” snarled Nathaniel.

  Ben looked at Lucy and he could see that even her steely reserve was wavering.

  “Ben…” she began.

  “If we go too soon, then we lose our only advantage,” said Ben.

  It was then that three Feathered Men came screaming down out of the sky. The creatures flew in formation, whistling around Big Ben itself, so close that Ben could feel the downdraught of their wings as they swept by.

  “Now we go,” said Ben, climbing up onto the parapet and throwing himself into the air behind them.

  Gravity grabbed Ben immediately and for an instant he was certain that he had made his last mistake. Heart in his mouth, Ben yanked hard on the cord on his backpack. Instantly the pack unfolded and two canvas wings snapped outwards, supported by spring-loaded metal arms.

  And Ben wasn’t falling any more.

  As the wings took his weight, Ben enjoyed the rush of pure adrenaline. Behind him he glimpsed his crew, gliding into action in his wake.

  While the Watchers on the ground fended off their attackers with crossbow fire, Ben’s squadron would tackle the Feathered Men in the air.

  The trick, Ben knew, was to take the Feathered Men by surprise. They considered themselves to be invulnerable, with their massive strength and ferocious anger. However, they would not be expecting an attack from above. The gliders could only carry the Watchers downwards, so the key would be to position themselves immediately over the Feathered Men, then strike hard and fast.

  Ben used the guide pulleys and the movements of his own body to steer himself where he wanted to go. It wasn’t as easy as he had hoped. Somehow Lucy drew level with him – she had the knack already, Ben noticed with a little envy.

  On the ground, the last escapees were scattering, fleeing into any nook or cranny that would take them, like cockroaches on the kitchen floor. Ben couldn’t see his father or Jago Moon or any of the other Watchers, but he knew that they would be the very last to head for safety. More than one Watcher had lain down his own life helping someone else to get over the Wall.

  Ben could see a group of frightened children, separated from their parents in the confusion, and now at the mercy of the Legion. He knew that if the Feathered Men reached them, these kids wouldn’t be rounded up and put into the detention camps with the other dissenters. They would be eaten.

  It looked as if the lead Feathered Man had spotted the children too, as it angled its great body towards them. But before Ben could make a move to cut it off, he saw Valentine and Nathaniel make their descent towards it. The fallen angel gave an ear-splitting cry that was enough to make a grown man freeze in his tracks. Ben noticed a boy, hardly more than six years old, rooted to the spot at the foot of the rope ladder, unable to move as the horrible creature dived towards him.

  Valentine and Nathaniel took careful aim with their crossbows. They would only get one shot. Two bolts sang out, finding a home in the foul creature’s back. The Feathered Man continued in its arc towards the boy but, instead of snatching the child up in its talons, it ploughed into the rubble, twitching and flapping its broken wings. Valentine and Nathaniel hit the ground running. That’s my brother, thought Ben, as Nathaniel seized the terrified child, flung him over his shoulder and then disappeared into the night.

  Ghost, meanwhile, had actually landed on the back of the second Feathered Man. He silently dispatched it, then let it fall to the ground.

  Ben urgently unfurled the weighted net that he had stowed in his own pack. He steered himself closer to Lucy, but the tips of their wings almost brushed in the process and he was forced to twist away. Heart hammering, he came in for a second attempt and this time managed to pass the other side of the net to Lucy. She gave him a smile of approval and together they positioned themselves above the remaining Feathered Man.

  Although they were bestial in their hunger, the creatures were not stupid, and even as Ben and Lucy flew in to attack, the fallen angel spun round to face them, snarling and spitting as it came.

  Lucy gave the nod and together they dropped the net. It spread out as it fell, wide enough to catch the evil being in its embrace. But anger kept the Feathered Man powering up towards them, beak reaching for their flesh through a hole in the net. Lucy was able to steer away, banking sharply to the left and bringing herself in to land on a flat roof.

  Ben wasn’t so quick.

  The Feathered Man’s wings were now tangled hopelessly in the net, but as it began to tumble out of the sky, it shot out one long-fingered hand and grabbed Ben by the ankle, taking him down too. The glider slowed Ben’s descent for the first few seconds, then the metal armature of the wings sheared in two and Ben and the Feathered Man dropped together. In a struggling mess of limbs they
landed hard on the cold, wet cobbles.

  Ben blacked out for a second. He came to with his head spinning and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. Stars swam in and out of his vision. Beside him, the Feathered Man was breathing heavily, a deep, rasping sound coming from its throat. Then its eyes snapped open and, still enmeshed in the net, it began to pull itself towards Ben.

  Ben tried to get to his feet and promptly fell back to the ground again. He must have hit his head harder than he’d thought – his balance was all shot. Starting to feel the rise of fear, he looked around for a way to escape. The trouble was, London had changed since Mr. Sweet had begun his rule. Ben had always prided himself that he knew every street, every alley – but the Legion had set up roadblocks and checkpoints, making dead ends where none had existed before.

  Ben began to shuffle backwards on hands and feet, while the world continued to blur like a bad dream. Lucy had seen him crash but more Feathered Men were already circling. The other Watchers were nowhere near and Ben was on his own in enemy territory. Sweet had spies on every street. Neighbours who followed their neighbours with beady eyes and tongues that were eager to wag. And the punishment for aiding Watchers was death.

  Ben’s vision cleared long enough for him to be able to see the Feathered Man gradually untangling itself. Its legs had apparently been broken by the fall, but its hatred burned as hot as ever. Slowly the creature hauled itself after Ben.

  Ben looked into its cold avian eyes and knew that it would never give up.

  Ben struggled to his feet. Nausea dragged him back down to the floor.

  The clacking beak was getting nearer. Ben could see the thin yellow tongue and the pink gash of the waiting gullet.

  In his last moment of consciousness, Ben imagined that he saw a figure charging through the rain. A tall man in a long leather coat. A man with a claw where his left hand should be.

  Then Ben saw nothing at all.

  The Prisoner was alone in the darkness.

  He had not seen any light since the Legion had captured him and thrown him into this dungeon. They were afraid of him, he knew that. Afraid of the blood on his hands and the sword which had slain so many Feathered Men. That was why they kept him in chains. The links seemed to glisten even in the gloom, but the Prisoner was not fooled by their beauty. The heavy metal shackles encircled his waist and then disappeared into the four corners of his cell, tethering him like some strange spider in the middle of a shining web. Tentatively his hands felt his bonds. He had done this hundreds of times before, always with the same result.

  Pain.

  Intense daggers of pain that left his fingers bleeding.

  These were no ordinary chains. They had been forged from witch-silver and inscribed with foul oaths in an ancient and evil tongue. Worse than that, these bonds were empowered by the Crown of Corruption and the tyrant who wore it; while Mr. Sweet ruled, these chains could never be broken.

  The Prisoner smiled to himself. But neither could the chains break him.

  He had faith.

  Even in this black hole. Even with his skin worn almost to the bone by the biting witch-silver. The Prisoner was certain that the Watchers would not leave him here to rot.

  They would come.

  Ben would come.

  The red-headed street urchin was the only one who could destroy the Crown of Corruption and set him free.

  Through the wall the Prisoner could hear muffled sounds of weeping. Thousands of men and women around the globe called the old lady in the cell next door their Queen, but to the Prisoner, she was just “Victoria”.

  The Prisoner sometimes wept too, when he thought of what the Legion was doing to London. Other times he sang. Long songs in a language which none of his captors understood. Songs about freedom and justice and truth.

  His songs really upset the guards, he thought with a smile.

  The crying and the singing helped to muffle the other sounds in the dungeon. The scratching of rats, the scurrying of beetles. The steady drip, drip, drip of water running down the walls.

  From the far end of the corridor the Prisoner heard the sound of footsteps approaching and he cocked his head to listen more intently. He heard the click of a heel-spur striking the flagstones and the rattle of claws on elongated toes. The Prisoner knew what to expect even before the key turned in his cell door.

  Although the light outside was faint, the mere flickering of a torch, it was harsh enough to sting his eyes and the Prisoner had to turn his face away as his jailer entered the room.

  A huge Feathered Man strode in. Older, more powerful, more battle-scarred than the rest of his kin.

  The Prisoner opened his eyes. “Abaddon,” he said softly.

  “I haven’t gone by that name for centuries,” said the Feathered Man with a scornful laugh as he placed the torch in a wall bracket. “Here they call me ‘Grey Wing’.”

  “So then, Grey Wing, have you come to confess your wicked ways and beg for forgiveness?”

  The Feathered Man laughed again and then lashed out, striking the Prisoner across the face and knocking his head sideways. “I need no forgiveness!” Grey Wing screamed. “I regret nothing.”

  “For now,” said the Prisoner, his tongue testing for loosened teeth. “But one day you will regret the path you have chosen.”

  Grey Wing pushed his face close until the point of his beak was a hair’s breadth away. The Prisoner could taste the raw-meat stench of the creature’s breath.

  “You are the one wearing the chains, and you would do well to remember that. You are waiting for a rescue that will never come. Never.”

  “I believe in Ben Kingdom,” said the Prisoner matter-of-factly. “I believe in the Hand of Heaven.”

  “Believe all you like, but these are the last days for the humans.”

  “Mr. Sweet is a child pretending to be a king. His reign was destined for disaster from the start.”

  “There I agree with you,” said Grey Wing. “His days are numbered…by me.”

  “You? Why? Isn’t there enough bloodshed and fear in the Legion’s new London?”

  “Nowhere near enough,” hissed Grey Wing. “I didn’t ally myself with the Legion so that my fellow Feathered Men and I could be guard dogs! I will only rest when everything is destroyed. When every city is ash and no human is left breathing.” The huge Feathered Man paused, panting heavily with emotion. “I will use the Gehenna Key…”

  The Prisoner understood the full weight of that awful threat, yet he let nothing show on his face.

  “I will unleash the creatures of the pit…” Grey Wing continued with manic delight. “And they will devour this world.”

  The Prisoner clapped his hands together slowly. “What will you do for an encore?”

  “You would do well not to mock me!” Grey Wing snarled.

  “Another empty threat,” said the Prisoner. “If you had the Gehenna Key, you would have used it already.”

  Grey Wing made a low snarl. “I will have it. You will tell me where it is.”

  The Prisoner said nothing.

  “I will hurt you if you don’t tell me,” Grey Wing warned, hopping closer.

  “I don’t doubt it,” said the Prisoner.

  “I know that you will tell me,” Grey Wing sneered. “You might have a prettier face than me, but we are the same – beings not of this earth. That means I understand you better than these humans ever could.” Grey Wing examined him with huge unblinking eyes. “It also means that I know exactly how best to hurt you.”

  In a blur of savage anger, Grey Wing launched himself at the Prisoner and pinned him to the ground with his great weight, the tips of his talons piercing exposed flesh. The Prisoner writhed in anguish, but braced himself for worse to come. The witch-silver robbed him of the strength to fight back and he was at the mercy of a creature who knew no pity.

  Slowly and deliberately, Grey Wing reached out with a taloned hand…

  The Prisoner knew what was coming and set his jaw against it, gr
itting his teeth so hard that he thought they might shatter in his mouth.

  The pain, when it hit, was excruciating, as if his soul was being torn as well as his body.

  The Prisoner hadn’t realized that he had shut his eyes until he opened them again and saw what Grey Wing was clutching triumphantly in his hand. Long, white feathers. Dripping red where they had been torn out at the root.

  “What is an angel without wings?” snarled Grey Wing. “I can keep going until you are just as pathetic as those humans you care so much for… Or you can tell me where the key is hidden.”

  “I cannot stop you…” the Prisoner gasped in agony. “I cannot stop you from destroying my physical form, but that is merely a shell. You can never crush my spirit. The key is hidden beyond your reach and I will do nothing to help you. Enjoy this fleeting moment of power, Grey Wing, because – trust me on this – Ben Kingdom and the Watchers shall defeat you!”

  Mention of that name spurred Grey Wing on to greater violence, plucking another fistful of feathers from the Prisoner’s wings. “Before the night is out you will tell me where to find the Gehenna Key,” Grey Wing hissed. “You have been forgotten. Ben Kingdom is not coming to your rescue. You belong to me, Josiah!”

  Ben woke suddenly and urgently from a nightmare filled with feathers and claws. He sat bolt upright and his head flicked from left to right, searching for an enemy, even as his hand instinctively went for his quarterstaff.

  “Easy, son,” a familiar voice growled in his ear. “You’re safe.”

  Ben blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of a lantern. “How long have I been out?”

  “Hours,” said Jago Moon. “Sun’s just coming up.”

  Ben searched the gloom, anxious to see who else had made it out alive. Pa, Nathaniel, Ghost, little Molly Marbank, Valentine and Lucy. Ben recognized more than a dozen other senior cell leaders too, brave boys and girls who ensured that Ben’s plans were followed by the other Watchers scattered across the city.