The Feast of Ravens Read online

  Ben’s eyes blazed as he saw his assailant for the first time.

  “You fancy playing rough, eh?” Ben taunted, but the words had barely passed his lips when a missile caught him low in the gut, leaving him gasping for breath. It was a crossbow bolt with a weighted head, fired at close range by his slender attacker, who was now backflipping away across the roof.

  He rubbed his bruised stomach, grateful that the bolt that had hit him was made for stunning a foe, not killing them. His eyes locked on his attacker. Ben had fought with this opponent many times before, and there was something almost teasing about their manner which made Ben see red.

  And then it came: the tinkling laugh.

  “So it’s like that, is it?” said Ben, reaching for his belt and unclipping a short brass tube. With a practised flick of the wrist it expanded into a quarterstaff of his own, which he spun from hand to hand; another of the skills that Jago Moon had taught him.

  He knew that his assailant was not alone. When they came for him like this, they always hunted in pairs, and the deep voice that had called out to him certainly did not belong to the slight, loose-limbed creature who remained teasingly out of reach. Ben braced himself and waited for the thud of feet on tiles that would announce their arrival.

  Ben strained his ears. No sound came.

  He looked around him, keeping light on his feet, waiting and alert. Then he heard it. It was a sound which still gave him goosebumps. The ugly clouds parted and swirled into eddies, stirred by the beating of enormous wings.

  “Look no further,” said the angel who landed in front of him. “And draw your sword.”

  “Here we go again,” said Ben.

  Even though this was by no means the first time that he had encountered an angel, Ben could not completely control the quiver of fear which suddenly grabbed him. There was something deeply unnerving about facing a being that was not of this world.

  The angel in front of him was tall and powerful, with long dark hair hanging around a face which was simultaneously young and incredibly old. It was as if this man in the prime of his life had somehow witnessed everything that was terrible throughout history; all his scars were on the inside. He was wearing an open-necked, high-collared shirt, and a long, black, square-tailed coat, which had been tailored for him personally to make allowance for the huge white wings which emerged from beneath it.

  What always rattled Ben though, even more than the viciously sharp sword that the angel had drawn from its scabbard, were the angel’s eyes. They didn’t just see him, they saw into him. Everything that he was, everything that he had done, no secret was left undisturbed. It was a terrible thing, Ben thought, to be seen by an angel.

  With a calmness born out of practice, Ben retracted his quarterstaff using the button on its hilt and clipped it back onto his belt. Then slowly, his gaze not flinching from the angel’s weapon, Ben reached over his shoulder and drew his own sword from its sheath on his back. It was a light blade, slender and finely balanced. It was, as Jago Moon had been keen to instil, a weapon of defence and last resort. To take a life, even the life of an enemy, was not the Watcher way.

  Ben flicked his wrist, making the tip of his sword carve invisible curls in the air.

  The angel smiled approvingly and then unleashed his attack.

  Ben didn’t have time to think any more; all he could do was react.

  The angel’s sword slashed towards him in a furious barrage of blows; right cheek; left flank; right flank; left cheek. Ben blocked every swipe but he felt himself being forced backwards across the roof, step by step. Desperately he made a counter-attack, diving forwards and then rolling back up to his feet behind the angel, with a spinning slash at his opponent’s legs. However, a single beat of his wings lifted the angel above the arc of Ben’s blade, and when he landed he attacked with renewed ferocity, sending Ben scurrying back on his hands and feet just to stay out of reach of the onslaught.

  Ben tried to concentrate on what Jago Moon had taught him. Focus. Breathe. Anticipate, Moon would say. Choices and consequences, Ben. All good advice, he was sure, but pretty hard to manage when someone was trying to hack your head off.

  Ben scrabbled back onto his feet just in time to parry an almighty downward blow which would have cleaved his head in two. His body still ached where he had slammed into the wall, and his arms were getting heavier, his muscles burning. Ben was losing and the angel knew it.

  It was then that he backed into his other opponent, who had been waiting patiently on the rooftop. While he had been focusing on not getting his bonce chopped off, Ben had forgotten about the other attacker, the one with the crossbow and the playful laugh. Too late he felt their arms around him and, caught off balance, he was flung to the floor. The small figure followed through with a sharp open-handed blow to his wrist, knocking Ben’s sword from his hand, before pinning him securely to the ground.

  Ben lay on his back, struggling for breath, while his adversary sat astride his chest, knees on his shoulders, hands clamped firmly around his wrists. He looked for his sword. It was only a few feet away. It may as well have been miles.

  He looked up into the face of his victor.

  And, as always, she laughed.

  “We must stop meeting like this,” said Lucy Lambert, her cheeks flushed with effort.

  “Very funny,” said Ben, meaning to sound rather nonchalant about the whole thing but coming across as more petulant than he would have liked. “You can let me up now. I’ve had enough training for one day, don’t you think?”

  “Anything you say, oh mighty one,” said Lucy, releasing him. She put out her hand and pulled Ben to his feet. He flashed her a quick grin but Lucy only held his gaze for a moment before turning away. She busied herself tidying her equipment and checking everything was in place on her belt.

  She was a strong girl, in more ways than one, Ben knew. She was a Watcher to the core, standing there in the leather trench coat they all wore, her brass-rimmed goggles on the top of her head, like a crown in her long honey-coloured hair. Instinctively her hand went to her face as she felt his eyes on her, touching the long livid scar that split her right cheek in two and the eyepatch which hid the worst of her old wound.

  “Be good,” she said out of the side of her mouth. “Josiah is coming. None of your backchat.”

  The angel approached them, his footsteps measured. “Well,” said Josiah, slipping his sword back into its sheath. “How do you think that went?”

  “Sweet as a nut,” said Ben.

  “Apart from the fact that you would have been killed if I were Claw Carter or one of the Legion’s Feathered Men,” Josiah replied.

  “All right,” Ben snapped. “Keep your halo on.”

  Ben was tired, he was bleeding from grazes to his knees and elbows, and his head was spinning. Since he had joined the Watchers, most days had followed the same pattern. Endless training, constant lectures from Jago Moon and Mother Shepherd, the ageing leader of the Watchers. Think like this. Act like that. Be prepared. And yet, according to them, he still wasn’t ready to go on anything more challenging than a long-range scouting mission. All he ever got was Not yet. Not today. When the time is right. It was driving him mad with frustration.

  The sense of elation that he had felt just moments earlier when he was jumping free, suddenly abandoned him, and the weight of his responsibility chained him to the spot. Ben felt Josiah looking at him, those ancient eyes stripping away all his outer layers of protection to bore into his soul.

  The Watchers believed that Ben was the Hand of Heaven, the great leader promised by prophecy. It was a great destiny, but not one that Ben had asked for.

  Deep down, Ben couldn’t help but wonder if they had got it all wrong.

  Did it seem likely that a street urchin from the East End, always in some sort of trouble, was really the one person who would end the war between the Watchers and the Legion? Ben was always up for a dare, but even he wouldn’t have picked himself for this one. Mother Shepherd cert
ainly had the wisdom, Jago Moon had the courage, and Lucy Lambert had just about all the qualities necessary, as far as he could see. But him? Ben Kingdom from Old Gravel Lane?

  And what if he let them down? What then?

  Ben rolled his shoulders and pinched at an imaginary pain in his neck. Head up, Benny boy, he told himself. Put on a brave face. Brass it out.

  Ben retrieved his own sword. He could see Josiah and Lucy waiting for him, before they all returned to camp. They looked at him with expressions full of expectation, but Ben was certain that his own doubts were written all over his face.

  “I’ll catch you up,” said Ben, dropping down on one knee to fiddle with a shoelace that didn’t need tying. “If Nathaniel is back yet,” he called to Lucy, “give him a dead arm from me.”

  “I’ll do better than that,” laughed Lucy. “I’ll tell him how his little brother was beaten by a girl…again!”

  “Thanks for that,” said Ben as he watched them leave.

  That was another thing Ben found annoying. His big brother was allowed out on proper missions, and had even been in a few skirmishes, but Ben – the leader-in-waiting, so Mother Shepherd said – was never even allowed out of eyeshot.

  “Give me strength,” Ben whispered softly, his hand dipping into his pocket and touching an old silver Coin which lay there. “Or failing that, give me a bit of luck.”

  Captain Mickelwhite enjoyed his status in the Legion.

  His father was the Duke of Gloucester, and there was a title and an inheritance waiting for Mickelwhite, should he ever choose to return to the family home. But the truth was that money and status were not enough for him. As a young child he had always enjoyed hurting animals, and as a boy at boarding school he’d found there was fun to be had hurting other children too. He had told the headmaster it had been an accident when the other boy lost his legs but, of course, that had been a lie.

  Mickelwhite remembered the day well. He often revisited it and replayed those formative moments. The headmaster had been afraid of him; Mickelwhite had seen it in the bead of sweat that trickled from his thinning hairline and the relief on his face when he told Mickelwhite that he was expelled. His father could easily have covered up the whole messy affair – dukes were good at things like that – but Mickelwhite had had a glimpse of his future on that day. The fear in the headmaster’s eyes had been simply exquisite. And being in the Legion meant that he got to taste others’ fear every single day.

  The Legion had a way of rewarding those with his particular set of skills. Knight Commander Claw Carter had recognized his leadership potential immediately. Indeed, fourteen years old and already a captain, Mickelwhite would have said that he was Carter’s favourite – or at least he had been, until Ben Kingdom had come along. It was particularly irksome to Mickelwhite that an arrogant East End street rat like Kingdom should be the focus of such attention. Carter seemed to believe that Kingdom was some sort of “chosen one”. What rot! It was certainly a pleasing twist that Kingdom had been instrumental in Carter’s fall from glory.

  Since then, Mickelwhite had done his best to distance himself from Carter and had quickly found himself a new sponsor within the Legion: Mr. Sweet himself. Now there was a man who Mickelwhite did admire. Carter was a spent force, but Mr. Sweet was a member of the Council of Seven, the ultimate power in the Legion. That was why Mickelwhite was standing guard outside a dungeon door in the heart of the Under; Mr. Sweet had ordered it.

  Mickelwhite heard footsteps approaching – solid, confident steps – and knew immediately that they belonged to Mr. Sweet. He squared his shoulders and lifted his head.

  The great man came to a halt and Mickelwhite saluted him the Legion way, bringing his left fist up to his chest with a thump.

  “Mr. Sweet, sir,” said Mickelwhite, his voice cracking slightly in Sweet’s powerful presence. “At your command.”

  “I know, boy,” said Sweet, his voice low. “I am going inside now to prepare…a special treat, shall we say. In five minutes’ time I shall be receiving guests and you are to let them in and lock the door behind them. However –” and here Sweet raised a finger in warning – “once all of my visitors are inside you are not, on any account, to unlock this door until I order you to do so. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Do not weaken on me, boy,” Sweet emphasized. “Even if there is a monstrous ballyhoo, even if you hear begging or screaming or mewling, or are promised extravagant bribes, no one walks out of this room… Except me!”

  Captain Mickelwhite waited eagerly for the prisoners to arrive. More Watcher scum, he thought. Preferably Ben Kingdom. So he was taken completely by surprise when a strange party turned the corner and approached his post. Mickelwhite made the Legion salute and stood stock-still while they trooped silently into the room.

  One by one they passed him: a tall woman in a raven-feather hood, her face all shadows; a shrunken dwarf; a man of enormous obesity; a thin foppish man with long manicured nails; a woman dressed in flowing green silk, her eyes unnaturally wide; a dried husk of a man, with long limbs hanging loosely over the edges of a bath chair, wheeled along by a solemn servant. They didn’t acknowledge Mickelwhite and he made no attempt to catch their gaze; for they were the Council of Seven. Their rule in the Legion was unquestioned. Their power was to be feared.

  Mickelwhite stayed motionless by the door until they were all inside. He felt thrilled to have seen all of the Council of Seven. How many others in the Legion could make that boast? he wondered.

  As ordered, once they were all inside Mickelwhite took the key from his pocket. His fingers trembled slightly as he turned the key in the lock and the bolt snapped into place. His curiosity getting the better of him, he began to imagine what sort of treat Mr. Sweet could possibly have in store for the rest of the Council.

  Then he heard the gasps. And the cries. And the blood-curdling screams.

  Mickelwhite changed his mind and tried to keep his imagination locked as tightly as that door.

  What could possibly be evil enough to frighten the Legion’s most terrifying members? What sort of monster could scare them to death?

  As a weary sun gave up the battle of the day, Ben made his way across the Watcher encampment. It was a nomadic life in the Watchers, always on the move, never stopping on the same rooftop for more than one night. Every day Mother Shepherd decided on a new location for their camp, and then the work began in earnest.

  Lookouts had to be posted, perimeters guarded, quick escape paths planned, with rope ladders and bridge planks put in place. Then the tents had to be set up – the canvas and tarpaulin awnings that they fixed into the sheltered lee of any available wall. Then the waterproof groundsheets were laid and the bedding rolls prepared. Fires were lit, for cooking, cleaning and washing, and coal and wood found to keep them burning. Then came the hunt for food. Usually it was a mix of whatever vegetables they were able to get their hands on, some meat if they were lucky, a crust of bread if not. But no hungry belly ever went unfed. It was one of the things that Ben most admired about their secret society – everyone was welcome: beggars and princes, sinners and saints.

  As tired as he was, Ben still had the energy to smile. Up here, under the sky, he had discovered a reassuring homeliness that had somehow always been absent from the cold, damp room his family used to live in. It was a mother’s touch that had been missing, Ben recognized with a sharp stab of regret.

  Ben now knew that his father, Jonas, and elder brother, Nathaniel, didn’t blame him for the death of the woman who should have bound them all together. It wasn’t Ben’s fault that his mother lost her life bringing him into the world. But the wound that had been left was deep and they all felt it still.

  Ben passed groups of Watchers gathered in intimate circles around their fires. Some of them raised their hands to him in a wave or a salute, and Ben nodded in return.

  Part of Ben wished that he could just be an ordinary Watcher, rather than the chosen boy who would suppos
edly lead them to victory one day. As it was, he was set apart. Loved, but only from afar. Too special, too different, to just sit and share a bowl of stew.

  Mother Shepherd had taught him the prophecy, until he knew it line by line.

  One will come to lead the fight,

  To defeat the darkness, bring the triumph of the light.

  One will come with fire as his crown,

  To bring the Legion tumbling down…

  In truth, the only part Ben thought sounded really like him was the “fire as his crown” part. The Watchers were waiting for a hero with red hair. He could argue about a lot of things, but he couldn’t deny being ginger. Apparently, being the chosen one meant that Ben had one crucial responsibility; he had to choose between the powers of evil and good, what the prophecy referred to as “eternal darkness” or “endless day”.

  At first, that didn’t seem like such a bad lot. Whichever side he chose would win, so choose the Watchers, they win, end of story.

  Only it wasn’t as simple as that, because every one of Ben’s choices could upset the balance. He was with the Watchers now, and they accepted him as the Hand of Heaven, but if he slipped, if he did the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time, then he could just as easily become the Hand of Hell and the saviour of the Legion.

  How’s that for pressure?

  The Watchers all spoke about him with great respect. Around the cooking fires they told of how he had parted the clouds and caused hailstones the size of marbles to smash the Feathered Men from the sky. In excited whispers, they related the moment he had brought his own father back from death. The glorious time when Ben was used as the Hand of Heaven, and power flowed through him, knitting Jonas Kingdom’s body back together again, and putting a fresh beat in his still heart. Ben remembered it too. The problem was that he didn’t recall it in the same way.

  His hand did throb when he was under intense pressure, but what did that prove? And anyway, it seemed to be happening less and less. It had hailed that day, and the hail was heavy and it did drive the Feathered Men back, but how could Ben say for certain that the hail had fallen because he had wanted it to?