Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

"What happened to him?" he croaked.

Will and Launceston did their best to bundle him away, but the damage had already been done.

"Strangers." A pointing finger was levelled at Miller.

"Strangers," another repeated.

"They did it."

Hands tore at Will's cloak. Carpenter's sword was revealed, and Mayhew had his hood ripped from his head.

"Strangers! "

It did not matter whether they were agents of the law or responsible for the terrifying event that had just unfolded, Will saw that he and the others were a vent for the crowd's churning emotions. Throwing off the men attempting to grip his arms, he drew his sword and carved an arc around him with the tip of the blade.

The others were not so quick. "The Devil!" quickly gave way to "Spies!" and "The law!" followed rapidly by the call to arms of "Clubs!" which was soon ringing out loudly along the street. Men rushed from the tavern and the buildings all around, armed with whatever they could pick up to defend their illicit livelihoods, quickly joined by women and children who were just as ferocious.

A cudgel clattered across Mayhew's temple, sending a gout of blood spattering in a wide arc. Stunned, he staggered back until Carpenter caught him, his sword now drawn. But the crowd surged in such numbers that there was no room to use his blade, and soon he was swamped in bodies, fists and sticks and bottles raining down on him.

The mob was kept at bay by Will's flashing sword, but he could not see a way out. Overhead, the whistles rang out from the rooftops, and more people ran to the disturbance by the minute from all around the area. There was no point reasoning with them; the normally febrile emotions of the criminal class in defending their territory against suspicious intruders were now infused with the fear engendered by the scarecrow and burning as furiously as that thing had done.

Worse, the whistles had drawn the attention of the underworld security force. Daggers were being drawn and razors pulled from the lining of cloaks. The people of Alsatia would only be sated when five torn bodies were found on the edge of the Thames at daybreak.

Miller, Launceston, Mayhew, and Carpenter were lost to Will beneath the roiling sea of bodies, but he could hear the thwack of wood on flesh and the slap of boots and fists.

With a flourish, he plucked one of Dee's packages from his pouch and unfurled it, shielding his eyes with his arm. As the powder within met the air, the resounding bang made his ears ring and the flash burned through his closed lids, but it brought turmoil to the already anxious crowd. With yells and shrieks, the attackers surged back. Dazed and covered in blood, Miller quickly found his equilibrium as Will dragged him from the mud. Mayhew, Launceston, and Carpenter staggered towards him, similarly bloody and bruised.

As their eyes and nerves recovered, the mob circled warily. Will knew it would only be a matter of moments before they rediscovered their courage, and the sheer weight of numbers would bring him down.

"Follow my lead," he said quietly to the others, "and do not tarry, for if you fall behind they will be like wolves upon you."

Spinning, he kicked open the door at his back and raced into the smoky, damp-smelling shadows. A woman sat next to the hearth, sharpening a knife on a leather strap, a filthy, naked child playing at her feet. She glared at Will hatefully as he flashed her a smile and said, "Apologies. We shall not be staying for dinner."

The roaring mob thundered in pursuit. Will ran through the tenement and out of the back door onto another street with Launceston, Miller, Mayhew, and Carpenter at his back.

"Fool!" Launceston snapped at Miller. "If we survive this, I will take it out of your hide."

"Master Miller has prevented our day from becoming too dull," Will said, "and tedium is the most unforgivable crime of all. You will thank him for this later."

They ran west along the street, the mob slowed by the narrow passage of the tenement. But as the whistles blasted urgently from the rooftops, more streamed from alleys into the street ahead, trying to block their way.

"They will not rest until we are dead," Carpenter said. "They fear we are taking the secrets of their crimes away with us."

Gripping his sword tightly as he ran, Mayhew said fiercely, "I will take a hundred of them with me when I go! Damn the Spanish and the Enemysometimes I wonder if the real enemies are within." He ducked his head low as bottles and stones rained down around them. "Perhaps what we do is wrong. This rabble is not worth protecting."

As the mob drew in from all sides, Will saw it would be pointless trying to fight; they faced an army as ferocious in the defence of their beliefs as any foreign force. "We must find a place to hide," he said, "at least till night falls, and we can move on under cover of darkness."

"Hide where?" Carpenter snapped. "They will ransack any filthy hovel we choose to make our castle. Look-they are everywhere!"

"And did you accept defeat so easily when we fled across the snows of Muscovy with Feodor's men at our heels?" Will said. "Or did I dream us hiding like foxes in the roots of a tree?"

"I wish it had been a dream," Carpenter spat. "At least then I would not have these scars to itch morning, noon, and night."

Will could feel Carpenter's eyes on his back, and knew his associate wished his gaze was a dagger.

With a bellow, a man wearing a butcher's leather apron erupted from a door, swinging a bloodstained cleaver directly towards Will's head. Ducking beneath the arc, Will brought the pommel of his sword crashing against the back of the assailant's head. That was enough to deter him, but Launceston stepped in swiftly and slit the butcher's throat. Gurgling, and attempting to stem the arterial spurt, he plunged to the ground.

"A warning to the others," Launceston said before Will could speak.

The shouts of the mob grew louder, but their advance slowed. They were wary now, but just as murderous.

Will scanned the ranks moving in along both ends of the street before kicking his way into another tenement. "Bar the door behind us!" he called as he ran to open the rear door onto the next street.

Mayhew and Carpenter jammed what little furniture they could find in front of the door, and then made for the back door before Will summoned them to follow him up the stairs.

"Has the Devil taken your mind?" Carpenter shouted. "We will be trapped up there!"

"Follow him," Launceston said with cold insistence. "He is no fool."

Launceston and Mayhew propelled a dazed Miller up the stairs after Will. At the bottom, Carpenter hesitated for a moment until the sound of the mob drew towards the door and then he reluctantly followed.

Just as they reached the top of the creaking stairs, the front door burst open and the torrent of angry voices flooded through the tenement and out of the back door.

"They will be back the moment they find we are not in the street," Carpenter snapped, exasperated, "and this is the first place they will search."

"But they will not find us," Will said, "for we shall be disappeared."

Forcing his way through a door into a room filled with detritus and a bedroll on the bare boards in one corner, Will enjoyed the confusion for a moment and then pointed up to where a hatch led to the loft space. Mayhew and Launceston boosted him up, and then Will helped the others scramble into the dusty dark space filled with the flapping of nesting birds and the scurrying of rats along the rafters. Here and there, missing tiles allowed shafts of sunlight to punch through into the gloom.

Below, the muffled sounds of the mob washed around the tenement.

"You are still a fool," Carpenter raged. "They will find us here in time."

"Why, if I did not know better I would think you wanted us to fail," Will replied.