The Silver Skull - Mark Chadbourn

Reidheid stepped onto the closest of the cross-marked flags, and by chance it was one beneath an eye. Hesitating, he looked around at the blazing pools and realised Will was leading him into a trap.

He smiled and stepped back. "Clever, Master Swyfte. But you are at the disadvantage. The Unseelie Court even now prepare to close off your options for escape, and the Spaniard has been dispatched to collect your assistant. He will not last long."

"Then let us end this." Will raced along the true path across the flags, but at the last he stepped on the fake flag nearest to Reidheid. It crumbled under his boot, but his momentum carried him over it as he ducked the swing of Reidheid's sword and rolled across the solid stones of the chamber's entrance area.

As flames rushed up from the black pool, Reidheid reeled back, one arm raised before his face against the blast of heat.

On his feet in an instant, Will spun, planting one boot in Reidheid's gut. With a cry, he doubled-up and fell back, but a well-hidden agility came to the fore as he rolled across the chamber floor to avoid the thrust of Will's sword.

He was up quickly, blocking Will's driving thrusts and responding in kind. Their fight ranged along the edge of the cross-marked flags, evenly matched as Reidheid settled back into the duelling skills he had learned in his youth. Resounding off the chamber walls, the clash of their blades sang, thrust and parry, high and low.

But Reidheid was out of condition and after a few moments he began to tire. As his strength dwindled, Will saw his opening. He kicked one of the cross-marked flags next to Reidheid, withdrawing his boot sharply as the silvery dust fell. When the flames roared up, they engulfed the left side of Reidheid's body. Screaming, and ablaze, he dropped his sword and staggered away.

Instantly, Will knocked him to the floor and rolled him over continually until the flames were extinguished. The skin of Reidheid's face and most of the left side of his body was blackened, but he was alive. Will dragged him to his feet and propelled him towards the tunnel. "You are fortunate I am not the man you thought I was."

Near the entrance, the flames made their shadows dance along the tunnel walls, but soon they were in the dark again, with only the shaft of light from the abbey above to guide them on.

Whimpering in pain, Reidheid offered no resistance. Beyond his cries, Will listened for any sign of threat in the abbey above, but all was quiet.

"Nat," he whispered loudly, but received no response.

Beneath the shattered flag, he cupped his hands to propel Reidheid up, and then leapt to draw himself into the abbey. It was empty. Had Nathaniel gone to investigate the festivities, to ensure the Enemy was not closing on the abbey?

"Make no sound," Will said quietly to Reidheid as he held him by the arm, "or I will retract my previous decision and run you through."

At the door, Will listened. He could hear the distant music from the king's festivities, but there appeared to be no one nearby. Moving out into the short corridor that joined the abbey and the palace, he saw the quadrangle was now illuminated by the silvery light of the moon. Darkness hung heavily in the cloisters.

"Father!" Meg's cry rang out from the nearest cloister along the eastern edge, and a second later she separated from the darkness of a doorway accompanied by another figure. It was the Hunter, and he gripped her wrist tightly. Tearfully, she struggled to free herself so she could run to Reidheid, but the Hunter held her fast. As she fought, he moved a cruel, curved knife to her throat.

"See what you have done?" Will said coldly.

"Meg." The desolation in Reidheid's voice rose up above the pain of his injuries. "Leave her be."

In the moonlight in the quadrangle, several figures appeared, though there had been no sign of them before. Cavillex stood at the head of the other members of the Unseelie Court.

"There are places we cannot walk, but our influence never fades when we can always reach into human hearts," he said.

Drawing his sword again, Will thrust Reidheid away. Slowly he backed to the wall, his eyes darting along his branch of the cloister.

"Kill her," Cavillex ordered. "And then the rest of them."

Reidheid cried out, but before he could move, Nathaniel lurched from a doorway where he had been hiding. He manhandled a hefty iron candlestick and brought it down hard on the Hunter, who fell to the ground, his knife spinning across the flags.

"Run, Nat!" Will called. As he turned, he caught a glimpse of Nathaniel grabbing Meg by the hand and dragging her towards the abbey. Cavillex's orders echoed across the quadrangle, but Will was already racing along the cloister towards the tower in the far corner. He hoped to escape through the door to the gatehouse, but the Unseelie Court moved silently and stealthily past the entrance, revealed only by the moonlight throwing their fleeting shadows on the stone.

At the end of the cloister, Will plunged through a door that led to a spiral staircase passing windows with a view over the formal gardens. Only one pursuer appeared to be climbing the stairs behind him-the Hunter, Will guessed, seeking revenge for the wound Will had inflicted in the Fairy House.

At the top of the steps, he crashed into the outer chamber of a bedroom, dark with wood panelling. Each panel on the ceiling was marked with the royal seal, and as he ran into a chamber with decor that suggested it belonged to a woman, he realised he had arrived in the old quarters of Mary, Queen of Scots. Moonlight broke through the window across the boards. A wooden cabinet inlaid with red hearts and gold stood by a closed door to what he guessed was a dressing room, and a four-poster bed rested against one wall next to another door.

Will leapt onto the bed and drew the curtain. Steadying his breathing, he listened, and waited. The thunder of boots crossed the floorboards, and then his pursuer skidded into the room, coming to a halt as though he could sense Will was nearby. Will listened as he moved around the chamber. A soft tread, the brush of fingers on wood. The door to the dressing room thrown open. The cabinet knocked to one side. The other door torn open, a blast of chill air stirring the curtains around the bed.

The footsteps came to a halt, followed by a moment of searching silence, before they moved towards the bed and stopped on the other side of the curtain. Soft exhalations disturbed the quiet. Will pictured them only inches apart, looking directly into each other's eyes.

Will felt calm, his heartbeat steady. He was focused, staring directly at the thick, embroidered drape. A long moment of deathly quiet.

The curtains were torn back forcibly. For a second, Will's gaze locked on the Hunter's dark eyes, and he saw in their infinite depths a coruscating intelligence. Then, with a single fluid motion, he drove his sword through the Hunter's throat.

"For my friend," Will said quietly.

He continued to watch the eyes flicker in shock, and then roll towards white as the Hunter slid backwards, off the sword, his hands going to his throat. Will leapt from the bed and thrust his weapon through his adversary's heart, and held it firmly in place until the Hunter crashed to the boards, dead.

Standing over him, Will surveyed the body for a moment, seeing something less than the Enemy that had haunted the nightmares of Englishmen, thinking of Tom Miller, dead at the end of a rope long before he had begun to reach his potential. Thinking of Jenny.

"Not even a balance," Will said coldly. He withdrew his sword and wiped it on the body.

From outside came a keening sound that set his teeth on edge, and he realised it was the sound of grief from a world beyond the one he knew. Somehow the other members of the Unseelie Court had sensed the death of one of their own.

As the sound of running feet echoed from the spiral staircase, Will bolted through the other door of the bedchamber into the Queen's Lobby, and then to a long gallery. Bounding down a flight of stairs, he encountered a mass of guards rushing towards him, led by the king himself. Fear burned in all their faces, and though they held swords and torches, there was little sign that they would be used.

"Master Swyfte," King James began, "I expected to find you at the heart of this disturbance."

"Apologies. I fear I have upset some of your guests."

A slight smile curved James's lips.

"They will not trouble you, but I believe they may want to introduce me to an unpleasant end," Will continued.

"Then I suggest you leave the palace forthwith, Master Swyfte, and we shall do all we can to ensure your pursuers are engaged in entertaining conversation! I hope you enjoyed the hospitality at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. You are welcome here any time."

With a grin and a bow, Will ran back out into the quadrangle, while James led his entourage towards the sound of the Unseelie Court in pursuit. Will knew the king would only be able to delay Cavillex and his group for a short while; time was of the essence.

He found an unsettled Nathaniel in the abbey, armed once again with the iron candlestick as he watched the door. Behind him, Meg tended to her father, who was sprawled on the flags.

"Come, Nat. We must take our leave," Will said.

Nathaniel's relief was palpable. "This is not the fun and games I was promised, Will. I will think twice the next time you invite me to a party." He turned to Meg and offered his hand, but she shook her head.

"I must tend to my father," she said, exchanging a long look of yearning with Nathaniel.

After a second, Nathaniel gave a restrained nod in parting and hurried to Will's side.

"There will be time to renew acquaintances another day," Will said.

"London is a world away." Nathaniel glanced back briefly as they passed through the door. With a wan smile, Meg waved goodbye. "And after this day, I understand why your time is spent in stews, and your heart your own."

"That is my world, Nat, not yours. I happen to like doxies. What they lack in romance, they make up for in vigorous entertainment."

The cloisters rang with the echoes of their running feet, and within seconds they were through the gatehouse to the forecourt where the carriages waited. Will informed Reidheid's driver that his master had instructed they be delivered to the house at Cowgate with speed.

Mere moments later, the carriage rattled through the gate in the west wall towards the sharply inclining cobbled street that led up to the castle. The city was dark, but candles burned in many of the windows in the tall stone houses on either side.

Will glanced back at the receding palace to ensure there was no sign of pursuit before settling back into the leather seat. He examined the amulet in the palm of his hand where it glowed dully in the half-light.

"This has been a good night, all told, Nat," he said. "We have escaped with the prize we sought, from under our Enemy's noses. We have shown them that England is a threat to be reckoned with-if they had not realised it yet, they know now they cannot abuse us with impunity. And-" He paused, allowing himself a moment to enjoy the memory. "-Tom Miller has been avenged. Our time in Edinburgh has been well spent. A victory on every front."

Lulled by the rocking of the carriage, Will put his feet up and considered the next stage. The Enemy would come looking for the Shield if they needed it to complete their mysterious plan, and that could possibly be used to England's advantage. A trap, perhaps. And then they could turn the tables and recover the Silver Skull, perhaps even strike a devastating blow at the Unseelie Court in the process.

He realised Nathaniel had slipped into morose silence, and was staring into the pitch black wynds that ran off the main street. "Thinking of Meg?" Will asked.

He shook his head. "Our enemies were not Spaniards, Will."

"Their allies-"

"Who were they?"

"Nat-"

"What were they, Will?"

A cold pit formed in the depths of Will's stomach. He would rather see Nathaniel dismissed and sent back to a more mundane life in the shires than be destroyed by the truth.

Before Will could put Nathaniel's mind at rest, a mournful howl echoed along the street from somewhere behind them. The cries of waking babies, the barks of chained dogs joining with it, the slams of shutters and doors, moved up the street like a drum roll.

Nathaniel started. "What was that? A hunting dog?" He paused uneasily. "I have heard no dog like that."

Will knew exactly what it was, and his frustration mounted and turned to anger. Pulling himself half out of the window, he peered back down the street, but there was only a sea of darkness. "Faster, driver!" he called. "As if the Devil was at your back!"

"Yes, sir!" At the driver's whip-crack, the horse picked up its pace so that Will and Nathaniel were thrown around in the back of the carriage.

"What is happening here?" Nathaniel said with an edge of desperation. "You urge the driver to speed because a dog howls? That makes no sense to me."

"The agents of the Spaniards do not give up easily, Nat," Will dissembled. "We need to reach the house in Cowgate where we will be safe, for now."

"Why safer there than here? Or at the palace?"

"Not now, Nat!" Will snapped.

Leaning out of the window once again, Will thought he could now see specks of red light swimming in that ocean of dark, and above the thunderous sound of the wheels on the cobbles, he wondered if he could truly hear the pounding of paws, like a blacksmith's hammers ...

"Hold tight, Nat! If you thought the journey to Edinburgh was hard, there is a rougher one to come!"

Glancing over his shoulder, the driver saw something that Will couldn't, for his face grew white and fixed in horror.

"Keep your eyes on the road!" Will yelled. "Let me worry about what is at our backs!"

As the howling grew louder, the driver cracked the whip wildly, driving the horse into a panic. The carriage skewed across the street, and as the driver guided it to the left towards Cowgate, it lifted off two wheels and threatened to turn over. Will and Nathaniel hurled themselves over to the other side to use their weight to bring the carriage down with a jolt.

"Damn him!" Will cursed. "He will kill us!"

"What scares him so?" Nathaniel shouted.

As the carriage raced down the slope towards Cowgate, Will dragged himself to look out of the window once more. The dog was by the side of the door, keeping pace perfectly. It turned its red eyes upon him, and then it leapt, jaws torn wide.

Will threw himself back just in time. Saliva splashed across his face as the motion of its snapping jaws caressed his skin.

The beast slammed against the side of the carriage with such force that it felt like they had been struck by another carriage. As the wheels skewed across the road again, the wood of the side and roof cracked and splintered under the brutal assault. The dog crashed across the roof and a second later the driver released a sickening shriek, abruptly cut short.

The carriage spun across the road in the opposite direction, the sound of the protesting wheels lost beneath the terrified neighing of the horse, quickly swallowed by a horrifying snarling as the dog tore the creature to pieces.