The Silver Skull - Mark Chadbourn

If Will intervened, he risked losing the Skull, the chance of finding the path to Grace and his own life. His wavering only lasted a fleeting moment, and as another whimper echoed, he pushed his way out from behind the mirror and drew his sword.

The final candle winked out.

A moment of darkness was blasted away by a flash of lightning. In its brief glare a horrific tableau was frozen: al-Rahman, hands raised high, holding a ritual knife with a curved blade, the cat's blood streaming down his face and bare chest; Don Alanzo, his face a rictus of self-loathing that revealed his despair, the bundle in his arms his passport to hell; the Silver Skull, cowl thrown back, head aglow, standing rigid behind them. Every eye was fixed on Will.

The dark swept into the room.

Al-Rahman barked an angry warning, and lion Alanzo shouted something behind it that Will couldn't translate. He moved quickly from his position before they could attack.

A flare of red light painted the room with a hellish glow. Al-Rahman had thrown his mysterious red dust onto the brazier; Will wrinkled his nose at the foul odour, like the burning flesh that permeated the torture room beneath the Tower.

"Stay back!" Don Alanzo raged, his sword drawn. The bundle was now held by al-Rahman. "Disrupt the ritual and I will kill you!"

"Harsh words for an old friend," Will replied.

The flare from the hissing brazier began to die down. As he circled, Will glimpsed something in the mirror in the dying light: the glass did not reflect the scene within the room, but appeared to show another place, and in it a woman, beautiful and terrible, looked out at him with a fierce expression. He dismissed it as a hallucination caused by a brief glance in the half-light, but once the gloom had descended he could still feel the weight of her chilling gaze upon him.

Al-Rahman continued to chant loudly. An odd pressure began to build in the room. One shutter tore free from its hook and crashed back and forth in the ferocious wind.

Another flash of lightning.

The white glare caught al-Rahman poised with his knife held high once more, the soft, small bundle crooked in his other arm. Sword raised to parry, lion Alanzo stood between the Moor and Will, tears streaming down his face, his eyes flickering towards the bundle. Will would not be able to prevent alRahman from bringing the knife down.

Another option reached him as the dark returned. Darting to the right of Don Alanzo, he was ready when the lightning flashed again. Before al-Rahman could complete his sacrifice, Will drove his sword towards the Silver Skull.

"No!" Don Alanzo cried.

Will thrust straight into the Silver Skull's heart. As the Skull crumpled to his knees, Will had the odd impression that he had moved his arms wider as if opening himself to the strike; as if he wanted to die. Blood ran from beneath the mask before Will withdrew his sword and the Skull pitched forwards, dead.

Shock fixed a terrible, broken expression on Don Alanzo's face. "Father!" His devastated cry tore his throat.

One word, and Will understood everything. Sister Adelita had told how their father had disappeared when they were young. Away in the New World, he had come across the Silver Skull and had chosen to wear it, or had it thrust upon him, and then he had been spirited away to England and locked in the Tower. Don Alanzo must have negotiated for one chance to free him from the mask before the Skull was used in the invasion, knowing it could just as easily be utilised by another victim.

Will knew how the mysterious disappearance of a loved one could turn a life on its axis and keep it locked in a frozen world of not-knowing and wishing. And then Don Alanzo had been given hope, as Will had too, in Edinburgh, only to see it snatched away; only to see everything he had hoped for since childhood destroyed. By Will.

In the sheer, bloody hatred in lion Alanzo's face, Will recognised he had made an enemy driven by a passion that went beyond the cold mistrust of national rivals. Don Alanzo would never stop until he had achieved his revenge.

His face contorted by an animalistic fury, the Spaniard threw himself at Will, slashing with his sword in such an uncontrolled manner it was easy to sidestep the attack. "I am sorry," Will said plainly, before bringing the hilt of his sword sharply against lion Alanzo's temple. The lion fell, unconscious.

Seeing there was no longer any need for him, al-Rahman threw his burden and darted from the room. Will dropped his sword and dived to catch the bundle. Peeling back the swaddling cloth, he found a boy of around two, hair black and eyes wide but drugged and dreamy, stolen, he guessed, from the ghetto that morning.

"You will be back with your mother and father soon, little one," he whispered. He laid the boy gently on the floor and turned to the body of the Silver Skull. The alarm would soon be raised, and he had little hope of making an escape with the corpse on his back.

After a futile attempt to prise the mask free, he accepted his only course of action. With al-Rahman's ritual knife, he took a moment to saw the head off the corpse. The knife was sharp and he met only brief resistance at the joint with the spine. Don Alanzo's father had given no sign of being a true enemy-indeed his final act had suggested he had been as much a victim of the war as anyone-and Will wished he could treat his remains with more respect, but he had no choice.

Once the head was free, he put it to one side and dragged lion Alanzo down to the front of the shop where he would be found. Once he'd reclaimed the swaddled child and head, he dropped a hot coal from the brazier onto a heap of drapes in the centre of the room. It would be easy to extinguish the fire before it spread. As the smoke rose, he tucked the head under one arm and the child under the other and slipped out into the raging storm.

In a doorway opposite, he waited until the smoke billowed out and then shouted the Spanish for fire. The alarm soon rang from newly opened windows and doorways along the street. Pressing himself back into the shadows, he watched the guards run up to the shop and find the unconscious lion Alanzo. Unseen, he ghosted away while the men dragged lion Alanzo free and attempted to put out the blaze.

With the Skull in his hands, he had done his duty to England. Now he could turn his attention to Grace.

But as he moved quickly through the deserted, rain-lashed streets, he noticed grey shapes flitting behind him, caught from time to time in the brilliant glare of the lightning flashes. They appeared insubstantial, but he knew what they were, as he now knew what he had seen in the mirror in the room above the shop.

Nothing good lay ahead, and he feared for the safety of the child in his care. His instinct was to escape the deserted streets for an area of night entertainment where he could lose himself in the crowds and where the Unseelie Court would be less effective. But if they caught him before he reached his destination their attack would show no mercy for an innocent child. His frustration turned quickly to anger.

At a crossroads, a lightning flash revealed more grey figures racing from both sides. They were herding him away from the city's busier areas towards the lonely streets behind the Real Alcazar.

Blinking away the rain, he saw the best hope for his charge silhouetted against the roiling black clouds. "Not much farther, little one, and you will be warm and dry," he whispered. He allowed his defiance to muffle the certain knowledge that by saving the boy he would leave himself trapped.

He was ready.

The reassuring glow of candlelight glimmered through the stained-glass windows of Seville Cathedral. The largest cathedral in Europe, it had only been completed a few decades earlier after more than a century of construction on the site of the great mosque, and the walls still had the creamy complexion of new stone.

At the main entrance, he shouldered open the great oak doors and briefly placed his burdens down before drawing the iron bolts behind him. The nave was awash with golden light from row upon row of candles. Away from the booming storm, the cathedral felt safe and secure. Will knew it was a lie.

As he raced along the nave past the lavishly carved wooden screens around the choir, his footsteps echoed up to the vaulted roof high overhead. At the cascade of gold over the high altar, the Retablo Mayor, he called for help. The figures on the gilded relief panels around the stately figure of the cathedral's patron saint, Santa Maria de la Sede, appeared to mock him.

"Sanctuary!" he called loudly in Spanish.

From the passage to the right of the altar ran a priest, balding, bushy grey beard, eyes dark pools. Hesitating, he took in Will's appearance, his sword, the Silver Skull.

"Take this boy-he was stolen from his parents." Will thrust the bundle towards the priest.

From the far end of the nave came the low, grating sound of the first door bolt drawing back. No one was near it.

When the priest gaped, unmoving, Will shouted, "Take him!"

The priest grabbed the bundle and examined the child's face with a nod. "You want sanctuary?"

"For the child-nothing can be done to save me."

The priest shook his head forcefully. "The Church will protect you."

The second door bolt ground slowly back.

"No, I am done. Protect the child and return him to his parents in the morning."

Quickly, he looked around for a place to make his stand. The nave was too open. The priest recognised what he was doing.

"I will hold them off while you make good your escape," he said.

"No!" Will said firmly. "The child is your only responsibility now. Go. I will lead them on a merry chase before I arrive at my destination." And in that way they will believe me, he thought.

The great oak doors blew open with a resounding crash. Rain gusted up the nave. In the dark mouth, Will could see no movement, but he knew they could see him.

"Go!" he shouted to the priest before running towards the north door. He felt a passing twinge of irony at his predicament after he had so abused the priest on the altar at Cadiz, and then he was out in the storm again, surrounded by the overpowering aroma of oranges. In the white glare of lightning, he saw rows of orange trees in a large, rectangular orchard with the Patio de los Naranjos at the centre, a fountain where worshippers would wash their hands and feet before praying.

Will hoped the trees might obscure his progress, but he'd barely crossed the edge of the fountain square when another lightning flash revealed movement along the roofs of the low buildings that enclosed the orchard. Members of the Unseelie Court loped along the orange tiles oblivious to the violent winds and the rain, converging on him from all directions. Behind him, the door from the cathedral crashed open.

He turned east and dashed to the cloistered walkway, his ultimate destination now within reach. Over his head, tiles rattled and shattered, fragments raining down in his wake. Across the orchard, the grey ghosts moved relentlessly towards him.

Crashing back into the cathedral, Will followed the short corridor to the foot of La Giralda. He bolted the door to the bell tower behind him and bounded up the steps two at a time; the stairway was wide enough for the muezzin to ride on a horse to deliver the call to prayer.

As he spiralled breathlessly upwards, it felt as if he was rising into the very heart of the storm. The wind and rain blasted through the open windows, and the lightning flashes allowed him views over the whole of Seville and the Andalusian countryside beyond. As the thunder boomed again, he only faintly heard the door at the foot of the bell tower crash open.

No way back.

The minaret accounted for the first two-thirds of the tower and then the stairs took him up to the belfry, added by the Christian rulers only twenty years before to replace the Moorish iconography that had originally topped the minaret. He locked the door into the belfry and ran up the final set of steps.

At the very summit, he gripped the walls for support as the wind and rain tore through so forcefully they threatened to drive him through the large arched windows onto the ground far below.

Drawing his sword, he prepared to fight to the last. It was a good, defensible position for the Enemy could only approach him up the short flight of steps from the belfry door, and he was determined to take as many with him as he possibly could.

But as he stood poised, he became aware of sounds rising up the outside of the bell tower in the brief lulls when the thunder rolled away and the wind gusted in a different direction. Cautiously, he hung out of the window.

As his eyes adjusted to the world of white flashes and all-consuming dark, he saw grey figures steadily climbing the outside of the bell tower like insects, clinging onto the carvings and ridges as they made their progress oblivious to the storm. Quickly, he checked all four windows and saw the same from each one. Drops of blood began to fall from his nose to the wet flags, and a disorienting buzz echoed through his head.

The door to the belfry flew open.

CHAPTER 36

he cries of the hunting party echoed through the frozen forest, accompanied by the occasional crack of an arquebus that sent the birds shrieking through the black trees.

They waste their ammunition when they cannot see us," Carpenter gasped, his breath clouding in the subzero temperatures. Shivering uncontrollably, he pulled his thick woollen cloak around him, but could find no warmth.

"If fortune is with them, they can still hit us," Will replied. In the pack under his arm, he clutched the object Dee had treasured for so long, the thing that could only add to England's mounting power.

They struggled through the calf-deep snow in the face of the bitter wind, scrambling over fallen branches and plunging into hidden hollows where the brambles lost beneath the white blanket tore through their skin and left splashes of red in their wake. The wind was laced with snow and the grey clouds banking up overhead suggested another blizzard like the one that had disrupted their escape from Moscow.

"If we do not find our man soon we will freeze to death out here," Carpenter said. He no longer attempted to hide his fear. The bravado he had exhibited shortly after Walsingham had brought him into the fold had dissipated in the harsh reality of his very first undertaking. What he had seen in the snow-covered courtyards of the Kremlin fortress had changed his life forever. There would be no peace for him again. It was a feeling Will knew only too well, and he regretted it being inflicted upon Carpenter, however inevitable it had been.

"We must first lose our pursuers." Will glanced back, but there was no sign of the tsar's men in the half-light. "We cannot lead them directly to our man or all will be lost. "

A ferocious roar rolled out through the forest from somewhere at their backs.

What little blood remained in Carpenter's face drained away and he gripped Will's arm. "What was that? A bear?"