The Silver Skull - Mark Chadbourn

"I dare you to panic," Carpenter growled.

"A cage ... !" Mayhew began before fighting to calm himself.

Calmly, Launceston defined the shape of the grille with his hands. "We knew we would not be allowed free access to the palace. The Spanish are the spawn of hell, but they are not fools."

Mayhew's ragged overbreathing echoed in the confined space, but he knew better than to speak. Launceston withdrew one of the sachets of powder that Dee had given them before they left London and rested it on the point where the grille was bolted into the stone. "This is not as potent as the mixture Will carries, but it should suffice," Launceston said. "Press back and cover your faces. This will not be pleasant."

Fumbling to unfold the sachet, he dripped a small amount of liquid onto the powder from a hide pouch. The subsequent flash of light and heat threw them back against the rear grille, their heads ringing and their faces burning. When they had recovered, they found the grille hanging loose and it took only a little heaving from Launceston's shoulder to tear it free.

"Dee is a foul black magician," Carpenter said, "but I am glad he is our black magician."

They scrambled along the remainder of the tunnel and eventually emerged into a large pit. Overhead, light gleamed through a series of holes in the seat of the privy.

"Heaven," Carpenter gasped.

"At least heaven is not obscured by an arse," Mayhew muttered.

Iron rungs were fixed into the granite blocks lining the pit for workers to climb down to wash out the excrement when it backed up. At the top of the rungs, Launceston listened for anyone in the privy and then cautiously lifted the wooden seat. In the chamber beyond, there was water for washing.

"Hurry now," Launceston whispered, "or they will smell us long before they see us."

Stripping off and discarding their foul clothes down the privy, they washed themselves quickly before dressing in the guards' uniforms. A larger, empty chamber lay beyond, and then a quiet corridor running along the western edge of the palace. Launceston led the way with Carpenter bringing up the rear, ready to change direction at any moment if they heard approaching feet.

Eventually they located the large, steaming kitchens, almost empty now the evening meal had been prepared and served and most of the cleaning up had been completed. From just beyond the door, they watched as bowls and plates were carried, and spice and pickle jars returned to shelves. Waiting until the men had moved away from their vicinity, Carpenter selected a young scullery girl lazily mopping up a spillage not far from the door. Motioning Launceston and Mayhew to stay out of sight, he strode into the kitchen confidently, looked around, and then went over to the scullery girl. Fearing admonishment, she lowered her eyes and pretended not to see him.

In fluent Spanish, Carpenter said to her, "Please. Will you help me?"

The girl glanced across the kitchen to where her superior oversaw the storage of ingredients for the following day's meal.

"A moment of your time," Carpenter pressed.

As he had expected, the scullery girl eyed him suspiciously, and so he drew out the crucifix he had taken from the dead sentry and whispered dolefully, "My mother died this day. I would say a prayer for her, but I cannot be seen to be avoiding my duties. Is there a quiet place hereabouts? For only a moment?"

At the sight of the crucifix, the girl softened. Still glancing around, she took his hand and led him to a storeroom half covered in a white dusting of flour.

"Thank you," he whispered. As she made to go, he summoned her back and asked, "What is your name?"

"Chelo."

"You are a beautiful girl, Chelo."

She blushed.

"My name is Eduardo. I am new to the palace. I would have worked here sooner if I had known you were in the king's employ."

She blushed again, but didn't resist when he took her hand. "Perhaps you would find time to walk with me one day?"

She looked deep into his eyes, and as her pupils dilated, he knew he had her.

"Where are you from?" she began. "Your accent ... ?"

"My mother is French. I grew up in the New World."

Her eyes widened with excitement. "Is it as they say? Dragons in the sea, and silver on the streets ... and a city of gold-"

"All of that and more." He sealed the connection by kissing her hand. "But I hear there are wonders here too."

"Here?"

"An English spy held prisoner? You have heard of that?"

She sighed as if this were the most boring thing in the world. "Yes, we prepared food for him."

Carpenter restrained a triumphant grin. "And where is he being held?"

CHAPTER 42

oosening his belt, Will cracked the stay of the buckle which was hollow inside and stopped with a small blob of wax. He placed this on one side, and then tore off the cuff of his shirt, which he wrapped around the door handle of his chamber cell. He had observed Dee's demonstration before he had left for Cadiz, but he still could not grasp how the combination of powder embedded in the cuff and the liquid in the buckle could have such an effect, and Dee had dismissed all his questions with irritation.

Removing the wax stopper, he turned his head away, covered his eyes, and poured the foul-smelling liquid onto the cuff, before throwing himself across the chamber.

The subsequent explosion deafened him. When he uncovered his head and looked around, he was confronted by a thick cloud of grey smoke that smelled as badly as the liquid, and when that cleared he saw the door was in tatters.

Outside in the corridor, one guard lay unconscious, another attempted to stem blood from a terrible wound on his leg, and a third staggered around in a daze. Deciding the dazed guard was the worst threat, Will put one arm around his neck, the other around his head, and twisted it sharply until the neck snapped.

The other guard made a pitiful attempt to stop Will, but the blood spurted whenever he removed his hand. Instead, he made to shout an alarm. Will slammed the heel of his hand under the guard's chin, throwing the head back to break his neck too. Before he had even hit the floor, Will had claimed a sword and a knife.

From the window, he quickly scanned the desolate landscape, but it was too dark to see if Launceston, Mayhew, and Carpenter were there. He trusted they would have followed him from Seville-they were good at what they did-but were they good enough to get inside such an intensely guarded palace-fortress? He had to presume he was on his own.

All he had done since Grace's abduction was allow emotion to rule him. Launceston and the others had tolerated it out of loyalty to the leader of their team, but he knew they would each be secretly wondering why he hadn't taken the Silver Skull when he had it, forsaking the child and his plan to be kidnapped so he would be brought to Grace.

And now he was in danger of losing both Grace and the Skull. He cursed himself, cursed the Unseelie Court, and then cursed himself again.

As he expected, the explosion had drawn attention. Cries of alarm reverberated through the entire wing of the palace, and the sound of running feet rang on the tower's spiral steps. Will had hoped he would at least have had the time to reach the foot of the tower so he could slip into the maze of corridors and courtyards. Now he would have to fight his way out.

The pulse of the blood in his temple beat out the steady rhythm of the words in his head: no one would stop him.

He met the guards climbing the stairs head-on without slowing his step. Driving his sword through the heart of the first, he ploughed into the bodies, rolling across the top of them as they crashed against the stone, shattering limbs, spines, skulls. The knife flashed in his other hand, across throat after pale throat, and by the time he had passed the last guard the blood cascaded down the steps around him, and all above were dead.

How many guards and soldiers were in the palace? How many would he have to kill before he reached his objective?

At the foot of the tower, three more guards were on their way up, two with pikes, the third, a captain, armed with a sword. Instantly, he took Will on, parrying with some skill and attempting to return the attack, but Will had learned from the greatest swordsmen in Europe, and he had the advantage of height. There was no time for niceties. As the captain struggled to strike upwards, Will kicked his blade to one side and thrust his sword through the captain's throat. He fell backwards, frantically trying to stem the bubbling blood.

Something in Will's face scared the remaining pikemen-he could see the uncertainty and then fear flare in their eyes when they locked gazes with him. It was enough that they faltered in their attack. Will slashed his sword across the fingers of one so that he dropped his weapon, which Will promptly kicked towards the other. As the second guard struggled to bat the pike away, Will impaled him on his sword, and then finished the first with his knife for good measure.

With a bound, he was over the flailing bodies and into the corridor beyond. Cries rang out here and there, but in the confusion no one was really sure where the explosion had originated, or what it indicated.

Out of the confines of the tower, stealth was the key. Torches burned intermittently along the corridors, but in that austere place the gloom was never far away. Will kept to the shadows, moving from doorway to pillar, courtyard tree to arch, emerging in a flash of steel every now and then to slit a throat or run through any guard that got too near.

In room after room, he set fire to tapestries and furniture with the torches and lanterns he found. The blazes were not large enough to spread rapidly, but the smoke sweeping through the complex and the loud crackle of the flames would cause panic and confusion.

At first he attempted to hide the bodies, but soon he realised there were too many and it was slowing him down; they would find him soon enough. The corpses trailed behind him, too many to count as he progressed relentlessly towards the front of the palace where he presumed a carriage would be waiting to take Grace and the Silver Skull away from El Escorial.

At some point, the stream of deaths became an enchantment. He saw only sprays from opened arteries, bones revealed to the air, blown pupils; he smelled only iron blood and bowels released in the throes of death; he heard only final moans and desperate pleadings. And still he moved on.

Malantha and the Unseelie Court loomed darkly in his mind and he thought: You have driven me to this. You have made me wound my own soul with each life I take. You will pay in full.

Yet a part of him wondered if it was all inside him to begin with, and the Unseelie Court had, with their deft skill, only brought it to the surface to show him what he was really like: a brutal killer, as contemptuous of life as he believed them to be.

As he swept through the final courtyard, his fortune began to evaporate and even his skills could not keep him going. Cries rose across the entire palace as body after body was discovered, rising to become one long, furious alarm demanding his death. Boots thundered on stone, closing in from several directions at once. Within a moment, Will saw his way ahead was blocked by at least twenty men racing towards him with pikes and swords.

Cursing that he had been deterred when he was so close, he darted to his left into another corridor, doubling back on himself through the palace, no longer knowing where he was going. Concerned palace workers poked their heads from rooms, shrieking and withdrawing when they saw him run by trailing the blood of others.

His random course had also confused his pursuers who were unable to cut him off, and were forced to follow in his wake. All he had were impressions of grand rooms, the echoes of his boots, and the sound of a storm at his back.

Finally he was confronted by a knot of seven guards racing towards him from a branching corridor. Unable to get past them, he was forced to back against a wall to defend himself.

"Come, then!" he roared. "Who dies first?"

The guards hesitated until they realised their weight of numbers might crush him. But as they began to charge, one at the back suddenly pitched forwards coughing blood. A blade protruded from his throat.

As he fell to the ground, Carpenter slowly removed his knife and flashed a contemptuous glance at Will. Mayhew and Launceston stood with him.

Will joined them in falling upon the disoriented guards who were dispatched in seconds.

"Better late than never," Will said to Carpenter as he urged them back the way the others had come.

"You have led us on a merry chase," Mayhew said. "If you had only stayed in the tower we might have saved you."

"Instead of bringing the entire hordes of Spain upon our heads," Carpenter snapped.

"There was no time to lose." As they ran, Will briefly told them of the Unseelie Court's plans for the Silver Skull and Grace.

"Then we can end this here," Carpenter said.

The sound of guards approaching from all directions underlined the fragility of his words.

"The only end will be ours," Mayhew muttered. "We will never be able to fight our way out against all the king's men."

Will knew he was right. As they hesitated at a junction of corridors, unsure which way to go, Will fumbled for the handle of a door in search of other options.

"Not there," Carpenter cautioned, too late. As the door swung open, Will saw an array of bodies scattered around. Many were guards, but there were a number of the palace's workers, including a young woman who would not have posed any threat.

"Who did this?" Will asked. Even after all his slaughter, the bloodletting was shocking to him.

"I fear I lost control, a little." A feverish gleam lit Launceston's eyes.

"Are we no better than the ones we fight?" Will said with quiet intensity. The nearing pursuit shook him from his dull anger and he continued, "This is a matter for later. For now, hide beneath the bodies. Do not show your faces, but smear the blood upon you. If luck is on our side, it will buy us a few moments."

Leaving the door ajar, Will ran to the far side of the chamber where he pulled the body of a guard across his midriff and positioned the remains of a handmaiden over his face. As the running feet neared, the others scrambled into place, their stolen uniforms helping to disguise them. Mayhew was the last to settle a second before the door was flung open. Will heard the outraged comments from the guards, but as he had expected they did not investigate and within moments continued rapidly with their search.

When he was sure they were gone, Will levered the bodies off him, and quietly called for the others. Mayhew was shaken and on edge, but both Carpenter and Launceston remained focused.

"The carriage will be leaving in due course. We cannot afford to delay," Will said.

"And what strategy have you dreamed up that will get us out of this mess?" Carpenter asked. "Or have you finally completed the process of killing me that you started in the Muscovy snow?"