‘Why run when those bastards know which path we take?’ Carpenter growled. ‘They will never let us leave. We are already dead.’
‘It is the only way out of here,’ Will replied. ‘And we died a long time ago — the moment we set foot in this cursed place. Every breath we take now is a boon.’ Visions of Unseelie Court galleons sweeping out from the New World flooded his mind, each one filled with more horror than any man could bear.
‘And if we escape,’ Carpenter continued bitterly as if he could read Will’s mind, ‘what do we escape to? An England made Hell? Better we die here.’
Will stopped suddenly, catching the other man’s arm as he turned. ‘Is this the John Carpenter who fought his way out of Muscovy alone, after I had abandoned him to a fate worse than death? In all our time in service to the Queen, we have never given up, though we faced overwhelming odds. Even if all the Unseelie Court and their night-terrors snap at our heels, we fight on, until the last drop of blood flows from our bodies and our rapiers fall from our dying hands.’
At first Carpenter would not meet Will’s eyes. But then he nodded in apology. ‘Aye, Will, let us die as we have lived. For the Queen, for England. Let those pale bastards come and we shall see how many I send to Hell afore me.’
Will nodded in approval. As he turned to continue along the cramped tunnel, Meg called back, ‘I see light ahead.’
Moments later, they stepped out on to a wide stone balcony protruding from a sheer cliff face towering above their heads. Will saw it was a lush garden of some kind, with creepers, shrubs and blooms in sickeningly unnatural blues, blacks and purples clustering around the low enclosing wall. He forced his way through the vegetation to the edge and peered over. A series of further gardens cascaded down the cliff into the mist far below. In the distance, he could just discern a black basalt tower thrusting up from the dense forest with a glowing orb on top of it. It could only be the Tower of the Moon, the beacon that kept open the way between worlds.
As he turned back, he saw the others looking up to the sky. It could have been on fire. Flames rolled out across the arc of the heavens, the horizon burning a deep shade of crimson. Silhouetted against it, Manoa, the Unseelie Court’s City of Gold, seemed to transform. Will blinked, attempting to comprehend what he was seeing. For a moment, the fortress appeared to be surrounded by massive, circling, grinding rings of iron. Was this the true form of that foul place, he wondered, as the Fay hid their own ghastly appearance behind illusions of beauty?
All life is illusion, Dee had said. If that was so, what could they truly believe?
As the tolling of the bell boomed out into the burning sky, shapes flooded out of the fortress and began to descend the cliff. Realization dawned on Will, and he yelled, ‘The Hunters are coming. We must flee. Now.’
Yet even as they raced to the edge of the balcony and searched for a way down, another noise tore through the hot, still air. Will frowned, trying to place the origin of that teeth-jarring whistle. And then he had it: it was the sound made by the black stone Mandraxas had whirled around his head in order to summon those flesh-eating predators, the Spree-birds.
Barely had the thought come to him before a black cloud swept out of the fortress. It circled for one moment and then swooped down. The air was torn by the thunder of a multitude of wings, and a shrieking as if Hell had given up its lost souls.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
The seething, roiling mass blotted out the fiery sky above Manoa. Like a tropical storm the Spree-birds swirled, their shrill shrieks tearing across the treetops. Will glanced from the avian predators to the Hunters swarming down the cliff face, like angry ants spilling out of a disturbed nest. He breathed in the acrid stink of burning and heard Grace’s whispered prayer caught on the wind. Taut faces turned towards him; only Launceston seemed unruffled.
But then, when all hope seemed to have departed, he felt a surprising calm descend upon him. He ran back to the dense vegetation edging the spacious stone balcony, ignoring all the sounds of Hell, the cries of the blood-crazed birds and the grim tolling of the bell and the grinding of revolving iron, and studied the strange blooms and dry, thorny bushes.
‘Our steel will be of no use against those birds.’ Meg’s voice was ragged. The others stood beside her. ‘And we cannot outrun them. They will have the flesh from our bones in no time.’
‘We could hide in the tunnel,’ Grace ventured.
‘Of what use is that?’ Carpenter turned his back to them, watching the skies as the black cloud wheeled above them. ‘They will come for us soon enough. No, better to make our stand here, and die like men.’
‘We are not finished yet, John,’ Will said as he plunged into the vegetation and bounded on to the stone wall edging the balcony. Balancing on his precarious perch, he snatched up a handful of trailing creeper and pulled hard, testing its strength. With a satisfied nod, he said, ‘Quick, now. Take these and climb down to the garden below. If fortune is with us, we can make our way down to the ground.’ They thought it a futile gesture, he saw in their faces, but they trusted him enough to comply.
Grasping a vine, Carpenter went first, seemingly uncaring if it snapped and he plunged to his death. Meg handed Will her brand and blew him a kiss as she followed with Launceston beside her. Grace and Jenny looked down at the three spies suspended in the gulf above the next balcony and then exchanged a reassuring smile. Will bowed, holding Jenny’s gaze for one moment before the two sisters disappeared from view.
A shadow engulfed the balcony.
The shrieks of the Spree-birds rang in his ears, and he knew if he looked up he would see their skull-heads and cruel beaks still stained with the blood of Sanburne and his men. Will thrust the torch into the vegetation and the tinder-dry bushes caught alight. The thrashing of wings stirred his hair as the vermilion flames roared up. He grabbed a vine and threw himself back over the low enclosure.
Only then did he look up. A wall of fire raced around the edge of the balcony. Black smoke billowed into the dense flock of birds so that it seemed like night. As Will had hoped, the heat drove the vicious creatures back. They screeched around in circles above the balcony, frustrated that their prey had been denied them. He squinted, peering through the cloud at the Hunters still far behind, climbing down the sheer cliff.
Some of the flock spotted Will lowering himself down the creeper and swooped past the crackling bushes and shrubs. Coiling the vine round one arm, he wrenched out his rapier and lashed the air. A burst of black feathers and a spray of blood trailed in the sweep of his blade. The skull-headed birds wheeled around him, searching for an opening. As he ripped through two more, the other Spree-birds swept in. Beaks like fine Spanish steel stabbed into his flesh, staining his undershirt brown with his blood. Pain seared through him, but still he struck out.
The creeper jerked in his grasp, and when he glanced up he saw flames licking at the top of it. A moment later, the vine snapped. Will hurtled down, slamming into the hard, dry soil of the garden below. Winded, he watched the Spree-birds circle before swooping down towards him.
Flashing steel glinted in the ruddy light above him. Carpenter, Launceston and Red Meg hacked and slashed, blood and feathers spraying across the vegetation. Will scrambled to his feet and looked up at the chaos overhead. Driven back by the heat and confused by the billowing black smoke, most of the Spree-birds had turned on the Hunters, tearing them apart as they crawled down the cliff face. But it was only a momentary respite, Will knew. There were too many of the Fay stalkers, and they were too relentless, too brutal.