Jack of Ravens (38 page)

‘Sorcery,’ Cordell hissed.

Will threw him to one side and wrenched the gate open. Church followed him out into the night. Deep into the heart of the wilderness they ran, where the oak trees moved in the wind with threatening gestures. The paths through the thick vegetation were few and Will found regular footprints in the damp earth. Eventually they caught up with Tom Bowler, who was standing on the edge of a sticky expanse of marshland, looking around desperately. Virgina Dare was clutched to his chest, whimpering softly.

‘Tom,’ Will called softly, ‘release the child. Her mother calls for her.’

As Tom Bowler turned, Church saw in the flickering light of the brand what Eleanor Dare had meant: a black spider was embedded in the centre of his forehead. It appeared newly attached, for blood trickled down from the eight spiky legs. As the colonist’s eyes fell on Church and Will, a clarity came to them. ‘I am afflicted with a madness,’ he stuttered. ‘What ails me?’ He looked down at the baby as if seeing it for the first time. But when Church stepped in to take Virginia, the colonist clutched her even more tightly, his eyes crazed once more. Stay back,’ he said. With this gift I shall buy my future.’ He took a step backwards towards the sucking marshland.

Will held out an anxious hand. ‘Master Bowler! Your future lies this way.’

Church’s attention was drawn past the colonist to the expanse of marshland, the surface of which appeared to be moving in the light of the brand. At first Church thought it was marsh gas bubbling up from the depths, but it was too consistent and moving towards them in a direct manner.

Will caught sight of it, too, and then Tom Bowler whimpered and said, ‘They are coming again!’

Church seized the moment to grab Virginia. Off-balance, Bowler stumbled waist-deep into the marsh. He began to claw at his face and hair, howling like a madman.

‘He has lost his mind,’ Will said. ‘Let us back to camp—’

He paused mid-sentence as the moving shadow crossing the surface of the marsh reached Bowler and they could both see clearly what was causing it. Spiders, some as small as the one attached to Bowler’s head, others as large as dogs, were rising up from the depths and skimming across the surface of the marsh on scuttling legs. They surged towards Bowler, then over him, into his clothes, his hair, tumbling into his mouth, choking his screams with the multitude of their bodies.

As Church and Will spun around to race back to the fort, figures emerged from the trees to block their path. ‘Will Swyfte,’ Don Alanzo said with surprise and unconcealed glee. ‘Good sense, as always, escapes you. You have brought yourself to the end.’

The spiders were all around now, a lake of wriggling black as far as the eye could see.

21

Church and Will were herded back into the fort, where the colonists had been rounded up by a small army of Spaniards. Eleanor Dare cried with joy when she saw Church carrying Virginia. Don Alanzo moved his men to one side to allow her to reclaim her child tearfully. Her brief words of thanks to Church were drowned out by the cries of the colonists as the multitude of spiders swarmed through the gates and over the stockade to seethe on every available surface. At Salazar’s silent command, they came to rest.

‘You have thrown in your lot with the Devil!’ Will shouted furiously.

For a second his accusation appeared to strike a chord with Don Alanzo, but then the spider parasite on his neck reasserted its control and he smiled contemptuously. ‘You fear what you know is about to come to pass. England’s days are numbered. Philip will triumph over the despised Elizabeth, who will finally be forced to explain to her Maker why she turned away from God’s path. Even now our Armada prepares to sail—’

‘Look around you, lumpkin!’ Will shouted. ‘Since when did Spain ally itself with demons in the form of spiders?’

‘There’s no point, Will,’ Church said. ‘The spider controls his thoughts. I’m sure he thinks he’s being perfectly rational in carrying out the king’s business.’

‘If that is so, then why are we not all the mares of spiders?’

It was a question that had troubled Church since he realised Maxentius had fallen under the spiders’ control in their bid to take Rome and prevent Constantine’s succession to power.

The answer soon became apparent. One of the Spanish guards walked along the lines of colonists and selected a man who was on his knees, whining, and whom Church recalled had been one of the most prominent doomsayers about the declining supplies. The guards dragged him to the campfire and held him down. Salazar loomed over him and made a gesture in the air. Instantly one of the spiders scurried forward and climbed onto the man’s cheek, where it raised one metallic-looking leg at a time and thrust them into the man’s flesh. As the last leg went in, his screams subsided and he grew calm.

‘Despair,’ Church said in a moment of clarity as all the evidence of his eyes over recent months fell into relief. ‘The spiders can only control people who’ve given in to despair.’

‘Then the nature of this war is clear, Master Churchill. It is not between Spain and England, but despair and hope.’

‘Spiders and snakes,’ Church whispered.

As the victim stood up quietly to join the Spanish soldiers, Don Alanzo said, ‘A short period of madness will afflict him intermittently, but then he will give in freely to our philosophy. Good shall win out in the end.’

Will laughed hollowly.

Salazar communicated silently with Don Alanzo. ‘You are honoured indeed to be here, Will Swyfte,’ the Don said. ‘Tonight you will witness the very pillars of heaven shake. The angels are coming down to Earth.’

A man walked out of the shadows at Don Alanzo’s beckoning. It was Sir Robert Balfour, as refined and calm as the last time Church had seen him in the Templar store beneath his home.

‘Rab? Have they hurt you?’ Will questioned with concern, but Church could see Will already knew the truth.

‘A change has to come, Will. Elizabeth must die. And she shall.’ Rab read the betrayal in Will’s eyes. ‘My family is Catholic. We put our hope in Mary, but Elizabeth saw that threat off.’

‘The spiders have you.’

‘No spiders, Will. This comes from the heart.’

‘You’re insane,’ Church said. ‘Two factions of Christianity fighting each
other to the death while a greater enemy is destroying the human race. Can’t you see how ridiculous that is?’

‘Our roads are our own. We can walk no other.’ Rab motioned to the guards to bind Will and Church’s hands. ‘I would not see you hurt, Will. I hold you dear, but I hold my religion dearer. Bind them tight. This is a wily one.’

‘Your betrayal came early, Rab – I see it now. You told Dee of the crystal skull because you had no idea how to retrieve it yourself.’

‘I knew you would find a way. You always were the clever one.’

‘And now you’ve given it to them.’ Will nodded towards Salazar and Don Alanzo who were marking out an area in the centre of the fort. ‘And they’ll use it with the box.’

‘Politics and religion make strange bedfellows. But the end justifies the means.’

‘Why did you come here?’ Church asked.

‘This New World will teem with people one day. It will provide riches uncounted for whoever rules it. The Spanish will not see it fall into English hands.’

‘I don’t care why you’re here,’ Church said. ‘The spiders will wipe you out the minute you’ve served your purpose. Why are
they
here?’

Balfour looked uneasily at the mass of spiders sitting silently on every available surface apart from the small area at the centre of the fort. They moved as one, a single mind, a single beast breathing. ‘They serve our purpose,’ Balfour said, but everyone present knew the lie. He nodded to the guards to take Will and Church away.

They were dragged to one of the huts and thrown inside. When the guards had gone, Will said, ‘Do you know why the spiders are here?’

‘Balfour was right. In the future, this will be a thriving, powerful nation. Whoever controls it controls the world.’

‘But only,’ Will said speculatively, ‘if they turn their backs on hope and give in to despair.’

Church recalled the spiders rising up out of the marshland, and thought of them in the centuries to come, nestling down under the ground, rising up in ones or thousands to take control of those who would do their bidding; here in America, in Rome, perhaps London, Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing. Everywhere. The spiders were playing a long, long game. From this point forward they would be the nightmares of the human race, slipping out of the shadows to torment and direct, but never being seen in full light.

The door opened a crack and Eleanor Dare crept in, her face tear-stained and frightened. She crawled behind Church and began to saw at his bonds with a kitchen knife. ‘They have taken Richard Frasier and Judith Carter.
They are taking all of them.’ Her voice was cracked and desperate. ‘Some walk of their own accord, putting their heads low for the spiders to climb on.’

‘Don’t give in to it, Eleanor,’ Church urged.

‘I shall not,’ she said defiantly. ‘I will survive for Virginia and for God. In life’s long journey there are many threats. We do not bow down to them. We stand tall, we fight, we abide.’ She sawed through Church’s bonds and he took the knife from her and moved on to Will. ‘I place my faith in you, Master Churchill, and you, Master Swyfte. Deliver us from this evil.’

She slipped back outside as quickly and silently as she had entered. Will flexed his wrists to bring back the blood supply. ‘I am my own master, and I play by my own rules. I am not comfortable when faith is placed in my abilities.’

‘Neither am I, Will,’ Church said, ‘but it’s too late now. They’re trusting in us. Their lives are in our hands.’

22

Church and Will retrieved their weapons from where the Spaniards had left them and found a good vantage point at the side of one of the huts. Salazar and Don Alanzo had finished marking out a large circle with torches burning at the four cardinal points. But it was what stood beside it that caught Church and Will’s attention. It appeared to be a doorway rising up nine feet or more with a frame constructed of some substance that resembled meat – the same substance that had formed the enemy fortress in the Far Lands. Looking at the abandoned clothes scattered nearby, Church wondered if it really was made from flesh. Within the frame the air shimmered, making it impossible to see through to the other side. Church sensed that passing through that doorway would take one much further than a mere step across the fort.

His fears were confirmed when Don Alanzo ordered his guards to make the colonists line up before the doorway. Some fell in easily, controlled by the spiders, but others had to be prodded sharply. Eleanor was near the rear of the line, holding Virginia.

‘Where do you send them?’ Balfour said uneasily.

‘To a fortress in a land beyond the sunset.’ Don Alanzo’s voice was strained. ‘They will not be alone.’

Church understood: the spiders had been stealing people for centuries and taking them back to their fortress in the Far Lands where they would march alongside the Ninth Legion and all the others who had mysteriously
disappeared. He saw Eleanor rocking her baby and forced himself not to consider what horrors waited on the other side of the door.

‘Do you have a plan, Master Churchill?’ Will hissed. ‘For I must confess I am bereft.’

‘There are two of us with swords and we’re surrounded by a small army of Spanish soldiers and about a million supernatural creatures. Who needs a plan?’

Will laughed. ‘I will miss fighting at your side, Good Jack.’

The first of the colonists were prodded through the doorway. It looked as though they passed through a gelatinous membrane – one moment of clinging, then gone.

Salazar was at work in the circle, drawing patterns in the air with one gloved hand. He had barely finished when there was a distant sound of rending, then another, drawing closer. To Church it sounded like a series of doors opening one after the other.

In the air over the circle the final doorway opened with a deafening crash and the smell of burned iron. An oblong of darkness obscured the night sky. Into it stepped a figure that made Church’s blood run cold: Janus, the dual-faced god of doorways, radiating a primal dread that made men blanch and turn away.

‘The preparations have been made?’ The voice was like a funeral bell.

‘Our power will rest in the dark beneath the earth until the season is right.’ The words came from Don Alanzo, but they were clipped and mechanical, and his eyes were glazed. Church had the impression Salazar was speaking through him. ‘Our power will rest beneath an island named Croatoan. And the word of power that will summon it is Croatoan.’

‘Then call them from their prison. Open the Anubis Box, and let the long-closed doors be thrown wide.’ Janus disappeared from view as a gust of icy wind blew through the camp.

Salazar took the crystal skull from its velvet wrapping and set it in the centre of the circle. Church and Will were transfixed as Salazar bent over it and made another strange gesture with his gloved hand. The skull began to glow with a faint purple light. A sound emanated from it, high-pitched and reedy, growing louder by the second until everyone present clutched at their eyes and ears. The crystal skull was screaming.