'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.
In the frenzy of the attack, the carriage pitched at an acute angle, hovered for a scant second, and then finally went over. Will and Nathaniel were flung across the interior as it crashed on the cobbles and skidded to a sudden, bone-jarring halt.
Dazed, Will checked on Nathaniel, who was stunned, lying in a heap. From nearby came wet echoes of the dog tearing through the remains of the horse. As he watched his friend, conflicting urges tore through Will. Could he put Nathaniel at risk of greater contact with the nightmarish world Will had protected him from for so long? What was more important: his friend's sanity and life, or the secret war?
'Nat! Nat!' Will whispered insistently, coming to a reluctant decision. 'No bones broken? Good. I have work for you.'
'N ... now?'
'Especially now.' Will sat Nathaniel up and thrust the amulet into his hands with a pang of shattering regret and the feeling that he had damned him forever. 'Take this back to the house. You will be safe there.'
In the background, the rending and tearing died away.
'I am the one they want. I killed one of them. They believe I have the object they desire. You will have time to make good your escape before they realise their mistake.'
'But they will kill you!'
A growl, circling the carriage.
'I made my peace with that outcome a long time ago. It is as inevitable as the snows of winter-if not now, then later.' He pulled Nathaniel to his feet and helped him clamber out of the window above his head before flashing him a grin. 'Know that I do not plan to go easily into the arms of the Reaper. '
The dog was near the remnants of the horse. Coming to a halt, it raised its head towards Will, baring its teeth.
'Will-' Nathaniel began hesitantly.
'You know me, Nat!' Will insisted. 'I will demand my due reckoning. Now go!'
Nathaniel hesitated for only the briefest moment longer, but in that time Will saw his depth of concern, and friendship. He nodded and was gone.
Will drew his sword as the great black dog prepared to leap. The last thing he saw was Nathaniel weaving into the intense darkness of a foulsmelling close.
And then, with a snarl, the dog attacked.
CHAPTER 25
s the dark of the close swallowed Nathaniel up, from behind came a chilling howl that ended in the sounds of a beast at slaughter. Will's voice rang out, as defiant as ever, the words lost beneath the bestial roars, and then there was only a distant silence against which Nathaniel's running feet sounded like whip-cracks.
His head still spun from the knock it had taken when the carriage crashed over, but he was resolute. Will had survived so many close encounters with death, Nathaniel had long since learned there was no point wasting time worrying about what might be. Instead, Will had trusted him with a matter of great import to England, and he would not let his friend down.
Slipping the amulet into his pocket, he sped on into the unfamiliar city. It was the easiest way to lose himself, the closes and wynds ran out from the king's High Street like the tiny spikes along the spine of a fish bone, numerous, narrow, dark, filthy, and rat-infested. If he reached out both arms he could touch the walls on either side, the buildings soaring up so high that only a tiny patch of star-sprinkled sky was visible. No moonlight reached the ground. Excrement and urine sloshed under his feet, thrown from the surrounding houses, and rotting domestic refuse was piled everywhere, seething with rats.
Pausing to catch his breath, Nathaniel leaned against the wall and looked back to see if the dog was pursuing him. Instead, he saw silhouetted figures searching near the entrance to the close.
As the figures darted into the dark close, an inexplicable fear overwhelmed Nathaniel, greater than he should have felt with Spanish agents at his back. Instinctively, he recognised there was something more here, and much that Will was not telling him.
Although he ran on in the gloom, his pursuers were remarkably fleetfooted. He could hear them searching the doorways and other potential hiding places as they passed, yet still they drew nearer; he was sure he would not be able to outrun them. What, then, when he broke out of the other end of the close and into the open?
'Quick! Tell me. They are coming?'
Nathaniel jumped at the voice, and was surprised to see a grey-haired old woman crouching in a doorway, peering back along the close.
'There are enemies at my back, yes,' Nathaniel hissed.
'Enemies. That is a good word for them.' The old woman peered at him with black eyes, her brow knotted, but whatever she saw appeared to convince her for she threw open the door to her hovel and urged him inside.
From the room, a rectangle of light flooded out into the close like a beacon. Behind, Nathaniel heard the voices of his pursuers rise up.
'They will know where I am!' Nathaniel said.
'Inside! Now!'
Torn, Nathaniel hesitated until the woman grabbed him with a strength that belied her age and dragged him inside. The door slammed shut behind them. Hastily, the woman poured a fragrant line of salt and chopped herbs along the doorstep, and then ducked down to floor level, urging Nathaniel to do the same. He saw a row of charms hanging above the door and along the length of the wall, animal bones, twisted pieces of metal, feathers, and painted jewellery.
'They will sense you are somewhere nearby, but they will not know where,' the woman whispered. 'And even if they come to the door they will not be able to enter.'
'Have you lost your senses?' Nathaniel hissed. 'They saw the light! They will be inside in an instant!'
The woman waved him silent as running footsteps slowed outside. Nathaniel's breath caught in his throat as
