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surprising Sam and Ed. ‘That just won’t wash.
     Sorry to get on my high horse, Mister Ed, but Charlie don’t surf. No boats for me.
     Not gonna play Pugwash. Water and me don’t mix. In a nutshell – The Kid
     don’t swim.’
    ‘Well, if you won’t go on the
     river I don’t see how you’re gonna get through the zone.’
    ‘Did it once before, we can do it
     again,’ said The Kid.
    ‘All right, listen,’ said Ed.
     ‘I’ll do a deal with you. But you’ve got to stick to it.’
    ‘Depends.’
    ‘No, it doesn’t. You have to
     agree now. Up front. I’ll help you get to the palace, I promise.’
    ‘Sure, OK,’ said Sam. ‘So
     what’s the deal?’
    ‘Until we know what’s out there,
     you’re not leaving the castle.’
    ‘Well, how long’s that going to
     be? That’s not fair.’
    Ed looked at Sam. ‘Some guys set out
     from here the other day,’ he said.
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘Yeah. It was a sort of exploration
     party. They were going west. Upriver. A mate of mine called DogNut and seven others.
     They took a boat. They’ve been gone a while now, so they should be back soon. The
     deal is, when they turn up and we know what’s out there, and I think it’ll
     be safe enough, I’ll take you to Buckingham Palace. Myself. OK?’
    Sam thought about this for a while.
     Certainly the idea of setting off alone was something he didn’t want to think
     about. A huge part of him wanted to forget all about Ellaand stay here
     forever with Ed and The Kid. But just as Ed had made a promise to him, he’d made a
     promise to Ella. He was her big brother. He’d told her that he’d always look
     after her.
    ‘OK,’ he said at last.
     ‘It’s a deal.’
    They shook on it and slapped palms.
    Ed gave him a hard stare.
     ‘You’re not to even think about it until DogNut comes back, OK? You can rest
     up, eat properly, learn how to use your weapons, do some basic training, and when he
     comes back … ’
    ‘What if he never comes
     back?’
    ‘He’ll come back. He knows what
     he’s doing.’

6
    ‘The Fear’ were on the move
     again.
    That was the name that Shadowman had given
     to St George’s army of strangers.
    The Fear.
    During the night they’d flushed out a
     small group of kids from a big house next to Hampstead Heath and sent them running.
     They’d caught and killed one on the spot; the others they’d tracked through
     the local streets and finally across the Heath. A few got clean away, but The Fear
     managed to catch several of the younger ones, the ones who were slower and weaker than
     the rest. The strangers had cornered them in a steep-sided hollow. The kids had been
     disorientated in the dark, exhausted and frightened, but the adults, using their sense
     of smell, had followed them easily. They’d fallen on them as a pack, killing them
     quickly. But what came next was not some mindless feeding frenzy. Having ripped the
     small bodies apart, The Fear had divided them up, St George taking the lion’s
     share. There was a pecking order among the strangers, with St George and his gang at the
     top. The oldest, feeblest and most diseased of the strangers got nothing.
    Shadowman wondered how long the weaklings
     couldsurvive like this and how soon the stronger ones would turn on
     them and eat them.
    The sun was coming up now and The Fear were
     moving off the Heath. If they followed their usual pattern they would find a house and
     settle down to sleep until it got dark again.
    From his hiding place, high up in a tree,
     Shadowman watched them closely. The way they congregated around St George. The way they
     seemed to move together, with a sense of purpose. How did they do that? How did they
     know what St George wanted them to do, beyond brute, slavish copying? They were
     organized the way an ant colony is organized or the bees in a hive. There was a sense of
     purpose in everything that they did. Somehow they managed to arrange themselves into
     distinct groups, with set