“Come on,” said Lewis, and he and his team ran after the fleeing kids. “We’ll get ’em.”

As the orderly group broke up, it seemed to give encouragement to the grown-ups. The fat father in the Saint George vest raised his arms above his head, bellowed, and at last they attacked, coming as fast as they were able down the hill.

“Hold the line!” Arran shouted, and the fighters got into position, spears bristling.

Nothing was going to stop the grown-ups; they waddled and limped and scurried onward. The kids watched them getting closer—a hideous row of smashed and diseased faces.

Arran stood fast, Achilleus on one side, Blue on the other, more fighters spread out across the road. Behind them in a shorter line were Ollie and the skirmishers. Silent. Waiting.

Closer and closer the grown-ups came until at last Arran gave the order.

“Fire!”

A hail of pellets, stones, and javelins flew at the grown-ups, and as they went down, Arran moved the fighters forward. The first wave of attackers was almost immediately smashed to the ground, and this hampered the rest from getting forward.

Arran spotted Saint George clambering over a body. He took a swing at him, but the fat father ducked just in time.

“Maxie!” Arran shouted. “We need support!”

Even as he said it, Arran looked around to see Maxie arriving with her flanking squad. Their eyes met. They must have both been thinking the same thing at the same time. They were linked. For a moment it was as if nobody else existed. Arran was so proud of her. She was brave and strong and clever. She smiled at him and he smiled back. He knew at last. He knew that she felt the same way about him as he did about her. He just knew. He couldn’t say how. And she understood. He felt a great force of happiness well up inside him.

He was ten feet tall. Knowing that somebody cared about him made all the difference. It gave him fresh strength. He could cope with anything now.

He turned and slammed his club into the face of a father who had managed to get past the fallen bodies.

With Whitney and Maeve’s help, Lewis’s team had managed to take control of the little kids. They had herded them off to the side, where a paved pathway ran above the Regent’s Canal. It looked easy to defend. There were tall walls on one side and railings on the other. Past the railings was a fifteen-foot drop to the canal towpath. The older kids had to push and shove and yell at the younger ones to stop them from running again. Whitney stayed at the center, gathering them in, towering above the smaller kids, pulling them to her, calming them.

While the main group of grown-ups had been waiting, a splinter group had come around the side, trying to get at the smaller, weaker kids. A gang of them blundered across the road toward the pathway, and a father charged, breaking through the bigger kids at the end and taking hold of a screaming girl. His face was so swollen with boils he looked like some ghastly sea creature, a puffer fish.