The men’s cheering reached a fever pitch and Pocket dodged past Rosheen’s wings just as Muckle brought his huge club down with all his weight. The knotty wood impacted into the kneeling raider’s head with a sharp, wet crunch and he dropped limply to the bridge, his legs twitching.

Pocket giggled.

He did not know why, but the horrible scene filled him with joy, and the other raiders must have felt the same for they too were laughing. Muckle raised the club high again and brought it down on the fallen man’s broken skull. A red spray shot into the air on the second hit and the men howled with glee, holding their stomachs, eyes streaming tears. Pocket felt the laughter rising to his cheeks and eagerly awaited the third fall of the club, when Sir Corc’s strong hands pulled him around and hugged him close.

No longer a witness to the bloody display, Pocket suddenly felt sick as he continued to hear the club bash into softening bone over and over again accompanied by a chorus of voices lost in hilarity. The sounds of those voices, given over to awful abandon rang painfully in his ears, growing hoarse and breathless with each new rising wave. He heard coughing and gasping begin to mingle with the laughter, quickly supplanting it, and he heard Muckle scream over the din. The goblin’s voice rang out, a mix of fury, lust and ecstasy and then...

Silence.

Pocket felt himself being guided forward, half lifted over the remainder of the bridge. He kept his face pressed close to Sir

Corc, but the corners of his vision still caught harrowing glimpses of sprawled forms with blue faces and black lips, throats raked with the deep gouges of dying fingers and curled hands clinging to thick, pale, ropey entrails spilled upon the cobbles.

Pocket was dimly aware of descending the steps to the riverwalk and entering the chandler’s shop. Sir Corc spoke briefly with the candle maker and then Pocket was being ushered into a damp, reeking tunnel. Sir Corc held his hand as they traversed a narrow walkway of slimy bricks, a broad channel of waste-choked water only a step to the right.

“Ah the sewers!” Muckle’s voice echoed of the close, stone walls. “Do you know what a crocodilisk is, my young cock?”

“No,” Bantam Flyn’s voice answered.

“Pity,” Muckle said. “Neither do I. But I hear they live down here.”

The squire seemed to find this amusing and he let out a chuckle.

Pocket winced. It was the worst sound he could imagine.

Curse all cities and their tight, stinking tunnels.