The Wall. Two short, hard words that had come to mean life or death for the people of London. It just depended which side you were on.

Captain Mickelwhite led his Legion brigade along the battlements, enjoying the slap of the sword against his leg. Overhead, thunderclouds were gathering and ravens croaked as they battled against the wind. The first drops of rain struck Mickelwhite as cold and heavy as stones, but he didn’t care. He felt unstoppable.

The Legion had built the Wall in six weeks.

Six weeks of pain. And blood. And war on the city streets.

Mickelwhite smiled, a slash of red against his ghostly pale skin; he had never had so much fun.

Not many Londoners had known that conflict was coming. They had been too busy or too stupid to see the signs that a war had been waging around them for centuries; a secret, silent war. On one side were Ben Kingdom and the Watchers, spies and warriors living on the rooftops; and on the other was the Legion lurking in their maze of tunnels beneath the city. It was the oldest battle in the world, the eternal battle between light and dark. And the dark was winning.

Soon the Watchers would be no more.

“Quickly, boys,” Mickelwhite urged his troop of boy-soldiers. “You know that it doesn’t do to keep Mr. Sweet waiting.”

The brigade had been together for a long time – first sharing a lowly barracks in the Under, the Legion’s subterranean lair, then leading labour parties working on the Wall.

They were all young, Mickelwhite included, but they had grown up fast. There was John Bedlam, a short, stocky lad, born and raised in the Devil’s Acre. Fighting came as naturally to him as breathing. Beside Bedlam was Jimmy Dips, a rat-faced pickpocket; then came Hans Schulman, a German lad with fists the size of ham hocks but a clumsy pair of feet. Finally, limping along in the rear was the hunchback, Munro, pulling his mangy three-legged bulldog, Buster, along behind him.

“Look,” said Mickelwhite, surveying the bruised and broken city beneath them. The Wall surrounded it, as inescapable as a hangman’s noose, marking the limits of Legion rule, the territory which Mr. Sweet had staked out for himself. “We did this.”

“Makes you proud, don’t it?” said Bedlam.

The Wall was not a thing of beauty. Houses had been torn apart to provide enough stone. Whole streets sacrificed for the great cause. Some buildings had become part of the Wall itself; their windows bricked up against the outside world, the rooms filled with rubble, their roofs fortified by coils of barbed wire. Jagged sheets of metal, spiked railings torn from front gardens, broken glass, wooden stakes with sharpened points; all crowned the Wall like a necklace of death. Anything and everything that could be used to repel an attack had found its way into the monstrous structure.

Rising in the west in Hammersmith, the Wall stretched as far as Lime House Cut in the east. It snaked along the north bank of the Thames, where all the bridges stood broken, leaving the river like a moat. Only Tower Bridge had been kept whole, its drawbridge defiantly raised. To the north, Legion rule stopped at Balls Pond Road. Beyond that, outside the Wall, London had been levelled to the ground for a distance of one hundred feet. All that remained was a swathe of debris and the skeletons of houses. This was the northern Dead Man’s Land – littered with landmines and mantraps, it was a deterrent to both attackers from outside the Wall and would-be escapees from within.

And south of the river it was much worse.

That was where the resistance had been the strongest, stirred up by the Watchers. That was why the Legion had wiped South London off the map.

Mickelwhite felt a sudden wave of hatred towards Ben Kingdom and his rabble rousers. Bile rose in his throat and he spat out a curse. “Death to the Watchers!” he snarled.

“And death to Ben Kingdom!” said Bedlam.

About a quarter of stubborn Londoners had dared to resist Legion rule. They had fought back. But they had lost. And then they had been punished. It was these men, women and children who had built the Wall. With chains around their ankles, the work gangs had slaved day and night. Mickelwhite, Bedlam and a thousand other Legionnaires had cracked the whip until the work was done.

A short distance ahead, Mickelwhite could now see Mr. Sweet, standing alone on the windswept battlements. None of this would have been possible without him. Who else but Sweet would have had the courage and strength to achieve all this? Mickelwhite felt his breathing quicken as he drew near. It was an honour to be in his presence. Through cunning manipulation not only had Mr. Sweet made himself Prime Minister, but then, with treasonous audacity, he had kidnapped Queen Victoria and crowned himself as King in her place. And now, at Sweet’s command, the Legion had bullied and beaten an entire city into submission. Truly, his deadly ambition knew no bounds.

Mickelwhite studied Mr. Sweet with admiration. The strong broad shoulders. The massive arms of a weightlifter. But…the scars…

It was forbidden to talk about Mr. Sweet’s “accident”, but it was no secret that he had suffered terrible burns during the Legion’s battle against the Watchers at the Feast of Ravens. Mickelwhite couldn’t forget the inferno that had swept through the Tower of London when the Watchers had attacked during Mr. Sweet’s dark sacrificial ceremony of power. However, he could only guess at what remained of Mr. Sweet’s once handsome face after the flames had caressed him from head to toe. That was probably why the great man had begun to dress so…eccentrically.

Mickelwhite could see the outline of the mask which encased the whole of Sweet’s head; the hard lines of the eye sockets, the fierce point of the beak. The collar of the man’s coat was wreathed in black feathers and on his head, encircling the shining dome of the mask, sat the crown of a king.

Not just any crown though. This was the Crown of Corruption – the great weapon of the Legion. It was set with the thirty Coins of Blood – the same silver coins that Judas, the great betrayer, had once held in his clammy palm – and it gave its wearer ultimate power to dominate the minds of weaker men. Sweet had made the crown his own, fixing shards of metal, daggers of broken glass, even long square nails around the iron band, until it resembled the Wall itself.

As they drew closer, Mickelwhite could sense the raw power radiating from Sweet. It was as if the man was a furnace and to draw near was to feel the blistering heat of the rage that boiled within him.

The young captain announced his presence with the Legion salute, slamming his left fist to his chest. “My Lord!” Mickelwhite declared.

The big man turned slowly and Mickelwhite felt himself flinch as two eyes pierced him, as hard and unforgiving as metal skewers.

“So, it is finished,” said Sweet. “Finally.”

“Yes, My Lord,” said Mickelwhite, nodding. “The Wall is now complete.”

“Hmmm,” Sweet growled. “Complete, you say?”

Mickelwhite could feel the sickly tide of fear rising inside the other boys; Sweet had that effect.

“Sector three is secure?” asked Sweet.

“Yes, My Lord,” Bedlam snapped in reply. Sector three had been his to oversee.

“And the watchtowers?”

“Yes, My Lord,” said Jimmy Dips.

“And the tunnels? Every conceivable exit blocked, including the outer limits of the Under?”

“Yes, My Lord,” muttered Munro. He and Buster had only just caught up with the rest of the brigade, the dog whimpering at the boy’s side.

“You were responsible for the work gangs who were collapsing the passages beneath Hackney Wick?” Sweet continued.

“Yes, My Lord,” Munro mumbled, his eyes on his feet.

Sweet took a step forwards and plucked Buster up into his arms, stroking the dog’s wet fur and scratching behind its ears. Mickelwhite couldn’t help but notice the skin on Sweet’s hands, a patchwork of scabs and open sores; another souvenir of the flames.

“Didn’t the Watchers lead an escape through one of those tunnels three days ago?” said Sweet, still fussing with Buster.

“Yes…but, my work party was one of the smallest and…” Munro’s words dried in his mouth. “The tunnel is sealed now,” he whispered. “It will never happen again.”

“No,” said Sweet, “I’m certain it won’t.”

Munro braced himself, waiting for the inevitable punishment for failure. He shut his eyes, but his master’s blow never came.

“And so the real work begins,” Sweet continued. “Every soul in London shall bow to me or face the consequences. The Watchers must be hunted down and eliminated, every last one of them. And Ben Kingdom must be made to suffer…” Sweet gestured towards his mask. “Just as I have suffered.”

Sweet swung round towards Munro again, and offered the dog back to him with outstretched arms. Gratefully, Munro reached out to reclaim the only living creature that he could truly call his friend.

At the last instant, Sweet snatched the poor animal away and, in a single movement, flung Buster over the Wall.

They all heard the pathetic whimper as the dog fell. Followed by the awful crunch of its landing.

“You should be grateful,” Sweet growled. “You find me in a merciful mood tonight!”

It was only then that it occurred to Mickelwhite that Mr. Sweet might be insane.