Page 107 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6
The taunt was foolhardy, no doubt. Silas was still on the ground, the Nephilim a living mountainside above him, but a kick or another blow he could endure; another twist of his mind, he was not so sure. He clenched the scythe, relishing his clarity. And before the Herlequin saw his intent, Silas lunged, driving the knife into whatever body part he could reach. It was a shin, he thought, or maybe just the leather of a high boot. Whichever it was, it made little mark upon the Nephilim and gained Silas a kick to the guts that crushed his stomach flat. He doubled over, coughing and retching, eyes streaming once more.
As he fought for a breath, he glimpsed the unmistakable shape of the Herlequin’s black shire, the great horse moving to his rider’s side.
Silas allowed himself a modicum of hope. Was the Wild Hunt truly at a retreat? Had the Order found them at last? Or better yet, had Pitch’s strength returned, his flame sending his persecutors running?
The thoughts put a rod in Silas’s back and eased the ache in his belly, and he pushed himself to sitting, leaning hard against the graceful, stalwart oak behind him.
‘Dullahan!’ the Nephilim roared. It was the second time the headless horseman had been called. And the second time there had been no response from the cursed rider. ‘Hunters, heed me.’
The Herlequin’s irritation was a brilliant concerto to Silas’s ear. He barely noticed how the harsh words scraped at the inside of his skull.
The horn bellowed again, a baritone of a depth that plagued Silas’s skin with gooseflesh. He braced, fearing he’d read things wrong. That this was not a call to retreat but rather a new ploy to entangle his mind. A lure that would drag him into the Wild Hunt, or have him try to harm himself once more.
But no such manipulations came.
Nor answer from the Dullahan, or any other of the Wild Hunt so far as he could hear. Silas let his hopes lift him.
‘Perhaps your Hunt and the headless horseman have a sense you lack,’ he said. ‘They’ve seen fit to run when they know they are bested.’
Talking accentuated the ache of all the bruises Silas had gathered since this encounter began, but it buoyed him to taunt the creature.
The Herlequin mounted his stallion, somehow shifting his enormous bulk with finesse, and lowered himself onto a saddle whose thick leather was carved with intricate etchings. His horse sidestepped, plate-sized hooves barely missing the prone body of Balthazar Crane where it lay upon its back, the ankou’s eyes wide and unseeing.
‘There is no need for the Wild Hunt now, foolish brother.’ The Nephilim turned his horse about, hard upon the reins. ‘We have what we came for.’
With another yank at the leather, the shire turned full circle, broad hindquarters now faced towards Silas, a flick of the animal’s tail close to his face. The hiss of it like a serpent.
But Silas was distracted, taking in the Herlequin’s words and unpicking their meaning.
Silas saw the signs too late. The horse’s rump muscles tightened, haunches dropping as it gathered to strike. The stallion kicked out. A blow aimed precisely for Silas’s head.
Something jerked hard at his wrist, tugging him sideways. He had a moment, less than the blink of an eye, to glimpse the bones wrapped around his wrist, before the horse’s hooves struck. And sent him into darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ZAQUIEL ANDHarut discarded their cloaks, revealing uninteresting costumes of more black beneath, before they set to manhandling Pitch away from the tree. To thwart them he did the worthiest impression of a snake his beleaguered body could manage and was greatly satisfied when Zaquiel cursed and slapped at the back of his head.
‘Stand still, you imbecile.’
Pitch would do no such thing. He drew on the flame, paltry as it was, making sure that at the very least he singed the angels as they unfastened the cuffs briefly to wrench his hands behind his back and refasten them. The nekhri contrasted the heat at Pitch’s fingers, a heat that served only to warm his own arse. The vainly-hoped-for reemergence of the wildness failed to arrive. Harut released a nasty chuckle at the same time a kick at the back of Pitch’s knees forced him down.
‘Why does the Hunt not answer?’ Zaquiel hissed to his cohort, apparently unwilling to ask the question of Iblis.
Because Silas has cut them all to tiny pieces and used them as fertiliser for his precious trees,Pitch muttered away behind his invisible gag, as much to distract himself from Iblis’s order to fly as to enjoy imagining the ankou doing just such a thing.
‘Hurry up,’ the Watcher angel snapped, and Pitch’s daydream was rudely interrupted by a violent shove that cast him onto his belly, nostrils filling with grit with the faceplant.
‘Bastards,’ he mumbled against his plastered mouth.
But it was far from over. His legs were wrenched back, and as though his day were not terrible enough so far, he was hogtied. His feet were brought back to touch his hands, where more metal fastened around his ankles and the snap of a lock joined one set of cuffs to the other.
You are fucking kidding me.Pitch pumped his hips in a far-from-sufficient attempt to get free. His nose streamed with all the pent-up efforts to scream his annoyance.
‘Where is the ankou, the Herlequin?’ Harut asked. The angel had an odd accent upon his words, a mingling of Arcadian with something else. Too long in the UnSeelie Court perhaps.
‘Do not concern yourself with their fate,’ Iblis growled, and it was truly a feral sound. ‘Move the prince at once.’
‘Iblis,’ Harut protested. ‘You’ve ordered us to the wing, in broad daylight. We should know if there is something–’