Page 114 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘Tell me where.’

It might have been laughter that pushed through the air like a shot arrow.

So you might kill me the moment I hand you back your scythe? No.

‘Not unreasonable to be worried about that, if you ask me.’

Silas glared at the gnome who perched on the tree like a chap watching the races.

‘I did not ask you.’

Set me free and I will take you to your prince.

Every creature watching seemed to hold their breath, waiting on Silas’s reply. A breeze brushed at his face, where the blood was now stiff against his skin– a wound that would have been far worse had the Dullahan not intervened.

‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered beneath his breath. ‘Fine.’

Our deal is struck? Your scythe for my freedom?

‘My scythe for your freedom.’ Lopsided deal that it was.

‘You’re going to trust the ankou, horseman? Just like that? How wonderfully dramatic this all is.’ The unhelpful gnome now held a handful of wriggling worms, nibbling on them as he spoke. He was enjoying this far too much.

Silas Mercer is a man of his word.The teratism’s voice brushed his mind.

There are few things more certain in all our worlds.The Dullahan raised his free hand and snapped his fingers.

A soft nicker had Silas turning. The Dullahan’s blue roan picked its way through shrubbery and death towards him, ghostly quiet as it moved. The horse stopped a short distance away. And tossed its head. The spectacles flew from the roan’s mouth. Silas reached for them. Clasping them tight, the metal uncomfortably warm and damp.

Now. Quickly. Take my hand off at the wrist. Be swift. Be sure.

The scythe hummed in Silas’s grasp, eager for his hold, welcoming its new master without hesitation. He imagined the blade he’d need and set about reshaping the spectacles into a sickle, a hard blade he hoped decent enough for the task at hand.

As death’s instrument found its form, the whispers began. The Dullahan’s whip, the echoes of the remnants of the souls it held. Pieces only, an assembly of fragments of the fae that had once been. He sensed them now as he’d not done in the Fulbourn. But then, he was not the same creature as the asylum had known. Maybe the Dullahan was right in having such faith in him.

The peri scampered away, bells ringing, hiding themselves from what was to come.

‘Are you ready?’ The whispers intensified, but Silas heard little protest. Only expectation. The souls were eager for his blade too.

Are you?The voice of autumn leaves stirring.

‘Yes.’

The Dullahan wriggled away from the log, until his arm was stretched straight. The horseman’s wrist was visible, while the rest of his hand remained trapped beneath the log along with the whip. Silas would have to be precise or risk taking far more of the limb than necessary. But he was calm, certain the blade would know best where to strike.

Silas went to one knee and raised the sickle. A swell of strange hunger took him. The whispers rose, a cry of those who saw an end in sight. The magick of the fae came for him. Pinpricks of discomfort darted like wasps, the curse seeking to stay his hand. He did not even bother to brush them aside.

Silas struck down with the scythe, sending the sickle where wrist met the heel of the palm. Severing hand from limb.

The Dullahan’s cry was raucous, a medley of voices.

The bones cracked beneath the log, causing it to rock where it lay. And those last tiny fragments of life fled, escaping the curse that had imprisoned them as much as it had done the headless horseman. The Dullahan’s moan could have shaken the moss off stone. He rolled away from the log, free, clutching his handless limb to his chest. The roan worked around him, nuzzling its rider as he lay with his face turned towards the dirt and dealt with whatever pain the end of an enduring curse wrought.

Silas had no time to nurse him through a recovery. He got to his feet, the scythe already shifting, but he did not allow it to take the form of spectacles this time. That was Balthazar Crane’s signature. And that ankou deserved no legacy here. Silas bent his will to reshaping the blade, imagining a much more worthy design.

The scythe took its new form; a ring of smoothed, gleaming silver, with a design etched in tiny pieces of emerald upon its surface.

Silas tilted his hand, letting what light there was catch at the verdant and silver, a lump in his throat. He slid the ring onto the middle finger of his left hand, where the fit was superlative. He rubbed his thumb over the etching: a pitchfork. A replica of the tattoo upon Pitch’s back.