Page 64 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6
‘No. Stop touching me.’
‘Why is the wound covered in dirt?’
‘Because a fucking gnome decided rubbing dirt into an open wound was a wonderful idea.’
‘A gnome tended you?’ Sybilla frowned.
‘A hobgoblin was there too,’ Silas said. ‘The creatures of the forest bade us leave quickly.’
While Pitch wriggled in his arms, demanding to be put down because he was not a fucking invalid, Silas quickly filled the Valkyrie in on what had been said about the Wild Hunt and its Herlequin.
‘The Wild Hunt is far more than a diversion, then. What a fine mess.’ Sybilla stepped back, leaving the way clear for Silas to move ahead. ‘I suppose it is probably too much to hope that this Herlequin is as big an imbecile as the last. They were a veritable bull in the china shop, here for causing havoc, and so busy with it I hardly think they noticed when Mr Ahari dispatched them. Silas, get Tobias to the carriage, quickly. I’ll tend him there, but we must move on. I should never have allowed him out of the shielding of the damned copse.’
‘Why are you all talking about me like I’m not here?’ Pitch demanded. ‘I will not ride in that cabin, Valkyrie.’
‘Tobias, you’ll get in the fucking cabin. That’s the end of it.’
The first pattering of rain played at the woodlands, glancing at Silas’s face as he wrangled a daemon turned slippery as an eel. If not for the pain Pitch’s ankle caused him, he’d have been out of Silas’s arms by now. As it was, Silas had to hold him far too tightly to ensure he didn’t end up in a pile on the ground.
They paced across the clearing.
Sybilla peered up at the sky, visible in this open space. The clouds were thick and low and she did not seem pleased with what she saw. ‘Matilda’s not come back yet. And the storm is getting closer. Silas, you’ll have us on our way as quickly as you can.’
She strode ahead to where hint of the carriage and Hastings’s paler shape lay beyond the trees. Silas did not move quite so quickly, thinking of his injured passenger and how silent he had fallen. It was not Pitch’s complaining, but another sound that interrupted the unsettled quiet.
The colourful will-o’-the-wisp had not left them. It bobbed about in the air, most enthusiastically telling Silas something or other.
‘Go away,’ Pitch muttered.
‘Do you understand it?’
‘I understand that its squawking is hurting my ears.’ He covered the offended ear.
Silas glanced over his shoulder. The will-o’-the-wisp seemed to have heeded Pitch’s command to leave. It zigzagged about, weaving up and down, moving so quickly that trace of its colours were left behind like true rainbows in the air. The critter dashed back into the woods, taking its soothing light with it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SILAS WAScertain now the horses were being influenced in their direction. They had been travelling for a decent couple of hours in increasingly miserable weather, and he’d barely had to pull on the reins. Well, that was to say he’d not needed to direct the bays, with the horses always choosing the northwest direction at any crossroad before he’d even lifted his frozen hands to guide them. But he certainly needed to keep them in check. His arms were beginning to ache from the number of times he’d reined them in, convinced they would have sought to gallop the entire way to their mysterious destination if allowed their heads.
At least the forced movement helped keep him warm. And the cold had numbed the lingering ache around his bruised chest. He was as good as healed now and fervently hoped the same could be said for Pitch.
Silas wiped his face. The rain was unrelenting and bitterly cold. The storm had grown noticeably louder, the flashes of lightning more brilliant.
There had been no sign of Matilda. If the elemental had managed to pass a message to Sybilla, he’d not been privy to that either. He’d been in the driver’s seat alone for some time. And after Sybilla and Pitch had both suggested he worry less and drive more, and Charlie had declared Silas would make himself ill from fussing, he’d not called out again to enquire as to how everyone in the cabin was faring. He endured the empty space at his side unhappily but grateful the daemon was not subjected to the brunt of the icy conditions.
A dip in the road lay ahead, a place where a rivulet had swollen to a rather fast-moving stream across the path.
‘Whoa, there.’ Silas persuaded the horses to slow. There was no way to tell what state the roadway was in beneath the flow of murky brown water, so he erred on the side of caution. His muscles flexed as the bays showed their unhappiness with easing the pace. Silas was pleased with his decision when the carriage rocked back and forth pointedly, the wheels shifting through hidden depressions in the swirling water.
He waited for unhappy shouts to come from the cabin, and was not sure if he preferred their absence.
The carriage cleared the stream, and he let the horses have their heads, so as to negotiate the opposite incline. With all the groaning of wood and rattling of cinches and harnesses, Silas had no clue Sybilla was out of the cabin until she was hauling herself up beside him.
‘Oh Christ. You caught me unawares. Why did you not ask me to stop?’ But really the answer was evident. The Valkyrie moved like an aged seaman on her ship, settling on the seat beside him with practised ease. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘He is sneezing.’
‘What? Who?’