Page 66 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6
Silas shivered with a sudden thought. ‘What if I’ve drawn them our way somehow…’
Sybilla held the edge of her hood back so she could look at him. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Perhaps when I fell to the vision it betrayed us somehow. I could see that altar, those birds…what if somehow they saw me?’
‘We can both sit here and drive ourselves mad with such thoughts.’ She touched his shoulder. ‘Keep your calm, best you can. The storm is well away yet, and we have no reason to believe it on our trail. But best you keep those horses at the fastest pace you dare. I shall check on the others and see if the angel will deign to tell me more of our destination, in particular, how much bloody further it might be.’
Silas’s greatcoat was succumbing to the wildness of the wind, the rain finding a way in where it had not before. He was about to ask Sybilla if he should slow the horses just a tad so she might alight, when the Valkyrie stepped off the moving carriage in a whirl of darkness. She did not fall but drifted down, her coat lifting out behind her. Silas spied what he thought was a silver-threaded black shirt beneath, fluttering as though torn. Until he realised it was not fluttering at all, but making very distinct movements up and down. Silas wiped at his eyes, but by the time he focused again, Sybilla was pulling open the door of the carriage and he lost her from view.
Silas was quite sure he’d just seen his first glimpse of the angel’s wings. In this lifetime at least.
The rain turned to sleet, making it difficult to keep eyes open as the tiny flecks bit at Silas’s face. And the horses were lagging. This was a perilous path, with the road growing muddier every mile and a thin mist descending over the land around them. Silas could no longer feel his lips, and felt bottled in, with no clear sight of what lay ahead. If another carriage burst out of the haziness, it would be no surprise, for he’d not hear a thing with the rain and wind that buffeted them. But no other fool would be travelling as quickly as they did in this weather.
With each flick of the reins, he despised himself. Already the horses were driven by unseen forces; now he added his own hand to their urging. He must slow them. The plumes of white billowing from their nostrils and the heated steam rising from their lathered bodies left the two bays in a cloud of their own.
‘Ease up now.’ Silas could barely feel the leather between his fingers and worried it made him too harsh upon their bits. ‘Whoa, now. Steady.’
They fell into a trot, a restless one that he was only barely in control of. Even his voice did not soothe them as it had before. The blasted wind making it difficult to be heard.
He opened his mouth to call out again when the road ahead dipped away. The muddy slope caught one of the bays unaware and the horse went down on its knees. The other screamed as it fought against the drag on the rigging. The downward angle encouraged the carriage’s momentum, the tremendous weight giving the animals no opportunity to recover.
Silas leapt out of his seat, jumping over the footboard, throwing himself in front of the carriage shaft. The rod slammed against his back, and he grunted as the full weight of the laden carriage drove at him, the forward tilt of the footboard forcing him to bow his head. He ground his teeth, his arms straining against the weight pressing against him. His feet sank up to the ankles in mud, with no solid ground beneath to give him purchase. The downed bay fought to stand but seemed caught in its straps.
‘Shit.’ Silas hissed.
The carriage jerked unkindly against his shoulders as someone alighted.
‘Silas, Jesus!’
He caught sight of a figure dashing past, rushing to the side of the horse tangled in its trappings. The flash of auburn gave them away.
‘I’ve got him, I’ve got him,’ Charlie cried.
Silas was too occupied with the tonnage bearing down on him to see exactly what the lad was doing until, suddenly, the terrible pressure upon his spine relented.
The downward slide of the carriage stopped.
He lifted his head. Silas could just make out the lad’s legs, and his hands against the bay’s belly as the horse found its feet. Christ almighty, had he just lifted the animal?
‘Charlie? Charlie are you –’
‘Fine. But Silas, my god, what were you thinking?’ Charlie raced to where Silas was barricaded in like a third horse in the harnesses. ‘You could have been crushed.’ His eyes were wide with alarm. ‘Are you all right?’
He was fine, perhaps he’d ache a little in his shoulders later but the carriage had been in more danger of breaking than he had.
‘I’m fine. A crick in the neck perhaps, nothing more.’ He ducked under the shaft and traces, removing himself from reach of two sets of hooves. But the horses were far too exhausted to consider giving him a kick. They nuzzled one another, heads sagging. ‘As for you though, Charlie…’
‘Don’t you dare. I just found you practically under a carriage, trying to carry the whole bloody thing on your back. All I did was help a horse to its feet.’
‘Helped, or lifted?’
‘Both.’
The pin-prick sleet outnumbered the raindrops now. Charlie wore only his frock coat, a simple, far-too-thin affair of plain brown. This was not the place for such a discussion, but Silas glared at him.
‘What if you had gotten tangled in the straps and the horse fell on you, or kicked you?’
‘None of those things happened, Silas.’ Charlie met his gaze, chin high so he could look Silas right in the eye. ‘Will you not acknowledge that I can fend for myself and others?’ He raised his arm, brandishing the bracelet. ‘This makes me helpful, and I intend to use it.’