Page 72 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘Do you hear that, Pitch?’

‘A sneeze, I’m told.’

‘No, no, though the way you manage to sound both infuriated and immensely satisfied when you sneeze is endearing…but listen…in behind the storm. Something is there.’

‘If this is your way of saying you’d like to stop for a moment, then just say it, man.’ By the gods, please say it. Pitch took ahold of the reins, which Silas held loosely in his grasp. ‘Come on then, stop, nag. Silas has had quite enough.’

The ankou did not protest when Pitch tugged against Hastings’s mouth. The mare tossed her head, and did not seem keen at all to move from earth-shattering speediness to a more modest walk. He gave another tug, gentle enough but clear. The mare dropped into a trot for a few wince-worthy moments and then to a walk. The horse was not happy though, sidestepping and shaking her head.

‘Settle down, you damned–’

‘Hush, quiet a moment…’ Silas cupped a hand to Pitch’s shoulder. ‘I hear something out there.’

There was wind, there was enough snowfall to be faintly heard, there was of course the ever-present thunder, but the ankou was right. Beneath that came a rumble, a drumming against the earth. Pitch’s skin crawled.

‘That sounds a lot like horses at a gallop,’ he said. ‘Too fucking many of them.’

Hastings snorted, turning about in a circle.

‘How are they so close?’ Silas leaned forward, his chest pressed at Pitch’s shoulder. ‘You’re not bleeding are you?’

Pitch surveyed the offending foot, as best he could considering it was wrapped up in Hasting’s mane. ‘Not so far as I can tell, but I can’t feel my toes let alone a bleed.’

Silas flapped the reins. ‘Hastings, race on. Go.’

The mare’s whinny was a blade upon the air. And her takeoff came from deep in her haunches. They were returned to their flat-out run in an instant.

If the rumbling behind them continued he could not hear it over the whip of the air against his ears. His head pounded, right beneath the hunter’s cut. ‘How long do you think she can keep up this pace?’ he shouted.

‘Long enough, I hope.’ Came the very dissatisfying reply.

Pitch was readying to tell Silas so when he was halted by the unmistakable movement of something in his pocket. Not his greatcoat, but the lighter coat beneath. ‘Shit…what the fucking…’ He dug his hand down behind the blanketing of Hastings’s mane.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘There’s something…my pocket…’

He left half the words behind, distracted by the squirrelling. His fingertips touched at something smooth and cold.

And that something tapped at his fingers like a frantic sailor sending an SOS.

A rainbow fled his pocket. A squeaking, maddened rainbow.

The will-o’-the-wisp hovered in front of him, so close he was liable to go cross-eyed with looking at it. The creature had taken a vaguely human shape, translucent, as though a delicate work of blown glass. It stabbed a pointed finger to the way ahead. Chittering like a creature possessed.

‘It is trying to tell us something,’ Silas declared.

Pitch elbowed the ankou. ‘What a brilliant mind you have, fair ankou. Do you speak will-o’-the-wisp also by any chance?’

The snow glistened with all the hues of the creature, sunrise oranges, strawberry, lavender, and forest green, all of which glowed brighter as the will-o’-the-wisp grew more and more irritated with being unheard. Abandoning them, it dashed to Hastings’s ear, hanging on like a sailor to a crow’s nest. The squawking and pointing continued, but this time it had found a suitable audience. Hastings curved her neck, snorting hard, and found a new burst of speed, turning them sharply to the left. The few threads of her mane that were not holding Pitch and Silas in place, those at her ears where the will-o’-the-wisp stood, rose and twisted about one another. An intricate display that became all too evident, all too quickly.

‘Is that…’ Silas began.

‘Please tell me that is not us being thrown from this horse.’

Beyond the woven diorama of what appeared to be Hastings herself, with her riders dangling at the ends of lengths of mane like downed, oversized kites, the hue of the real landscape remained an unappealing blur of white.

‘It does seem to be the case.’