Page 73 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘Silas,’ Pitch cried, his delicate threads of resolve straining. ‘I don’t wish to be flung.’

The beacon of light between Hastings’s ears, the spectrum of colour that was the will-o’-the-wisp, turned to face them.

A sharp squeak, a jabbed finger to the left.

‘I think that’s a signal.’

‘I will not be flung, damn it.’ Pitch grabbed a handful of mane, but the mare was already slipping her hair away from his legs, unbinding him from the snug, secure, and warm position.

‘I don’t see we have much choice.’ Silas wrapped his arms around Pitch’s middle. ‘I’ll not let you go, don’t worry.’

‘This is ludicrous. Where is she sending us?’ A length of Hastings’s mane struck at the thin skin on the inside of his right wrist. A violence that saw crimson bloom. ‘Fuck…she just cut me.’

A few strands of hair pressed against the wound, and his blood flowed along them as though Hastings had opened his vein.

Silas cursed right against his ear. ‘What has she done?’

But there was no time to reply. Hastings released the bloodied strands from Pitch’s wrist. They hung like a ghastly scarf of scarlet down her neck. But the rest, still pristine white, she used to swaddle them. The will-o’-the-wisp, damn it to any hell that might exist, gave them a salute.

And the gesture marked their launch.

The White Horse lifted them off her back and flung her riders, as though they were a stone from a slingshot, her mane peeling away as they flew through the air. Pitch crushed his curses behind his teeth, his body so tight against Silas’s they were almost as one. The ankou held him. Wrapped about him as they shot over the ground, whipping over the snow with only a foot or two to spare.

The speed was as impressive as the mare’s gallop, but where the blazes were they headed? Pitch squinted through watery eyes.

Out of the stark nature of the land, grey shadows loomed. A blink and he saw that it was not shadows at all. A forest.

‘Shit, Silas!’

‘I see it.’ The ankou curved in over him in a more thorough way. Pitch ducked his head, refusing to see which tree trunk was going to break them in half. He was held in Silas’s shadow, embraced in the armour that was the ankou. And never had Silas’s presence seemed so…large.

He swore the ankou cast a shadow. An inflation of the man that was breathtaking. One capable of opening a hole in the forest.

‘Brace.’

Silas shattered the illusion with his sharp warning. He jerked his shoulder, throwing himself around and taking the brunt of the hit that came. They drove through shrubbery that snatched at them like the hands of the starving. Silas grunted, his shoulder hitting something firmer, their trajectory shifting, their bodies flipping. Pitch peered up at the forest canopy.

A solid thump announced a landing and a startled gasp came from the ankou. Pitch was now a passenger on a living sled. They tore along a short distance before the sodden earth brought them to a standstill.

‘Silas? Are you all right?’ Pitch struggled to free himself from the ankou’s still-tight grasp, catching sight of an odd speck of whiteness on his own wrist. Like a tiny patch of lichen right over the site of the cut Hastings had inflicted.

‘I think so. Give me a moment.’ Silas’s grin was a little wobbly, and he definitely winced as he sat up. His hair was caked with mud and twigs, more dirt brown than black. ‘You?’

Pitch held up his hand, gesturing at the blot on his wrist. ‘Fine, fine, the nag saw fit to patch me up at least. Are you sure your bones are intact?’

‘Quite sure. I didn’t strike anything much, remarkably.’ Silas’s gaze shifted over Pitch’s shoulder. ‘We have company.’

The will-o’-the-wisp darted in through a widened path through the trees, barrelling through the gap, which narrowed even as Pitch stared. Two sturdy ash trees leaned back towards one another, blotting out the light their separation had allowed in. There was the reason Silas did not have any broken bones to contend with. The damned forest had bent to accommodate them.

‘Do you think trees so dull now?’ Silas shifted onto his knees, rubbing at his back and making a face as shreds of his greatcoat came away.

The rainbow creature made the first recognisable noise Pitch had heard. ‘Shhhhh.’ Turquoise hands bade them stay down. As though either of them was about to bolt off. The will-o’-the-wisp went back to jabbing fingers out beyond the ash trees.

The ground shook, actually vibrating beneath Pitch’s knees. He looked to Silas, and they spoke without uttering a word, both rising to their feet. Silas embraced Pitch around the waist and lifted him so his feet barely touched at the ground. He moved them both back the way they had come. And Pitch was too distracted by what they sought to see to protest being carried about like a child’s doll.

Silas settled them in behind one of the ash trees, where a parting in the shrubs allowed them to see some of the landscape beyond the forest. ‘Keep down.’ He took Pitch’s hand, tugging him in closer.

The Wild Hunt was close. Pitch glanced at his injured foot, reassuring himself that he’d not reopened the wound. The bandaging Sybilla had fixed was in place, the remnants of the gnome’s soil peppered his skin. But no blood.