Page 123 of The Simurgh

He kept his eyes locked on the palace, the section where glass was no longer present to gleam and sparkle, only the steel frame remained, pushed out of line by the blast, jutting slighter higher than neighbouring sections.

‘At the palace?’ Silas asked.

‘Yes. There was daemonic flame in that explosion. That would explain too why we’ve only been accosted by your one-eyed brother so far, and not a murder or ravens, or even a horde of lorebiders with their puny staffs. All are occupied with a Daemon King lurking in their midst.’

‘Not my brother,’ Silas muttered darkly.

But Pitch’s own words had stirred a flashback. A lorebider. The one who had given the wildness its name. Who knew an awful lot about the folklore of purebreds, and who’d given Pitch the oddest of glances.

He gaped, and could not decide whether to screech with laughter or lose himself to rage. ‘By the taints of gods, that fucking arsehole. He was right there.’

‘I’m not following.’

‘Lucifer. In the tower. He was disguised as a lorebider. That prick stood by and watched them open me up and take me apart. He gave them fucking folklore lessons while I dangled like a side of godsdamned meat.’

Silas halted, and Pitch slid from his back. The ankou turned around, taking hold of Pitch’s shoulders with wide-eyed astonishment. ‘But, that’s wonderful!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘He didn’t try to kill you, Pitch! I feared he was here to do just that. But it is the wildness…the simurgh, he must be after, along with the angels, of course.’

That ankou was so delighted, Pitch almost didn’t have the heart to put his thoughts into words. He clutched at Silas’s arm. ‘Lucifer cannot have the simurgh, Silas. We’ve been over this. He does not get to put us through all this, to set these wheels in motion with his fucking watch to begin with, and then take it all away.’ He tugged at Silas’s arm. ‘Let’s go. To the palace.’

The sky rumbled with a deep resonating peal of thunder, one strong enough to make the glittering leaf litter shudder beneath Pitch’s bare feet.

‘Let’s think this through.’

‘Don’t you dare renege.’ Pitch was feverish with the need to move, bare foot or not.

‘I am not reneging. But consider this, if the palace has fallen, then Lucifer has bested an Archangel, and the Erlking.’

‘I should bloody hope so, he is the strongest of the Kings of Daemonkind, though Asmodeus or Belial would behead you to say so near them.’

Silas was a pillar of calm. ‘It is one thing to fight the Morrigan and Gabriel, they are our enemies and we know that. But Lucifer…he is here on orders of White Mountain. Are you prepared to bring down an Arcadian king, Pitch? Your father, no less?’

Pitch released the ankou. ‘I never sat on his knee while he read me bedtime stories, or stood beside him in a stream in my waders while he taught me to fly-fish. I am cut from his cloth, but I am more creation flame and Enoch’s commandment than I am Luci’s little boy. I will not flinch to destroy him. He cannot just take the simurgh, Silas. He does not get to decide this is over. That Cultivation is not his to own.’

He was a little breathless with his own conviction. Silas regarded him, obviously unhappy, but not without pride in his gaze.

‘No, my love. It is not his. Perhaps we can make him see reason?’

Now that did deserve laughter. Pitch attempted something of the kind. ‘I think you still have some of the Drifting Meadow stuck up your nose if you think that likely.’

Silas opened his mouth to reply, and the heavens opened.

Torrential rain was an understatement of gross proportions. Pitch could barely see a foot ahead of him.

‘Silas,’ he cried.

The ankou loomed out of the rain, taking his hand. It was difficult to keep their heads up for the weight of the rain.

‘Keep going towards the palace,’ Silas shouted, for the hammering upon the woodland canopy was horrendously loud.

‘Where is the fucking palace?’ Pitch sprayed water as he spoke. ‘Can you see it?’

Silas tugged his hand. ‘This way I think.’

‘Thinkisn’t what I was hoping for.’