Page 135 of The Simurgh

As bleak as the weather above may be it was not as dark as the cave below, framing the jagged edges of the blasted opening in weak light.

Closer and closer they drew. He was so close now, barely more than the height of the ankou, and was just about to declare to Silas they were free, when the upward rise slowed.

Dragged to a halt.

‘Fuck…shit.’ Pitch strained, reaching for the edge with his free arm. It was tortuously close, but he’d need double the span to grab it.

Silas shifted, struggling against the arm that surrounded him, mumbling as though he slept.

‘Silas, it’s me. It’s Pitch. I have you.’ But not for much bloody longer, if the ankou kept wriggling. ‘Wake up, Silas. Wake up!’

Whatever nightmare had hold of him threatened to dislodge him from Pitch’s grasp. And the waters were monumentally deep beneath them.

The ankou muttered something incoherent, and lashed out, his flailing hand striking Pitch’s chin and knocking his head back against the rock.

‘Silas, listen to me!’

Gods, the ankou was a solid man. And when sodden and stricken, even more so.

Silas cried out, desperate in whatever battle it was he fought in his dreams. Pitch hooked one foot beneath Silas’s arse, using that as an extra bolster to try and keep him from slipping away. His other leg cramped where he had it extended, toes digging into rock and mud to try and stop them both from sinking.

‘Please, Sickle…it’s me…’

Pitch flung his head back to avoid another smack to the mouth. The raven was above, hovering over his hastily-made escape hatch. Several black feathers loosened from its body, floating down into the water pit.

‘I need more than a blasted feather, Macha,’ Pitch shouted. ‘I bet you are relishing this, aren’t you?’

The raven released a cry that sent fresh shivers over Pitch’s body.

Once, twice, three times, the ear-piercing cry rang out.

Then the raven fell.

Macha tumbled, wings cocooning the small body, legs stiff in the way that death preferred.

The raven struck Silas’s shoulder as it fell, and the ankou stilled. The bird’s corpse sank into the bloodied water, one milky eye watching until there was nothing left to see, the last of the sorcerers, finally, vanishing into the depths.

Silas had stilled, heavy and quiet in Pitch’s hold.

He tasted the copper of blood on his split lip.

The pit brightened. Not with the fireplace hues of Pitch’s flame, but with a rainbow of colours.

‘Scarlet?’ Pitch cried, and Silas groaned, shifting against him. ‘It’s all right, Sickle. Ittrulyis all right.’

The wisp lit up the rainstorm with their multitude of colours, like the morning star above. Something very near a sob escaped Pitch. Scarlet squealed and squeaked and shot down into the pit, landing on Pitch’s hand where he clung to the solidity of the earth. They had a barrage of things to tell him, evidently.

‘I still don’t speak wisp, you silly creature,’ Pitch laughed, rather shrilly. ‘Silas, do you see who is here?’

It was not Silas who answered him.

‘Save your chatter, daemon. Take a hold of the vestige, so I might pull you free.’

Pitch peered up, through the pleasantry of Scarlet’s colours, and into the very pointed end of a daemon king’s blade.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

SILAS WOKEto Pitch’s voice near his ear, the daemon’s words too muffled to make out, but loud enough they could not be missed. Silas was seated, shirtless and with trousers soaked through, and leaning into a heated body he knew must be the prince. An arm embraced him, and his head rested on a firm shoulder. His ears felt filled with cotton-wool, and his skin stung mercilessly.