Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

LALASSU HELD Pitch and Silas securely, their legs and lower backs wrapped in her storm-cloud strands as she travelled along the road at a gallop. Silas's eyes watered. The air, which had been cold enough to begin with, now turned icy with the pace. The blood that had run from his ears was dry and stiff along the sides of his neck, on the left more than the right, as Charlie had insisted on trying to clean him up a little before Silas demanded that both he and Pitch stop fussing.

He had some inkling how frustrating all the coddling he was accused of, could be.

Up ahead, between the ears of the brown gelding, Scarlet was a minute beacon of rainbow light, having decided that being pressed in Pitch's pocket beneath the layers of horsehair was not to their liking.

Silas was almost thankful for the presence of the brown horse that Charlie rode. The gelding held no magickal properties, so Lalassu could not launch into her insanely quick pace. Which meant their noses and lips were not in danger of freezing off in the wind blast it produced, and their nethers were not punished further upon her bare back. But it did concern him that the mare could not seem to navigate her way without the lad ahead. Lalassu did not try to overtake Charlie and his mount, and she'd shown them nothing in her mane to suggest that she knew the way.

‘Was Sanu with you?' Silas said, too loudly, as he struggled with the whispering voices that remained. He was improving though, according to Pitch, and not yelling loud enough for all of London to hear now. Silas's worries could be thanked for that, along with his improving ability to place the hum of the dead at the far edges of his mind.

‘Yes, she is with Edward, I promise,' Charlie returned. ‘What worries you?'

He huffed with dry, unamused laughter. ‘What does not? It's just that I assumed Lalassu would know the way, too.'

‘Likely Sanu knows I'm with you, and is refusing to make this easy.' Pitch offered, with no more amusement than Silas, but laughing all the same.

Neither of them voiced what Silas was certain they both pondered. Was the angel already close enough that Sanu did not dare betray her exact position to her mate?

Silas's mind was a whirl with what he'd learned from the souls. Michael, the Serpahim, knew of the simurgh. Did the angel hunt them even now, or was he focused upon finding Lucifer?

‘Did Lucifer say he was returning to Arcadia, when last you spoke?' Silas pressed his mouth close to Pitch's ear. ‘Will Michael return to White Mountain?'

‘Lucifer said he would be returning,' Pitch's concerns manifested a slight tightness in his body, a change that Silas found himself intimately attuned to now. ‘But who fucking knows what that bastard shall decide to do. I don't have Tyvain's godsforsaken cards.' His back pressed against Silas's chest as he took a deep breath. ‘To be fair though, if your souls speak truly, and Michael is having to take headless fae from windows to glean information, it shows that Lucifer did not run back to Enoch and spill everything about what is happening here.' Another breath. ‘The souls said Michael knew of the simurgh, that he wanted to know where it had been taken…but did they say he knew of me?'

Silas brought his arms in tighter about Pitch. ‘No, they didn't.' Relief came with that; what felt like a small victory. ‘And Byleist would never betray you to the angel.'

Pitch made a small hitched sound. ‘You cannot say never. I know you think the sun shines from the Dullahan's arsehole –'

‘That is absolutely not –'

‘He was brave, and noble, I'm not denying that. He went to great lengths for you, but to be interrogated by a Seraph…well, I doubt even I would not succumb and let something important slip.'

Silas swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry with thought of such torture. ‘I should have asked more of the souls…it sounded to me that Michael had already moved on from Byleist…Christ, I did not ask them if he survived.'

Pitch managed to find a gap in Lalassu's mane, and pinched Silas's thigh, bringing him back to where panic sat shallower. ‘Stop tormenting yourself. If you'd stayed any longer in the state you were in, I think your brains would have seeped out of your head. And I would not enjoy an empty-headed ankou in my bed.'

Silas nestled his chin upon Pitch's shoulder, Lalassu's gait so smooth there was no danger of chipped teeth. ‘I'm sorry that I frightened you. The voices overwhelmed me so quickly, I had no time to even realise what was happening. I think Izanami protected me from their clamour in the village.'

‘Pity she didn't see fit to stuff deathly cotton in your ears out here. She is a mercurial wench, like the rest of the gods…and Lucifer. Let us hope he is deep enough into the halls of White Mountain that Michael cannot draw information from him in the ways he prefers. Which is to say, painfully.'

Silas lifted his head, watching the road ahead, and Charlie upon his horse. The gelding was doing well with the punishing ascent and quick pace. ‘It is not a pleasant state, in the world of the dead, my love. They are being greatly burdened by the Blight, ever more so than before.'

Pitch covered Silas's arm, where it remained at his waist. ‘And your burden grows with it, too, no doubt. I shall be glad to reach this infernal Sanctuary, if only to see that heaviness lifted from you.'

Silas breathed in the dank scent of Pitch's hair, the hint of the grave still clinging there. Soothing to Silas's peculiar tastes. He chose to relish what it was to be able to hold and comfort the daemon at all. Not so long ago, he had feared they would never sit so closely again.

‘No much further,' Charlie shouted. ‘There's the Kirkstone Pass Inn, look!'

And for the first time in quite a while, they could actually see what lay ahead. The fog thinned where a solitary building sat atop a long-awaited crest. The pub's name was clearly written upon the signboard hanging outside, but to Silas's untrained eye it was no better than chicken scratches. Lights gleamed inside, sending square patches of illumination onto the road. No one sat at the scattering of tables outside, the evening being far too cool.

Beyond the Kirkstone, down into the valley behind, the fog spread itself thin, revealing more of the countryside than they had seen on the ride so far.

Stark and near-bare as those hills were, the sight was no less breathtaking. Though still absorbed by his troubles, Silas's heart stuttered to see the majesty of the landscape.

Charlie's horse slowed, into a canter, then a trot. And Scarlet's light suddenly extinguished.

‘Everything all right?' Silas called.

‘We can't stop for an ale, you know,' Pitch added. ‘Tempting though it is.'

‘The gateway is not far from here, I don't want to miss it,' Charlie called back. ‘And there is also a carriage approaching, if you must know.'

Silas had been too absorbed by the sights to notice the dark looming presence of the simple berliner, with its pair of dapple greys. Lalassu went from gallop to walk, barely interrupting her steps with a transition to trot, which made for bloody uncomfortable riding.

He did not begrudge Pitch the foul language as they jerked about. The mare set herself near to one of the unused tables of the alehouse, where the road swelled out like a toad's belly either side, to allow for those stopping at the Kirkstone. The carriage's passengers were not among them, though. The carriage driver slowed his dapple greys' trot to accommodate the steeper decline, and continued on, barely glancing at the huge horse with her dual passengers, on the roadside.

‘Here we are,' Charlie's voice rang out, but the lad himself was harder to find. The fog had swept in again, nudged by the gentle but icy breeze. ‘Come on, this way.'

Lalassu moved on, and Silas could only assume the mare saw far more than he did, for she was back at a trot in no time. Taking them across the road, travelling alongside the low-set rock wall that hugged the Struggle into the gloom ahead. Night was moving in fast now.

A ball of light appeared up ahead; Scarlet illuminated once more. Silas sucked in his breath. If Scarlet still sat between the brown horse's ears then the wisp was far too low. For one horrid moment he imagined Charlie and his mount had somehow fallen down a hillside.

‘Charlie?' he called.

Lalassu veered sharply left, and jumped, straight over a dilapidated cross-beam gate. Neither of them were in danger of falling off, but the sudden move made Silas's neck crick, and Pitch squeal with surprise. Both of them slid an inch down the mare's bare back as Lalassu launched herself skyward. She sailed over the low fence, jumping much higher than really needed.

Charlie was someway ahead, down where the landscape flattened out, and he could afford a canter through the barrenness of the sprawling fells. The fog did not seem to like the lower lay of this land, and reduced itself to a lighter mist, though the air remained damp enough to have Silas wiping at his face, and Pitch muttering about being uncomfortably wet, and not in a happy way.

They gained on the brown horse easily, where the lad rode with certainty, lying low, arms lifted high up his horse's neck, hands coaxing, body utterly still despite the pace.

The fells rolled on endlessly, decorated only by rocks and boulders, thin grass and clinging moss, but with solid enough ground to not risk the horses' fetlocks. The air forced itself into Silas's lungs, giving him no option but to breathe deep. Scarlet was a guiding light ahead, hovering above Charlie now, apparently enjoying the pace as much as the horses appeared to.

After a time, a small lake spread out to their left, its surface changed to black by the encroaching evening. Silas did not enjoy where his mind went, upon seeing the water. He very much doubted Blood Lake would look so simple and surmountable. But he only had to tune in to the ceaseless whispering at the back of his mind, the voices of all those unhappy dead, to find his resolve once more.

‘Gods, I wish we could keep this up,' Pitch spoke, breathless, but happily so. ‘Just carry on riding until we toppled off the edge of the world and no one could find us.'

He tilted his head, as though seeking to read Silas's expression when an answer did not come straight away. ‘What do you think? Shall we sneak away when Charlie's not watching?' His laughter was fractious, his mirth utterly false. Silas kissed the hard line of his cheek, wishing their position practical enough to find his lips.

‘I am game if you are.'

Lalassu nickered, giving them scant warning of another impending jump. Smaller this time, a pile of gravelly rocks, and once more they were soaring, before a return to a canter across the lonely landscape. They managed another fifteen minutes or so of fast riding, before Charlie's horse stumbled.

Lalassu's mane whipped out, finding the brown horse before the gelding's nose could touch the ground, pulling him up and out of a dangerous fall. So much so that the horse thrashed about with hooves lifted off the ground. Charlie cried out in alarm, and Lalassu adjusted their measure.

At a halt, safely grounded, the gelding's sides heaved, and white foam flecked it's mouth and chest. Scarlet patted at the horse's muzzle, squeaking in their indecipherable language, but clearly consoling the animal.

Silas wriggled against Lalassu's hold.

‘Hardly the place for that, my dear,' Pitch declared.

Silas flicked a finger at his ear. ‘I'm concerned for Charlie and his mount.'

‘Of course you are,' Pitch sighed.

But Lalassu did not release them.

‘I've pushed the poor thing too far, I'm not proud to say,' Charlie jumped out of the saddle, running a hand down the sweat-soaked shoulder of his horse. ‘But we are so close. Look, you can see the outline of the hill we are headed for.'

He pointed, straight ahead, where there was indeed the shadow of a rise. Silas startled to hear Charlie cry out.

‘Bloody hell!'

Lalassu had fixed her attention on Charlie, and wrapped him her tail; lifting him off his feet.

‘Wait, wait. Let me unsaddle him,' Charlie cried, fumbling at the girth in an effort to unsaddle the exhausted horse. Lalassu obliged, allowing the lad to remove the bridle too, leaving all in a heap on the ground, and the gelding, sweat-stained, but free.

With a squeal of trepidation, Charlie was drawn back towards the mare.

‘No, not with us. There's no bloody room,' Pitch declared.

And he was not truly wrong. Nevertheless, Lalassu lowered Charlie onto her rump, where he was very near to the dock of the mare's tail. If not for the pale horse swaddling him, Charlie would have been in real danger of sliding straight off, but as it was, the lady's horse settled them all in a precarious cocoon; one illuminated by Scarlet as they came to sit on Pitch's shoulders, right beneath Silas's chin.

‘A little duller, Scarlet, if you don't mind,' Silas said, squinting until the wisp did as he asked.

Lalassu set off at a brisk walk, neighing and receiving a return from the brown horse which began to graze upon tufts of grass between the rocky ground.

‘This is truly not the threesome I had in mind for us, Silas.'

‘Please don't,' Charlie sighed. ‘I'm being squeezed so tight, it really won't take much for me to throw up.'

‘Please don't.' Silas repeated the lad's words back to him. ‘How far do you suppose?'

But any answer was lost when Lalassu decided, in her wisdom, to instigate a trot. There were cries and curses from all three passengers, most vocal from Charlie who truly was in a terrible position upon the mare for such things. How Lalassu could stand all the banging about on her back, uneven tempos at that, Christ only knew.

The ludicrous journey went on for a near intolerable ten minutes. The hillside they had seen as a shadow drew ever clearer. A fell of considerable steepness, slate spilling down the slope like grey tears, whilst crags of gathered rock sat higher up. After another few minutes, when Pitch was threatening to burn himself free if the trotting did not stop, Lalassu finally drew to a halt.

There were groans of relief from everyone. Silas peered up at the hillside.

‘Now to top this delightful day off, you are going to tell us we need to climb that wretched mountain, aren't you, Charlie?' Pitch fumed.

‘It's more of a hill, but yes, I am, I'm afraid. There's the Priest's Hole, that darkness there at the top.'

It was barely visible, but if Silas squinted just so, he could imagine he saw evidence of the cave high up. Very high up.

Lalassu released them. Charlie simply slid off over her tail, Silas went next, offering Pitch an unnecessary hand, but the daemon did not berate him for it. He jumped off Lalassu, and his free hand went at once to his groin.

‘Thank the gods I still have an arsehole for you to play with, Silas, for my balls are flattened beyond measure.'

Despite his own discomfort Silas chuckled.

‘Ready?' Charlie had already made his way to where the scattering of shale was thickest. ‘Be careful, the rock slides easily.'

‘Did you hear that, Silas? No lumbering. You must be nimble, because if you slide back down into the valley, I'll not be coming after you.'

They both grinned at the obvious lie.

‘Fair enough. Will you be alright with the height, though, or shall you faint, as you are prone to do?'

‘How dare you, sir.' Pitch put on a show of righteous indignation and followed after Charlie, who had already begun to climb. At first, the prince refused to use his hands to balance himself on the steepness, and it made for amusing viewing. Watching Pitch's arse was pleasant distraction from the incline, which was rather more formidable than Silas had anticipated. Lalassu picked her way carefully behind him, which was comforting, as he doubted the mare would allow any of them a dangerous slide. The Pale Horse had the advantage of her tail for extra balance, the strands spread behind her like the roots of a ghostly tree.

The traipse up the hillside loosened shale, and several times Silas had to adjust his course as either Charlie or Pitch dislodged stones and sent a cascade down the slope.

They scrambled. There was no more dignified a word for it. All three of them on hands and knees as the soil gave way to craggy rock which was as likely to offer a foothold, as to twist and break an ankle with its crevices.

But the darkness of the cave drew nearer each time Silas paused to glance upwards. They were making decent headway, with Scarlet the only one among them who was travelling easily, sitting upon Pitch's shoulder, despite his chiding of the wisp for it.

‘Nearly there,' Charlie panted. ‘Only a few more feet to go.'

Silas went to answer. A rush of trepidation swept him, as surely as the breeze itself, cold in his blood, churning fear. Lalassu snorted, and stone clattered behind him as the mare stomped. He turned.

‘Look out!' Pitch shouted.

Silas was enveloped by a storm-cloud of Lalassu's mane, a surge of horsehair that rose up high above him, and curled forward like a giant crashing wave. Silas lunged forward, throwing himself towards Pitch who in turn had also lunged for Charlie, grabbing at the lad's ankle. Dragging him down the rock.

‘Pitch, what the hell are you doing?' Charlie cried.

The blast struck a heartbeat later. An enormous shift of air that flattened Lalassu's mane against them, like a thick, wet blanket, pummelling them into the hard rock. The mare went onto her knees, a strangled, terrible wheezing sound coming from her but she held their cover valiantly.

Incandescence engulfed their position, a brilliance that dared any eye to remain open.

‘What is happening?' Silas bellowed, blinded, but reaching for where he'd last known Charlie to be, protected beneath Pitch's body as the daemon covered him.

‘This is gods-damned angelfire.' The brilliance of white was now shot through with flame. ‘Michael has found us.'