Afterworlds: The 13th Horseman

“Doesn’t matter,” War said more loudly. “Can you hold a rope?”

Brakes screeched behind them, followed by the crunch of metal colliding with other metal.

“What kind of question’s that? Of course I can hold a rope.”

War’s hand reached back over his shoulder and plucked the boy from the saddle. Drake barely had time to realise what was happening before he was plonked down again. He recoiled in the force of the sudden wind. He was in front of War now, the big man’s body no longer shielding him. A rein was pressed into Drake’s hands. He heard the shhnnk of a sword being drawn from a sheath. “Good,” War intoned. “Hold that, and for God’s sake don’t—”

The end of the sentence was lost as War rolled sideways off the horse’s back. He hit the ground shoulder-first, rolled on the tarmac, then sprang to his feet, his broadsword raised and ready.

Drake felt himself sliding in the saddle and clutched the reins tightly to his chest. “Don’t what?” he cried. “Don’t what?”

But War was too far away to hear. He stood his ground before the spinning orbs, eyes flitting from one to the other. They crisscrossed along the street, moving over, around and occasionally through the now stationary traffic.

“Ye want some?” the giant growled, twirling his sword round in his right hand. “Come get some.”

The blades screamed through the air. One of the spheres raced ahead, closing in for the kill. War planted his size nineteens, put his weight on his front leg, and swung. The first ball exploded before the sword could connect. A hail of razor-sharp metal barbs burst forth. They rattled against War’s armour and dug into the few exposed patches of his leathery skin.

He gave a low grunt as the hooks tore into his flesh, but followed through with his swing. The sword whistled through the space the first orb should’ve been occupying, then arced round in a full circle. He spun on the spot, bringing the blade back round, directly into the path of the second sphere.

The ball dipped sharply, dodging the sword and clattering against the ground beside War. He brought up a foot, slammed it down with a ker-ack, but the sphere was past him. It bounced twice, like a basketball, then spluttered back into the air. With blades whirring, it streaked off after the horse, and the boy on the horse’s back.

“Aw,” grimaced War. He pulled the first of the hooks from his arm and watched the ball rocketing away. “Bugger.”

Drake bounced violently in the saddle, his knuckles white on the reins, his face fixed in a mask of terror. The horse’s breath snorted in and out through its wide, flared nostrils, slow and steady, as if even this frenzied pace was taking no effort to maintain.

“Slow down!” he wailed. “Whoa! Stop! Whatever it is you do!”

Drake hadn’t seen War’s encounter with the armoured spheres, but that didn’t matter. They were a distant memory now, a distant threat. The threat of falling off and splattering like an egg against the ground – that one was much more pressing.

The horse thundered on, muscles moving beneath its ruby flanks, its mane blazing like an inferno. They were almost at the end of the street now, surely moving far too fast to take the ninety-degree bend that was racing up to meet them. A row of shops lined the road dead ahead. Drake could see himself reflected in the glass fronts, four identical versions of himself on four identical horses, all about to be caught up in the same identical crash.

“Look. Building!” Drake cried, leaning down and shouting directly into the horse’s ear. The ear flicked, as if swatting away a fly, but the horse’s gallop didn’t falter. “Come on,” he begged. He bounced backwards in the saddle and gave a sharp yank on the reins. “We need to—”

With a whinny, the horse leaped into the air. Drake gripped with his legs and wrapped the reins round his wrist and braced himself for another jarring impact.

It never came.

“Stop,” Drake whimpered, as the ground fell away and the horse’s hooves began to clatter across the wide-open sky.

A long way back along the street, War plucked the last of the barbs from his skin as he watched his horse take to the air. Even there, a hundred or more metres away, he could hear the boy’s panicked screams.

War shook his head. “I told him,” he sighed, sliding his sword back into its sheath. “What did I tell him? For God’s sake, don’t pull back on the reins.”

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Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down. The words repeated in Drake’s head like a mantra. Looking down would be stupid. Looking down would be insane.

Drake looked down.

Aaaaaah,screamed his brain. Aaaaaaaaaaah!

The town spread out below him like a map. The streets, the cars, the houses – they were all tiny, and getting tinier by the second as the horse climbed steadily higher.

The rushing of the headwind stole Drake’s breath away. The horse’s hooves clip-clopped noisily on thin air. Somewhere, far off to their left, a passenger on a passing aeroplane watched the horse running across the sky, took a long, hard look at his complimentary drink, then slowly sat it down on the fold-away tray.

And behind them, unnoticed, a spinning ball of techno-magic mumbo jumbo tore across the sky.

“D-down,” Drake whimpered. “Down, boy.”

The horse tossed its head back and shook its fiery mane. It banked steeply upwards, until it was almost running vertically. Drake screamed as he slid backwards off the saddle. The reins, still wrapped round his wrists, jerked tight and he found himself dangling helplessly, his legs bicycling in mid-air.

With a snort, the horse turned sharply right and began to race towards the distant ground. Drake was flicked upwards, before gravity thudded him back down into the saddle. He felt the upsurge of wind and heard the high-pitched whine of the sphere as it soared past him, tumbling end over end.

The ball curved like a boomerang, punched through a fluffy white cloud, then rejoined the chase. Up here, with nothing to get in its way, the ball was fast. It began to close the gap almost at once. Even over the roaring of the wind, Drake could hear the whirring of the blades. He remembered the sting of the cut on his cheek. Then he imagined it a thousand times worse.

He clenched his legs round the horse’s broad back and ducked down low in the saddle. “Yah!” he cried, flicking the reins just as War had done. “Ya-aaaaaaaaaaah!”

The world went blurry round the edges. For the second time in sixty seconds, Drake was saved by the reins round his wrist as he was thrown backwards off the saddle. Still the horse galloped faster, until it was dragging Drake along, his legs stretched out behind him.

“Not yah,” he cried. “I’ve changed my mind. Not yah! Not yah! ”

The animal gave a long, loud whinny. It sounded, Drake thought, suspiciously like a laugh.

The roar of gunfire erupted behind them. The horse banked sharply to the right and something whistled past Drake’s head. Several somethings. He glanced back and caught a glimpse of a gun barrel poking out from within the sphere.

“Yes yah. Definitely yah!” Drake cried. “Yah, yah, yah!”

Fire spat from the barrel of the gun. The horse went into freefall and Drake felt the bullets streak by just above him. He looked down to find the ground racing up. He’d barely begun to scream when the horse levelled off, clattering him back down into the saddle.

They were racing just a few metres above an open field now, kilometres outside the town. A road ran alongside them a kilometre or so to the left. Down on the right, a narrow river meandered towards an old stone bridge.

Twisting in the seat, Drake searched the sky. The ball was nowhere to be seen. “Where did it go? Did you see it?” he cried. He hesitated, then added, “Why am I asking a horse? I mean, it’s not like you can understand what I’m saying.” Another pause. “You can’t understand what I’m saying, can you?”

The horse shook its head.

“Good,” said Drake. “That would’ve just been too weir— Look out ! ”

The sphere rose up from behind the bridge, spraying bullets in a wide horizontal arc. The horse neighed loudly, startled by the gunfire. Stumbling, it plunged into the river. The coldness of the water made Drake gasp. It swirled in through his open mouth, filling his throat and his belly. He felt the reins pull away, heard the frantic splashing of the horse. And then he was floating.

And then he was sinking.

And then, he was drowning.

The darkness eased behind Drake’s eyelids, like shadows fleeing the coming of dawn. Something warm and wet pressed against his mouth. And his cheeks. And his forehead. It pulled back as he sat up and spewed dirty river water on to the grass.

“Knew it,” said Famine. His head was directly above Drake’s, his rubbery lips folded into a wide smile. “Kiss of life. Never fails.”

Drake turned his head and spewed again. Not water, this time.