The 13th Horseman - By Barry Hutchison Page 0,38

going?”

Pestilence slipped a slim remote control into his breast pocket. “We’re already there,” he said, and he opened the door.

Drake didn’t recognise the field at first. It wasn’t until he spotted the narrow river, and the bridge that the floating sphere had hidden behind, that he knew where he was.

“What are we doing here?” he asked, following War and Pestilence outside. Famine, for the moment, remained unconscious.

“Like I said, horse riding,” Pest told him.

Drake swept his gaze across the field. “Won’t we need horses for that?”

“We most certainly will. That’s the first part of the lesson, actually.”

“What do you mean?”

War stepped between them. He curved his middle finger and thumb into the shape of a letter C and stuck them in his mouth. A shrill whistle almost made Drake’s eardrums burst.

“Bloody Hell,” he cried, clamping his hands over his ears. “Tell me when you’re going to do that, will you?”

Even through his hands, Drake heard the thunderclap. It rolled across the field, bending the grass and swirling the surface of the river. The force of it made Drake take a step backwards. Pestilence, who had clearly been expecting it, took shelter behind War.

“Did you... Did you just whistle for thunder?” Drake asked.

“Only gods can make thunder,” War told him. “I just whistled for him.”

“Who?” Drake asked, before a horse leaped from thin air and sailed over his head. He turned and watched it gallop across the field for a few hundred metres, gradually slowing down. Shortly before it slowed to a full stop, it turned and began cantering back towards them. Drake watched its mane dance like fire in the afternoon sun.

“Oh, great,” he muttered, as the red horse clopped closer. “You again.”

Another piercing whistle sent him ducking for cover. He looked up to see Pestilence take both pinkie fingers out of his mouth.

“Seriously, will you please give me some warning before you do that?” Drake cried, but another boom of thunder drowned him out before the sentence was even half finished.

This time Drake was ready for the wind. He ducked his head and angled his body to avoid being shoved back. When he looked up, the front half of a white horse was slouching towards him. The back half followed a moment later. Drake saw the air round the horse ripple, as if the world itself had parted, just for a moment, to let the animal through.

The horse kept walking until it reached Pestilence. “You can pat him, if you like,” Pest said encouragingly.

Drake looked up at the horse. It was almost as big as War’s. Whereas the red horse looked like it should be put on display by an art gallery, though, this one looked like it should be put down by a vet.

Weeping sores dotted the horse’s flanks, and a dark crimson liquid dripped from within its mouth and round its eyes. Its tail and mane were ragged and filthy. As it walked, Drake could see every one of its ribs beneath its dry, shrivelled skin.

The horse whinnied loudly, but the whinny became a cough and the cough, eventually, became a raspy wheeze. The animal limped over to stand beside War’s horse, which promptly took two paces in the opposite direction.

“Um... is your horse OK?” Drake asked, as diplomatically as he could. “It looks a bit, sort of, under the weather.”

“Don’t let his appearance fool you,” Pestilence said. “He’s fit as a fiddle, that one. Aren’t you, love?”

The horse neighed, retched, then vomited on to the grass. “Fit as a fiddle,” Pestilence repeated, somewhat less confidently.

“Now it’s your turn,” War said.

“My turn for what?”

“Summon your steed. Call forth the pale horse,” War told him.

Drake nodded uncertainly. “How do I do that?”

“You whistle,” snapped War, whose patience was rapidly approaching wafer-thinness. “Like we did.”

“I can’t whistle.”

War stared. A breeze blew. Pest’s horse suffered spectacular diarrhoea.

“What did you say?”

“I said I can’t whistle. Is that a problem?”

War’s teeth clamped together until there was barely room for the words to escape. “Yes,” he growled. “That’s a problem. If you can’t whistle, how can you call your horse?”

“I dunno, can’t I just shout or something?”

“And what would you shout, exactly?”

“Sort of, ‘Here, horsey horsey,’ or something,” Drake suggested. “Would that work?”

War shook his head. “No,” he said, in a voice like two bricks rubbing together. “That wouldn’t work.”

“Can you try whistling?” Pestilence asked. “You just sort of stick your fingers in your mouth and blow. It’s not that difficult.”

“I’ve tried before,” Drake said. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and