Part 12 (1/2)
”Did you... Did you just whistle for thunder?” Drake asked.
”Only G.o.ds 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 gra.s.s. ”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 blew, as Pest had suggested. What came out sounded almost exactly like the white horse's last bowel movement. ”See? Can't do it.”
”No, you can't, can you?” Pest said glumly.
”I can whistle normally. A bit,” Drake said. He pursed his lips together and made a warbly, high-pitched squeak. ”That any use?”
”Oh, aye, that'll be very handy if we ever need to summon a budgie,” War spat.
”Keep practising and it'll come,” Pestilence said encouragingly.
”And what do you suggest we do in the meantime?” War asked.
Pestilence looked up and squinted in the glare of the sun. ”It's a lovely day,” he said brightly. ”What's say we go for a ride?”
THE GROUND ROLLED by in a blur beneath the horse's hooves. Despite appearances, Pestilence's horse was strong. It galloped across the fields and bounded over fences, matching the pace of War's mount without any sign of difficulty.
On its back, Pestilence clutched the reins. Drake sat behind him, holding on to a handle at the rear of the saddle, and silently praying that the horse wouldn't go airborne.
”You OK back there?” Pest asked.
”Well, I haven't fallen off yet,” Drake replied.
Pestilence smiled. ”That's a good start.” He was holding the reins with one hand. With the other, he was applying a thick white cream to his face. ”Got to put this stuff on or I'll blister something terrible in this sun,” he explained. ”I got so burned last time I looked like I'd been bobbing for chips.”
”Shouldn't you, you know, see a doctor?” Drake asked him.
”For sunburn?”
”For everything. It's just, you seem to have a few medical... issues.”
The horse leaped over a small stone wall. Pestilence waited for it to touch back down before he replied. ”Comes with the job, don't it? Pestilence means plague and disease and viruses and stuff. That's me all over, that. And it's not exactly a barrel of laughs, let me tell you.”
”Is that why you wear the gloves and stuff? So you can try and avoid catching germs?”
”More the other way round,” Pest explained. ”I can't catch anything from humans, but there's no saying what they might catch from me.”
Drake subtly slid himself further back in the seat. ”Relax,” Pest laughed. ”You're not human any more.”
”What? Well, what am I, then?”
”You're a Horseman of the Apocalypse, of course.” Pestilence paused a moment, letting this information sink in. ”Well, for the next ninety days, anyway.”
”What happens after ninety days?” Drake asked.