The 13th Horseman (8 page)

T
HE VOICE IN
Drake’s head screamed angrily at him, ordering him to turn back. Drake ignored it and powered on along the passageway, racing towards the exit. Behind him, he heard the hollow
thunk, thunk, thunk
of heavy footsteps hitting the plastic floor. He glanced back over his shoulder, but the light from the halo only reached a few metres, and all he could see of the Deathblade Guardian were its two red eyes burning in the dark.

A robotic demon. War hadn’t mentioned any snap-together robotic demons guarding the scythe. Something else that had ‘slipped his memory’, no doubt.

Something whistled past Drake’s ear. He chanced another look back. The light from the entrance up ahead lifted away the veil of shadow. The polished chrome of the guardian came stomping from the darkness, one clenched fist raised.

There was a puff of smoke, a flash of flame, and a pyramid-shaped knuckle rocketed towards Drake’s head. Drake ducked and stumbled, and the missile streaked harmlessly past. It hit the side of a plastic tub at a shallow angle, and ricocheted into the softening gloom up ahead.

The Deathblade Guardian marched on, the plastic floor buckling beneath its immense weight as it closed the gap between it and Drake. Its arm remained raised, the fist trained on the boy’s back. Another flash. Another puff of smoke. Drake barely had time to twist sideways. He felt the turbulence the spike caused as it streaked by him.

“Look, keep the scythe,” Drake cried. “I don’t want it.”

The clanking and thudding of the robot seemed to be right behind him. He daren’t look back now. Had to keep moving, keep running, get to the exit and get away.

The lights of the Junk Room weren’t particularly bright, but they dazzled him as he stumbled from inside the cave. He took a brief moment to get his bearings, and then a somewhat more leisurely moment to realise he was trapped.

One cliff face led upwards, the other led down to the ground far below. He had climbed quickly, but there was no way he would be fast enough to make it up or down before the guardian could take aim.

A whirring of hydraulics behind him made Drake spin round. The demonic figure of the robot
clanked
out from the confines of the cave. Its polished metal frame glinted in the glow from the overhead lights. Its demented grin seemed to twist further up its unmoving face, as the twin red circles in its eye-sockets glowed even brighter.

Drake backed towards the edge of the cliff. A weapon, he needed a weapon. If only he had some sort of—

His eyes went to the halo in his hand. It looked like the flying disc he’d been given for his birthday a couple of years ago. It had been a fun gift. Perhaps not as much fun as the games console he’d asked for, but he’d become pretty good with it in the weeks after his birthday.

The guardian’s clenched fist briefly tightened. The final projectile on its left hand streaked across the gap between the boy and the robot. Drake dropped to one knee, curled the halo in against his chest, then flicked out sharply with his wrist.

The hoop of holy light spun as it sliced through the air towards the Deathblade Guardian. Drake followed its flight, praying to whichever deity was listening that his aim was good.

It was. The spinning ring found its target. “Yes, yes,
yes
!” Drake cheered as the halo struck the guardian across its exposed metal throat.

“No, no,
no
,” he groaned, when the glowing hoop bounced harmlessly off the robot, and clattered noisily to the ground.

The mechanical demon clanked closer, its arm still raised, fist still clenched. But, Drake realised, the knuckle-spikes were all used up. He may not have a weapon, but nor did the Deathblade Guardian!

There was a sound in Drake’s head, like a snigger. The robot lowered its left arm...

...and then raised its right one. Four more pyramid-shaped projectiles took aim at Drake’s head. The robot was too close now, and Drake was too near the cliff edge. There was no way he could dodge another attack.

He saw the guardian clench its fist tighter. Drake’s hands went to the lid of the box by his feet. The clasps unclipped as four puffs of smoke and four fiery flashes sent four little missiles hurtling towards him.

The lid wouldn’t stop a direct hit, he knew, but if he could angle it correctly, like the wall back in the cave, he might stand a chance. He thrust the rectangle of plastic out in front of his face, tilted upwards.

A sound like machine-gun fire rattled across the lid’s surface. The force of four impacts almost sent him toppling backwards over the edge of the cliff, but he held his ground and laughed, half with relief, half with amazement, when the spikes deflected upwards to be lost in the vastness of the Junk Room.

He didn’t laugh for long. A pincer grip tore the lid from his hands. Drake found himself looking up into the red-eyed glare of the guardian.

“Can’t we talk about this?” he pleaded.

A metal arm reared back, a metal fist was driven down towards him. Drake rolled clumsily and the fist punched a hole through another plastic lid. The hand raised again, bringing the entire storage box with it.

The guardian shook its arm, flicking its hand up and down as it attempted to dislodge the box. Seizing the opportunity, Drake leaped to his feet and drove a shoulder against the robot’s back, trying to knock it off balance.

Something buzzed across his skin and through his bones as he made contact with the Deathblade Guardian. A shock of energy pushed him away, and sent him spiralling down on to the floor. He skidded on the smooth plastic and slid, screaming, towards the sheer drop.

His hands grabbed at the edge of a box lid as he slipped across it. His fingers, curved into claws, caught hold just as his legs swung out over the cliff edge. Bicycling wildly with both feet, he dragged himself back on to slightly more solid ground and rolled over on to his back.

The metal demon turned its attention away from the box on its arm. It took two clanking steps towards Drake and raised a knee to the level of its chest.

A foot came down. Drake squirmed into the shape of a letter C, and a metal heel was driven straight through the lid of another box, right where Drake’s stomach had been a half-second before.

Drake scrambled out of the guardian’s reach. The robot wobbled unsteadily, its right foot deep inside a storage tub, its left foot still standing atop the next box over. It was right at the edge of the cliff. Drake knew he wouldn’t get another chance like it.

He scurried, crab-like on his hands and feet over to where the robot teetered, and stopped at the box the metal foot was stuck in. The horned skull turned to face him. The red eyes burned with mechanical fury. Drake dug his heels against the edge of the box’s lid, gritted his teeth, and pushed.

The guardian’s own size worked against it. As soon as the box began to move, the robot’s weight helped to increase its momentum. The one hand of the Deathblade Guardian that wasn’t stuck inside a plastic box reached out and grabbed for Drake, but it was too late. As the top box fell away from the cliff, it brought the others below it along for the ride.

The robot let out a high-pitched whine, as the vertical stack of a hundred or more plastic storage boxes toppled like a felled tree towards the ground far, far below.

Drake watched the tumbling demon-shaped figure until it smashed hard against the junk-strewn floor. He kept watching for another few minutes, but it didn’t get back up.

“I did it,” he muttered to himself, scarcely able to believe it. Then, to the voice of the Deathblade, “I did it!”

But the voice of the Deathblade didn’t answer.

He had just started walking back towards the cave, when he heard a movement from the far edge of the cliff, where it curved round out of sight. Drake tensed, fearing another attack. He had lucked out against the first guardian, and doubted he’d survive a clash with another one.

A towering figure stepped out from the cliffside. Behind, and slightly below him, a much smaller figure wheezed his way up a flight of steps.

“Never again,” panted Pestilence. He took two short puffs on an inhaler and massaged the centre of his chest. “Never... again.”

“What you doing up here?” War demanded gruffly. He held Drake in a tractor-beam stare as he strode across the plastic floor. “You were told – the Deathblade is over by that ridge.”

“What? No, it isn’t,” Drake said. He pointed into the cave. “It’s in there.”

Pestilence mopped some non-existent sweat from his brow with a spotted handkerchief, then placed the handkerchief in a small plastic bag marked: FOR INCINERATION.

“Whatever makes you say that?” he asked.

“Because I heard it,” Drake explained. “It called to me.”

Pestilence turned to look at War, but War didn’t look back, leaving the other Horseman to stare at the back of the giant’s head. “That’s why you changed direction, is it?” War asked. “We were watching you.”

“Yeah,” Drake said. “And thanks for telling me about the Deathblade Guardian, by the way. I mean, it wasn’t a big problem,” he said coolly. “I was able to beat it and everything, but it would’ve been nice to know about it beforehand.”

“Right, aye, sorry,” War said. He scratched his chin through his beard. “So, just to recap: you heard the Deathblade calling to you and leading you here, and you managed to defeat its guardian?”

Without really meaning to, Drake puffed out his chest. “That’s right.”

“You hear that, Pest? The scythe spoke to him, and he leathered seven shades out of the Deathblade Guardian. Amazing that, eh?”

“It is,” Pestilence agreed. “It’s, um, it’s certainly amazing.”

Drake shrugged, but couldn’t hide his grin. “Yeah, I suppose it was pretty impressive.”

“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant,” War explained. “I didn’t mean
you
were amazing. What’s amazing is that the scythe cannae talk. It’s just a scythe.” He took another step closer until his shadow seemed to block out the glow of the overhead lights. “
And
,” War continued, “there
is
no Deathblade Guardian.”

The words trundled around inside Drake’s head, not quite making any sense. “Yes, there is,” he said at last. “And yes, it can. It spoke to me. It said someone had been playing silly beggars with its wardrobe.”

To his credit, War’s face remained completely impassive. “Its wardrobe?”

“Look, I’ll show you, it’s in here,” Drake insisted. He made for the entrance to the cave. “It’s just along—”

The mountain beneath their feet trembled as an explosion tore through the cave. Drake and Pestilence hurled themselves to the floor. Only War remained standing as the fire spat, and choking clouds of melting plastic began to spew from the hole in the cliff wall.

Drake raised his head and coughed as the fumes swirled round him. He looked into the cave and saw the darkness licked away by a flickering wall of flame.

“The Deathblade!” he yelped.

“It isn’t there,” War told him. “It was never there. It’s down by the ridge, where Pest hid it yesterday.”

Drake looked up at War, then back into the burning cave. Gloopy strands of melting plastic dangled like stalactites from the ceiling. Or was it
stalagmites
? He could never remember.

“So... if it wasn’t the scythe calling me,” he began, voicing the question that was bothering all three of them, “what was it?”

“I don’t know,” War admitted gravely. “But I suggest we don’t hang around to find out. All in favour?”

“Seconded,” said Pestilence, raising a rubber-gloved hand from his position, face-down on the floor.

“Sounds good to me,” Drake agreed. “But it’s a steep climb.”

“We took the stairs up,” War said. He hoisted both Drake and Pest on to their feet, one in each hand. “It’s a pretty safe bet they go all the way back down too.”

“I didn’t know there were stairs.”

“Did you look?”

Drake was about to shoot War a sarcastic response, when he heard the
thunk, thunk, thunk
of plodding, heavy footsteps approaching. He didn’t bother to tense up this time, and waited instead for the gargantuan shape to heave itself up the final few steps.

Famine’s face was a bright scarlet red when he finally dragged his blubbery frame on to the clifftop. He doubled over after the last step, his slab-like hands resting on his staggeringly bulky knees as he gulped in lungful after lungful of smoky air.

Finally, with several low grunts and groans, Famine straightened himself up. He looked at the others and did his best to fold his gummy lips into a smile. “All right?” he puffed. “What’d I miss?”

D
RAKE OPENED THE
shed door and looked out. He saw his garden, beyond which lay his house, and, beyond that, his world.

The journey back across the desert of Limbo had been uneventful enough. Before they left the Junk Room, War had collected the Deathblade, which was tightly wrapped in a sheet of blue plastic, and Pestilence had reluctantly agreed to carry the Robe of Sorrows.

Drake had offered to carry both, but had been told by War in no uncertain terms that he was ‘nowhere near ready’. And so he had followed behind the two horsemen, doing his best to encourage the waddling Famine along.

From somewhere off in the distance, an a cappella version of
House of the Rising Sun
– without the twiddly bits – had floated tunelessly across the sand. This had made them all pick up their pace, and in no time they were back at the shed. Just a few seconds after that, they were back in Drake’s garden.

“So, the second challenge,” Drake said, still looking out at the high grass of the garden. “I failed it, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” War said.

You could’ve heard a pin drop in the shed.

“What happens now?” Drake asked.

War took almost a full thirty seconds to reply. When he did he sounded hesitant, as if he were unsure of what he was saying. “We’ll call it ‘outside interference’,” he said.

Drake turned to face him. War was back in his usual seat at the table, his face serious, his fingers steepled in front of him. Pestilence was quietly setting up the board game,
Guess Who?
while Famine, for his part, was eating a Twix.

“So what does that mean?” Drake asked.

“The challenge is void. You get an automatic pass.”

“Oh, right.” Drake thought about this. “Good.”

“Yay!” said Pest, shuffling a deck of very small cards with the flair of a Vegas dealer.

Something had been bothering Drake all the way back from the Junk Room. He decided to voice it. “The Deathblade Guardian. Or... whatever it was. It was a robot,” he said. “Like those ball things at the school. They were... What did you call it again? Techno-mystical...?”

“Techno-magic mumbo jumbo,” said War quietly.

“That’s it. Techno-magic mumbo jumbo. Do you think the same person made both of them?”

“Oh, yes,” Pest said. He cut the deck, then expertly furrowed the cards back together. “It’ll be the old Death. He was right into all his techno-magic mumbo jumbo. I expect he’s trying to kill you.”

Drake was taken aback by the matter-of-fact tone of that last statement. “Why would he be trying to kill me?”

Pest shrugged. “Jealousy, I’d imagine.”

“But he quit! It wasn’t my fault!”

Famine shook his head. The movement made his whole upper body wobble like half-set jelly. “No, he went mental, remember? Flipped his lid. No saying what he’s capable of now.”

Drake blinked. “Oh, well, thanks for that. That’s really reassured me, that has.”

“Don’t worry about it,” War said. “Sit down, we can talk about it while we play.”

Drake hesitated, then lowered himself on to the seat across from War. They both had a
Guess Who?
board in front of them.

“We’ll do it in rounds,” Pest explained. “The winner of you two plays the winner of me and Famine.” He fanned the cards and held them out. Drake took one and propped it up in a slot on the board.

For the first time, he looked properly at the little cartoon faces lined up before him. He’d played this game before, but it hadn’t looked like this. He read the characters’ names aloud.

“Abraham, Jacob, Joseph... What’s all this?”

“It’s the Bible version,” War explained, as he took a card from Pest. He looked at it impassively, then placed it on his board. “I’ll start.”

“New boy should go first,” Famine said. “Only fair.”

“That’s true,” Pest agreed.

“Oh, all right,” War scowled. “Get on with it, then.”

Drake looked down at the board. He blew out his cheeks. The problem was, most of them looked pretty similar. Near identical, in fact. He decided to take a wild stab. “Do they have a beard?”

War clicked his tongue against his front teeth and leaned back in his chair. “No,” he said quietly.

Drake looked at his board. Then he flipped down every face but one. “Is it the Virgin Mary?”

“Yes,” War sighed. He held the card up for the others to see, then threw it down on the table. “Stupid bloody game, anyway.”

“Well done, Drake,” Pest beamed, as he took back the cards and set the boards up for himself and Famine to play.

“So...” began Drake, looking across at War. “So what?”

“The old Death. You said we’d talk about him.”

War crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, if he’s trying to kill me, I want to know everything,” Drake replied.

“He was here for a thousand years. Everything might take a while.”

“Well, I never liked him, I don’t mind telling you,” Pest offered. He was staring intently at his board. “Right, then,” he said, eyeballing Famine. “Did he lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

Famine shook his head. “Nope.”

Pest flipped down the cartoon Moses. “Your turn.”

“Why didn’t you like him?” Drake asked.

“He just never really fitted in,” Pest shrugged. “You’d never catch him doing this, for example.”

“Did he beget Isaac?” Famine asked.

“It’s not Abraham, no,” Pest said. He turned to Drake. “He was more into tinkering with his gadgets. Little robotic creations and what not, like them metal balls and the guardian thing. It was like he preferred their company to ours.”

“Really?” asked Drake, trying not to sound sarcastic.

“He was obsessed with the Apocalypse too,” Famine added.

Drake frowned. “Aren’t you all, though? I mean, isn’t that the whole point of you being here?”

“Oh, I mean we’re all
interested
in the Apocalypse,” Famine said. “We’re all
interested
in it, yeah, but he was over the top, he was.”

“Was he beheaded?” Pest asked.

Famine blinked. “What, Death?”

“No, the person on your card.”

Famine looked down at the board, as if suddenly remembering it was there. “Oh. No,” he said. There were a couple of
clacks
as Pest flipped down two more faces.

“I don’t understand. In what way was he obsessed?” Drake asked.

“He just banged on about it a lot,” War said. “Always wondering what it was going to be like, always complaining that it was taking too long. He just wanted it to hurry up.”

“And the longer he waited, the worse he got,” Pest added. “On and on he went. On and on.”

“Don’t you all want it to hurry up, though?” Drake asked.

For a fraction of a second, War said nothing. “Well, aye,” he nodded. “Course we do, but the difference is, we don’t keep harping on about it.”

“Did he beget Achaz?” asked Famine.

“Don’t just ask if they begot someone,” Pest said. “That makes it boring. Think of other questions.”

“All right, all right,” Famine grumbled. He looked long and hard at the board in front of him. In the silence of the shed, Drake could almost hear the horseman’s brain working.

“Right,” Famine said, at last. “Was he the father of Achaz?”

Pest sighed. “No.”

Famine nodded. “Right.” His eyes went across the faces on his board. “Who was the father of Achaz again?”

“So, that’s why he left?” Drake asked, ignoring the ensuing bickering between Pestilence and Famine. “He didn’t want to wait any more.”

“That’s about the size of it,” War said. “He said he was going off to make it happen. Said it was his responsibility to make sure it happened.”

“And what did you say?”

“‘Good riddance, ya nutter.’”

Pest and Famine were still arguing. Drake raised his voice to be heard over them. “And what do you think? Can he actually do it?”

War took a moment to consider this. “He’s human now, so probably not.”

Drake hadn’t realised until that moment that he had been tense, but now he felt himself relax a little. “Right,” he said. “That’s good to know.”

“Although,” War said, “if he put things in place before he left, if he had a plan – and God knows, he had enough time to come up with one – then... aye. Maybe he could.”

The relief that had washed over Drake drained slowly away. “He could really end the world?”

War nodded gravely. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“And what if he tries to kill me again? What if he sends more robot things?”

“We’ll keep our eyes open,” War said, but the way he shrugged didn’t do much to put Drake at ease.

“Right, I give up,” Pest announced in a voice filled with shrill annoyance. “I had Saint James the Lesser, OK? Happy now?” He held up a picture of a bearded man, then stuffed it back into the pack. “Drake, you’re playing
him
,” he said, glaring at Famine. “Good luck, it’s like beating your head against a brick wall.”

Drake stood up. “No, I can’t hang about,” he said. “I need to get home.”

War frowned. Pestilence stopped shuffling. Famine took a bite from a Victoria Sponge.

“Home?” War said.

“Yeah, I don’t want to be too late – my mum will get worried,” Drake told them.

Pest cleared his throat, but didn’t say anything. War’s leather armour
creaked
as he leaned back in his chair.

“You
are
home, boy,” he said. “Your old life – you have to leave that behind. You are no longer Drake Finn, you are the Fourth Horseman. You are the rider on the pale horse. You are Death.”

“For the next ninety days,” Drake reminded him. “After that, I quit, remember? So, in the meantime, I’m going home, OK?”

None of the horsemen moved to stop him, so Drake left the shed and pulled the door firmly closed behind him.

A few seconds later, the door opened again. “I’ll see you tomorrow after school,” he said, then he clicked the door closed for a second time, and slipped off into the high grass.

Next morning, Drake walked down the front path, swallowing the last bite of his breakfast. He swung the gate open and strode out, then almost tripped over someone sitting on the pavement.

“Hi. Didn’t expect to see you here,” said Mel. Her back was leaning against the fence, her legs straight out in front of her, feet together.

Drake’s mind raced. His mouth dropped open.

“Now you’re supposed to say, ‘What, exiting my front garden just before school time?’,” Mel prompted.

The vaguely awkward school-gates conversation from yesterday replayed in his head. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “What are the chances?”

Mel popped to her feet and brushed some little stones and muck from the back of her skirt. “Mind if I walk you to school?” she asked. “You can say no if you want, but I’ll just follow you anyway, shouting abuse.” She put a hand to the side of her mouth. “
ABUSE !
” she cried. “See, like that?”

“OK, yeah, that’d be great,” Drake said. He began walking, and Mel followed along. “How do you know where I live?” he asked.

Mel shrugged. “I have my sources. But the reason I came – I remembered what I was meant to tell you yesterday.”

“Oh, right,” said Drake. “What was it?”

“Dr Black.”

“Dr Black?”

“Dr Black,” Mel repeated. “He came to Mr Franks’s class yesterday after you’d left, pretending to be all worried about you.”

“How do you know he was pretending?” Drake asked.

“Because he doesn’t worry about anyone,” Mel said. “So, straight away my suspicions are aroused, I’m like, ‘Dr Black, worried about someone? No chance.’”

“Right,” said Drake, a little uncertainly. “Was that it?”

“You think I’d walk all the way over here just to tell you that?” Mel scoffed.

“What, then?”

“He started accusing you of stuff. Well, not exactly accusing, but pointing the finger of suspicion, let’s say.” She prodded him in the chest. “At you.”

“What did he say?”

“That you were the last one to see the missing kids.”

A frown creased Drake’s forehead. “Well, he’s lying, I don’t even know who they are.”

“He said something about... outside the toilets?”

Drake felt his stomach tighten. He stopped walking. “Wait, they’re not those three little spotty guys, are they?”

“Yeah, that’s them. So... what? You
were
the last to see them?”

“Yeah,” said Drake absent-mindedly. “I mean, no, no, I wasn’t. He was. He took them away after that. I saw him taking them through a door in his classroom.”

“So then he was lying,” Mel realised. “Why would he be lying?”

“I don’t know,” Drake said. He thought about the floating sphere, and about the fact it had come from within the history teacher’s classroom. “But I think we’d better try to find out.”