He wondered if she was concerned about being left alone with Justice. He was opening his mouth to reassure her when she reached out and knocked his shoulder with her fist, a gesture of solidarity.
‘Good luck.’ It was all she said, brown eyes serious in her boyish face. Unused to fellowship, Will nodded wordlessly.
There was no saddle, and no stirrup to push himself up with, so Violet made a stirrup with her hands and Will took hold of a clump of mane and hoisted himself up and onto the horse’s warm, broad back.
Justice was at its neck, murmuring to it in a strange language. Will found he could understand the words: ‘Run, as your ancestors ran. Do not fear the darkness. You have greatness within you, as do all your kind.’ The horse tossed his head as if something in him was responding; his black mane was tattered but he had a brave look in his eye. Looking up at Will, Justice said, ‘Ride fast. Do not look back. Trust the horse.’
Will nodded.
Skittish with new energy, or alarmed at the darkening of the shadows, the horse was hard to hold. Will had ridden in his youth with his mother, but never bareback with only makeshift reins. He drew in a shaky breath, then he drove the horse out into the centre of the road and called out.
‘Hey!’ he called. ‘Hey, I’m here!’
The three men rounded the corner on horseback, and Will’s skin went cold. The Remnants were like the vanguard of a nightmare. The shadowy ground beneath them seemed to move – hunting dogs were sliding in and out of their horses’ legs like a roil of snakes. This close, the single piece of armour each Remnant wore gave them asymmetric silhouettes: one wore a gauntlet; one a shoulder piece; and one a broken shard of black helm that covered the left side of his death-white face. The sight of them was like looking into an open tomb.
They were just men. Just Simon’s men. But even as Will told himself that, a Remnant stopped in front of an ivy-covered wall, and the dead of its eyes seemed to spread to the vine where the Remnant’s armour brushed against it, the green leaves withering, desiccating and darkening, the blackness spreading like rot. Do not let them touch you.
Sensing these cold fingers of danger, his own horse reared up on its hind legs and let out a cry, then sprang off down the cobbled stones of the road. Will clutched on, his heart pounding.
Ride fast. Do not look back.
He didn’t have much of a head start, but he knew the best paths, and he gained at first. He kept off the straight roads, where his slower horse would be at a disadvantage, turning instead into the twisty lanes he’d traversed on foot. His pursuers lost seconds pulling up and turning, and their swarming dogs clogged up the narrow spaces. It gave Will hope that he could stay ahead.
But the straggling outskirts of the shipping district quickly gave way to open countryside. In the distance, Will could see the outline of sparse cottages. To the north, the low smocked windmill was a collection of strange dark shapes. To the south was Bromley Hill, a shallow rise scattered with black trees and a lone farmhouse.
In front of him was a mile of flat commons, with nowhere to hide until the river.
He burst out into the open with the dogs streaming behind him, their baying a terrible, hungry sound. Bred to rend flesh and bring down large prey, the hunting dogs snapped and snarled towards the vulnerable legs of his horse. And even on the muffling grass, Will could hear the threefold thundering of the Remnants, shaking the ground.
They were gaining. His horse was not a hotblood built for sprints across a flat. But its great heart gave its all, driving its heavier body on. ‘Run!’ he called out to it. ‘Run!’ His words were snatched away by the wind, but he felt his horse respond and gather itself beneath him, felt its stride stretch out longer.
Run, as your ancestors ran. Do not fear the darkness.
Trust the horse.
They raced across the flat, barely two strides ahead. He didn’t even hear the water before it was suddenly looming in front of him, a rushing black channel, as far across as a wide street, cut into a dark grassy bank with an unknown drop. Cross the Lea, Justice had said.
His horse launched chest first into the river. Will felt the bottom drop out from under him and the shock of freezing water as the horse swam with head extended, hindquarters lower than its churning shoulders. He clutched two handfuls of mane, clinging to the horse’s slippery neck and back.
He looked back, a single glance, and saw the shearing spray of water as the Remnant in the shoulder piece galloped powerfully into the river. In front of it, like a stream of rats, the dogs were swimming, clambering over each other to reach him. ‘Up!’ Will called. ‘Up!’ His own horse heaved itself up onto the opposite bank, its haunches bunching as it propelled itself for the final leap up the bank slope.