The 13th Horseman

by Barry Hutchison

  A jagged streak of electricity tore down at them from above, striking the weapons at the same time. They both watched helplessly, as the sword and the scythe were ripped from their hands, and sent tumbling down through the clouds.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” Mr Franks roared. “Now how am I supposed to kill you? The fall? I doubt that’ll be enough.”

  He looked up. A deranged grin spread across his face, and a metal hand caught hold of Drake. Rockets flared on the battle armour’s feet, and they began to climb, straight up at eye-watering speed.

  “It’s been fun, hasn’t it?” the teacher hollered. “You and me. All of this. It’s been fun. But now I need you out of the way. The sword could’ve killed you, but now I’ve lost that, so you’ve forced me to improvise.”

  A clear Perspex visor snapped down over Mr Franks’ head. “I still need to breathe,” he explained. “Until I eat your girlfriend’s soul, at least. But you? You’re a horseman. Breathing’s optional.”

  Drake had no idea what the madman was on about. “So?”

  “Look up.”

  They had been climbing at an incredible rate. Drake raised his eyes and saw that the blue sky had become a haze of colours. It looked as if the fabric of the heavens had been stretched out, pulled so thin that he could see the stars shining through it.

  “I’m ending the world,” Mr Franks cackled, as he saw the moment of realisation spread like a rash across Drake’s face. “But, lucky for you, you’re not going to be on it.”

  Drake grabbed at the battle armour. A shock jolted through him, but he kept clawing, kept trying to find a way of pulling the helmet open, of tearing the exo-skeleton apart.

  A glug of red coolant slicked his fingers and he lost what little grip he had on the armour. He heard Mr Franks laugh, even over the whistling of the wind, but his attention was fixed on the blood-like liquid.

  He thought back to the cave of the Deathblade Guardian, and to the cupboard in Dr Black’s room. Air conditioning. Climate control. The engine coolant dribbled from his fingertips, and everything clicked into place.

  They began to rise through a bank of cloud, which had appeared as if from nowhere. A horse-shaped section of the vapour suddenly became solid beneath Drake, and their impossibly quick ascent stopped impossibly quickly.

  Drake took a moment to look around. He could see the curvature of the Earth stretching out far, far below. He could see the colours of the upper atmosphere, swirling like the surface of a giant bubble. He could see the stars, above and around them, and he could hear... nothing at all. Mr Franks was speaking – shouting – but Drake could not hear a sound.

  There was no air, but neither Drake nor his horse required it. Drake looked down at the world spread out below him. It would not end today.

  Ignoring the shock of pain, he took hold of Mr Franks’ metal frame. He didn’t even need to think the next command. The horse moved all by itself.

  Down they went, plunging through the atmosphere, faster even than they had climbed. The silence ended with a sudden boom, and the sounds of hooves and wind and screaming filled Drake’s ears.

  The metal of the battle armour went orange, then red, then white as the heat generated by their re-entry into the atmosphere began burning the suit up. Heat. That was the key. That was the weakness.

  “Stop!” Mr Franks pleaded. But Drake did not stop. He rode, not across the sky, but straight down, ushering in one very specific, localised Apocalypse.

  The heat was intense. Drake could feel it scorching against his skin, but it didn’t burn him, couldn’t burn him.

  “Give me her soul back,” Drake snarled. “Let her go.”

  Mr Franks tried to swing with a wild punch, but the heat was making the armour seize up. His fist creaked to a stop several centimetres from its target.

  “Let her go, or you die!”

  Mr Franks’s eyes were wide with terror, but he was hanging on to his defiance. “You won’t do it. You’re not a murderer.”

  “No,” Drake agreed. “Murderers can be stopped. Death can’t. Not by burning, not by falling, not by you! “

  “You won’t do it!”

  “Yes,” said Drake. “I will.” He released his grip. A look of puzzled terror crossed Mr Franks’s face and he suddenly found himself freefalling.

  Down, Drake thought, and the horse raced after the plummeting teacher, keeping pace, but making no attempt to intercept him. Drake listened to Mr Franks’s screams all the way down to the ground.

  The madman closed his eyes and prepared himself for the end as the tarmac rushed up to meet him. But he did not hit it. At least, not right away. A firm hand caught him by a robotic ankle, stopping his skull splattering like an egg on the concrete.

  “Well, well, well, look who dropped in,” War growled. He opened his hand and the armour, with Mr Franks inside, clattered down on to the ground.

  Mr Franks looked up to see War, Famine and Pestilence glaring down. War’s sword was back in the giant’s hand, the tip of the blade held just centimetres from the teacher’s face.

  “Oh God,” Mr Franks groaned. “Not you three.”

  “Lovely to see you too,” Pest said. “We really mustn’t do this again some time.”

  There was a moment of ominous silence, when even the blaring of the police sirens died away, and Drake’s horse touched down beside them. The other three horsemen stepped aside as Drake strode over, pausing only to pick up the fallen scythe. Even without the Robe of Sorrows, he looked every inch the embodiment of Death.

  “Give me back her soul,” he commanded, in a voice like the tolling of a funeral bell.

  “You want it?” Mr Franks coughed. “You’re going to have to kill me to get it.”

  Without a word, Drake raised the scythe and angled the point towards the teacher’s head. “That’s it, boy,” Mr Franks hissed. “What are you waiting for? Do it. Kill me. Become the Death you are.”

  Drake shifted his grip on the handle. He chose a spot in the centre of Mr Franks’s chest.

  “Come on, what are you waiting for? Do it,” Mr Franks snarled, and Drake saw the teacher’s teeth were coated in blood. “Finish me; do it!”

  Without a word, Drake brought the Deathblade down sharply. There was a sound of tearing metal and Mr Franks screamed briefly before he realised he was still very much in one piece.

  The armour fell in two, like a peanut shell splitting open. From within the cables and circuitry, a blue glow began to flicker. Drake alone watched as the glow rose into the air, forming a pulsating egg shape. And then, it was gone.

  Over by the side of the road, Mel made a sound between a sneeze and a scream. Then she sat bolt upright, her eyes wide. “Wow,” she muttered. “That was... interesting.”

  “She’s alive!” Pest cried. “You did it!”

  “That’s one problem solved,” Famine said. He gave the teacher a kick. “What are we going to do with him?”

  “Yeah, what are you going to do with me?” Mr Franks demanded.

  “Leave him there,” War shrugged. He studied the blade of his sword for a moment, shook his head, then slipped it into the sheath across his back.

  “You can’t leave me here!” Mr Franks looked pointedly to his arms and legs, which were still trapped within the twisted wreckage of the armour. “I can’t move.”

  “Good, then you can explain everything to the police,” Pest said.

  “The police?” Mr Franks spluttered. “But... but that’s for humans.”

  “Yes, but you are human now, aren’t you?” Pestilence said. “Your choice, no one else’s. I’d imagine the police will want to ask you a lot of questions about giant robots and the like.”

  “And then, I’d imagine, they’ll lock you up,” Famine added. “With other humans. Violent ones.”

  “You can’t leave me,” Mr Franks cried. “What about all those times we had? We were a team. Right?”

  “I can see your lips moving,” Drake said. “But all I can hear is this noise.
Like the quacking of ducks. Quack-quack-quack.”

  Sirens screamed just a few streets away. War looked over to the horses gathered together near Famine’s mobility scooter.

  “We’d better get a shifty on,” he said. “Don’t want to be here when the Bobbies arrive.”

  Drake crossed to Mel. She put her arms round him and they hugged until the sounds of the sirens were too close for comfort. “We’d better go,” he said. “Are we... OK?”

  Mel looked up at the ice sculpture of a horse behind her. She looked back at Drake. “We’re OK,” she said, and then she kissed him for the third time that day. Not that he was counting.

  They climbed on to the horse. War was already sitting on his, while Famine waddled across to his scooter. Only Pestilence remained behind.

  “You coming?” Drake asked.

  “Yeah, just a second,” Pest told them. He looked down at Mr Franks, pinned beneath the weight of the robotic battle suit. “Quick question,” Pestilence said brightly. “I was just wondering, with you being so clever and everything...”

  He raised his gloveless hands and brought them closer to the teacher’s face. “Have you ever heard of Guinea Worm Disease?”

  Drake felt Mel’s arms go round him. He placed his hands over hers, just as War took hold of his own horse’s reins.

  “Ready?” the bearded giant asked.

  “Ready,” said Drake. “Oh, but, I was thinking...”

  War glared at him expectantly. “First time for everything, I suppose.”

  “Next week sometime, once everything’s settled down, if you fancy – and if we don’t, you know, get cast into Hell for not doing our jobs properly – I thought that maybe we could, I dunno, go fishing?”

  War looked off into the distance, as if suddenly able to see some previously unnoticed future spread out there, just beyond the horizon. “Aye,” he said, at last. “Why not?”

  Then he dug in his heels, flicked the reins, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rode across the sky and made their way home.

  HE LEAVES THE plains of the afterlives behind and arrives like a dark, creeping fog in a neatly cropped circle of grass. It is midnight, the dead of night. This is not unusual. To him, it is always midnight.

  A square construction stands before him. Although he has never seen this place before, he has felt it, sensed it, many times over.

  The shed. At last, he has reached the shed. He has reached the moment of his destiny.

  Like a drop of black oil he oozes across the grass, past the flowerpots and up to the entrance. His shape shifts, his living cloak wraps round his solidifying form, and a hand that is no more than bleached bone raps three times on the wooden door.

  There is a sound from inside. A clatter and then a thud. A thin man appears, his body dressed in white, his hands clad in a thin second skin.

  “Hello?” the man asks, surprised, but not shocked by his skeletal appearance. “What can I do you for?”

  The words hiss out of their own accord. Words he has waited to speak since being brought into existence. Words he was created to speak.

  I aaaammm Deeeeeaaathhh...

  The thin-faced man looks him up and down. “Oh,” he says. “So you’re supposed to be... And he’s not...” The thin-faced man looks him up and down for a second time. “Oh. Well, this is awkward.”

  There is another voice, loud and booming, from within the shed. “Hurry up, it’s your turn. Who is it?” the voice demands.

  “It’s, um, a big skeleton thing,” the thin-faced man says, “says he’s Death.”

  From inside the shed, there is silence, and then a muttering, and then, more clearly. “Tell him we’ve got one.”

  The thin-faced man turns back to him and smiles apologetically. “Sorry,” he says, “we’ve already got one.”

  And then, quietly but firmly, he closes the door.

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2012

  HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk

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  Text copyright © Barry Hutchison 2012

  The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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  ISBN: 978-0-00-744089-4

  EPub Edition © MARCH 2012 ISBN: 9780007440900

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