Seven of them, all Irish, some of their accents a little muddied due to all the travelling and the living they’d done. There was Saracen Rue, all easy charm and easy smiles, like a man trying to convince himself he’s nicer than he is. Beside him rode Dexter Vex, one of the more thoughtful of the group, though he wasn’t one to show it. The quiet one with the week’s worth of stubble was Anton Shudder, and a scarier man was hard to find, even in this forsaken land. There was Erskine Ravel, recently returned from his sojourn to lands even more foreign and forsaken than this one, and Hopeless, a man of one name and many faces.

Riding in the lead was the scarred man, Ghastly Bespoke, and beside him the living skeleton, the one who looked like the Grim Reaper himself, the first of the Four Horsemen written about in the Bible and shouted about from pulpits up and down this wounded and pockmarked country.

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

Skulduggery Pleasant’s clothes were scuffed and faded, and his coat was long and may have been black once upon a time. Among normal folk, what these men called ‘mortals’, he’d take that kerchief from around his neck there and tie it over all those teeth that were fixed in that permanent grin, and he’d pull that hat down low over those empty eye sockets. He had two pistol belts, criss-crossing low and held in place with tie-downs, and in those holsters he had guns with pearl handles and long barrels. Colt Walkers, they were. Guns built for stopping men.

They’d been riding for days and their horses were tired and thirsty, and the riders with flesh were chafed and sore. They came upon the town of Forbidden, and didn’t think much of it. A town of three streets and dirty people who bathed not often or well. There was a mangy dog lying in the middle of the street, who looked at them with mild indifference as they passed. When they were safely gone, the dog offered up a feeble growl, then lay back down and went to sleep or died. Didn’t make much difference to anyone which one it was.

They found the livery down the other end of town and the owner, an ungrateful piece of work called Sully, limped out into the sun, scratching himself in places soap hadn’t touched in a long, long time.

“Yeah?” he said with a mouth full of spit. “What the hell d’you want?”