Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World Book 1)

by Rebecca Roanhorse

  Chapter 37

  Kai collapses. Hits the ground with an ugly thud.

  Clive scrambles forward and lunges for me with a tortured cry, a hunting knife in his hand that I hadn’t noticed. I pedal backward and he misses me by miles. And then Neizghání is there, bringing down the pommel of his sword on Clive’s already injured head. The redhead goes limp, sprawled out next to Kai’s body.

  Silence. Silence surrounds us. The earth shudders. Thunder booms somewhere in the distance.

  Hastiin and the rest stare. I don’t know how much they heard. How much they understand.

  And then Neizghání is laughing. Loud, joyous, a sound to rouse the sun god’s soul.

  “You always surprise me,” he muses, pushing at Kai’s body with the toe of his moccasin. “I forget how strong your taste for bloodshed is. But it is better he is dead. The things the Cat told me of his power foretold chaos.”

  “Yeah, well . . . ,” I say, trying to sound like my heart’s not crushed, like I’m not about to puke my guts out seeing Kai lying in the dirt with a hole in his heart, his blood seeping from his body, just like in my nightmares.

  I can’t stay there. I need to move. I take off walking, no idea where. Just . . . away. Neizghání follows. Touches my arm when I finally stop. Déjà vu hits me like a fucking hammer. We are at Black Mesa all over again. The one from before, with other bodies at my feet. Other men’s blood on my hands.

  “Do you wonder why I kissed you, Chíníbaá?” he asks. “In the fighting arena. You haven’t even asked.”

  I turn. He’s too close. His eyes hold all the secrets in the world. His lips are almost on mine. I swallow the sudden flood of moisture in my mouth, fight the lightness in my head. My hands are shaking. From desire or terror, I’m not sure.

  “I—I . . . ,” I stutter uselessly. He smells like lightning, heat and ozone. Power. I cling to the memory of Kai. Of cool mountain waters and a healing calm. But it’s tainted now. A crack wide enough to let Neizghání in.

  His voice is a fierce whisper. “It is because in that moment, you were magnificent and I saw you. I saw you. I will not forget it. Chíníbaá. The girl who comes forth fighting.” He cups my cheek in his hand, his palm hot against my skin.

  I remember the kiss from the arena. The brutal crush of his lips against mine, the sharp coppery taste of blood, the hot metallic iron. “You tasted of death,” I whisper.

  He grins, savage and achingly beautiful. “As did you, Chíníbaá. It is what we share, this taste of death. I will not question it again.” He touches the place below my heart, where he branded me. “You are mine.”

  He takes a step back and holds out a hand to me.

  And I realize it’s not too late. I could take his hand and join him again in the slaughter. Forget Kai. Forget my crazy plan. I could tuck myself safely under Neizghání’s wing again and remain his favored pupil. Feel his mouth on mine again. The promise of a future together is still there, tantalizing. The thought is so tempting that it makes me dizzy.

  But there’s something I want more than Neizghání. Even more than Kai.

  I do not take his hand. Instead, I gesture for him to go first.

  When he turns his back to me, I pull the bag that holds the naayéé’ ats’os from my waistband. Rip the drawstrings open and pull the hoops out. They are exactly as I remember them. Neither heavy nor light, feathered and slightly warm to the touch. Seeing them makes my idea seem even more insane, but it’s the only chance I have. I stretch the rainbow-flecked one big enough so that it will fit.

  Neizghání still has his back to me. I move before I can change my mind. Reach up and slide the hoop up and over his head. It circles around his neck. I watch in fascination as it tightens, quick as a dare, around his throat.

  I step back, Glock ready. Watch, finger on the trigger. I know even at close range my gun won’t kill him, but it may slow him down. Which is ridiculous. Even if I can slow him down, it will only delay my own death, because surely he will kill me for this treachery. No, this has to work. Or else.

  He stumbles forward and then turns toward me, his sword clattering to the ground as he reaches to paw at the hoop tightening around his throat. His feet slide out from under him, and he has to catch himself with one hand to keep from falling. He frowns, his eyebrows drawing up in confusion.

  I quickly move around him in a wide circle, placing the rings in their cardinal places. East, north, west, and south. A shudder rocks his body as I place the last ring, and he falls to his knees like he is being pulled down by invisible ropes. He tries to grab me, his fingers flexing spastically, but I easily move out of his reach. His head droops, like he can’t lift it anymore.

  “What is this?” He splutters and coughs as his long raven hair falls around him.

  “I’m sorry . . .” I can barely make the words come out.

  “What have you done to me?”

  He hangs there helplessly as I drag his lightning sword out of reach. The blade is as light as freedom and as heavy as grief, but my palm wraps around the hilt like it was meant for me. I holster my gun in favor of the sword, in case Kai was wrong and I have to take his head.

  “Chíníbaá,” he stammers. His onyx eyes dart to the sword and then back to me. “Are you betraying me?” His voice is incredulous. “But you killed him for me. What are you doing?”

  “I’m not sure,” I whisper, “but you were right. When I kissed you, all I tasted was death. And I think I want more than that, Neizghání. I think I want life, too. And love. A love that doesn’t try to kill me.”

  His thick brows furrow, like I’m not making sense, and maybe I’m not. “You cannot bind me like this forever. I will be free, and then you will have to answer for what you have done.” He’s starting to thrash. Pulling harder against the power that restrains but with even less success as the naayéé’ ats’os steal away his strength. “Remember all that I have done for you,” he hisses at me, his tone turning cruel in desperation. “I made you what you are.”

  “I know. For better or worse, I know.” And Ma’ii’s words come to me. “But there’s a little girl I need to save.”

  “What girl?” he spits. “You are choosing a five-fingered girl over me?”

  I touch the brand, remembering that girl on the ridge above Fort Defiance who lost her nalí, and who has been lost ever since. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  His screams crash over me, like the last efforts of a dying hurricane, as he sinks into the ground. I watch as the earth parts around him and welcomes him below. To his ankles, then his knees. His chest, earth flowing around him like quicksand.

  I turn away. I can’t watch anymore.

  I wait until the only sound is the wind, blowing low across the mesa. I remind myself it’s better this way, but right now it doesn’t feel better. It only hurts.

  The click of a gun safety being disengaged gets my attention. I turn.

  Rissa is there, her AR-15 pointed at me. “You should go,” she says, voice as hollow as a drum.

  “What?”

  Her face is grim, fatigues bloody and torn, and her eyes are rimmed in red. She cuts her eyes sideways, toward her brother’s unconscious body, toward Kai. “You’re not welcome here anymore, Monsterslayer.”

  I stare, incredulous. “But I stopped him. He was going to kill you all.”

  “I don’t know what Neizghání was going to do. I only know what you did.”

  “What I did? I—” And then it comes together. She thinks I shot Kai in cold blood. I can feel the rage, the disgust rising from her body.

  Honágháahnii surfaces, filling my veins with quick fire. K’aahanáanii croons Rissa’s deathsong. But I don’t want to kill Grace’s daughter. She just doesn’t understand.

  “Kai saved your life,” Rissa says, her voice hard with loathing. “I was there when they brought you back from the fighting arena. I saw what he did. What he sacrificed. And that was a fucked-up way to repay him.”

  “But I didn’t—” I swallow do
wn my indignation, my frustration, and remind myself that this is temporary. That I have to believe that Kai will wake up, and when he does, he’ll find me. And Rissa is going to owe me a hell of an apology.

  “Go!” she shouts, hands trembling on the trigger. Sweat runs down her face. I know she must sense K’aahanáanii, even if she doesn’t know exactly what it is. “I’m letting you go, for everything you’ve done for us. But if I see you again, you die.”

  “As if you could kill me.” The words are out of my mouth before I can think better of it.

  Her nod is bleak. “You’re right. Maybe I can’t. But I guess we’ll find out.”

  I spot Hastiin in the distance, watching. But he doesn’t offer to help. He thinks I did it too.

  I swing Neizghání’s lightning sword over my shoulder and walk to the truck. Rissa doesn’t stop me. Just follows at shooting distance. My clan powers whisper of ways to kill her, but I force them down. Slide into the driver’s seat. Secure the sword in the gun rack.

  Rissa stands outside. I can feel her eyes on me, watching as I close the door. Turn the key in the ignition. “Just don’t put him in the ground, okay?” I tell her. “You don’t understand everything you think you do. Just give him a chance.”

  She doesn’t acknowledge that she heard me, but I know she did.

  One last look back to where Neizghání stood. Nothing to mark the spot as special. The wind picks up and blows the dirt around.

  I go.

  Chapter 38

  Four days have passed.

  Sunset on the fifth day draws down in brilliant shades of red and orange and vermillion as I sit on a cliff edge overlooking my trailer. The air’s cool up here in the aspen grove, and I’m hidden well from anyone looking up in this direction. After I left Black Mesa, I wandered for a while. Up in the mountains, living off the little bit of food and water I’d carried in with me. Thirst finally drove me down to the Crystal Valley, but I’ve been up on this ledge for hours and I still haven’t gone down the hill and back to my trailer.

  One look and I could tell someone had been there since I left it last. Earlier, I thought I caught the glint of sunshine off a pearl button, a gnarled brown hand pulling back the curtains. But if I’m wrong and it’s not Tah there in my trailer, I think my grief will drown me whole. And if I’m right, well, how do I tell him about Kai? So I stay put, up on the ridge. Out of sight.

  My dogs are well. The littlest one, the sole survivor from her litter, sits curled against my legs now. The others are scattered. Out hunting or patrolling or doing what rez dogs do. But this one sticks close to me.

  I adjust the lightning blade across my back. I miss my shotgun, but I can’t wear both at the same time, and I’m partial to a weapon that can call down fire from the sky. I have a feeling I might need supernatural help soon. My list of dead is long, but my list of enemies is longer. I have no doubt Neizghání will escape his prison on Black Mesa and come for me someday. This time I know that reunion must end in one of us dead. I expect the Law Dogs may discover the truth about Longarm’s end sooner than later, that death finally catching up with me. Or maybe it’ll be Rissa, good to her word.

  The wind picks up again, battering the branches around me. Clouds rolling in too, heavy with rain and seeming to get heavier every hour. They’re a deep gray, almost black, and streaked through with bolts of silver, like a certain medicine man’s eyes. No doubt they promise a deluge once they break.

  Something catches my eye down below. I watch my front door open. An old man steps out, a mug in his hand. I can see the white steam rising from the cup, almost smell the rich earthy aroma from here. My stomach rumbles unreasonably.

  Tah looks directly at me.

  I mutter a curse. Not a very strong one. Of course the old man can see me.

  I make my way down the hill, my mutt trailing behind me. Night is settling in and I can hear the forest coming alive. The slow droning of insects, the shuffle of badgers in the thickets, the call of night birds. For the first time in days, I feel some of the heartache of Black Mesa lift from my shoulders.

  Tah hands me the cup and I take it. Sip the dark bitter coffee, let it scald my mouth. Smile.

  “Come on home, shí daughter,” he says to me, holding my front door open. “We’ll wait for him together.”

  I don’t ask how he knows or if he hates me for what I did. I just take the kindness he offers. And wait for that storm, the likes that Dinétah has never seen, to break my way.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to the women of Write Club who let me join their writing girl gang. I was a true newbie, and you welcomed me anyway. To Hillary Fields, who asked me to consider a third way; Pam Watts, who said it was okay to be subtle; and Randi Ya’el Chaikind, who always showed up.

  Thanks to everyone who GoFunded me to VONA/Voices in 2015, especially Tami Riddle, who bought the damn plane ticket.

  To my fierce beta readers: Kaia Alderson, Tiera Greene, Mari Kurisato, and Leslye Penelope. Because of you, readers won’t have to visit the Sad Island, and they get that kiss, after all.

  Thanks to my husband, Michael Roanhorse, who sacrificed time, art, and sometimes his man-card to support me. To my daughter, who complained every time Mommy had to go write, but also drew pictures of Maggie slaying the monsters for my office wall.

  Thanks to Pernell Begay for correcting my Navajo spelling and making sure I stayed in my lane. Any and all mistakes/offenses are purely mine.

  Thanks to Daniel José Older, who sent me my first rejection, but then made up for it x100. You didn’t have to answer all my annoying new writer emails, but you graciously did. After you told me, very nicely, to “chill.”

  Thank you to my editor, Joe Monti, my coconspirator and friend. You believed in me and in Maggie and I will always be more grateful than words can express. And know that you will never get lost on the rez again because you and your family will always be welcome in our home.

  Thank you to my superagent, Sara Megibow, for having my back and helping me plan world domination. We’ve got a way to go, but we’re well-stocked with the fancy wine and I believe in us!

  Thank you, Tommy Arnold, for that seriously badass cover art.

  Thank you to the great people at Saga Press who worked to get this book out in the world. It takes a village, or an incredible publishing team.

  And thank you, everyone that is part of the weird and wonderful world of Book Twitter, for your enthusiasm, support, and community. I am honored.

  Ku’daa, ahxéhee’, thank you.

  Maggie Hoskie returns in

  STORM OF LOCUSTS

  The Sixth World: Book Two

  Read on for an excerpt.…

  Four men with guns stand in my yard.

  It’s just past seven in the morning, and in other places in Dinétah, in other people’s yards, men and women are breaking their fast with their families. Husbands grumble half-heartedly about the heat already starting to drag down the December morning. Mothers remind children of the newest tribal council winter water rations before sending them out to feed the sheep. Relatives make plans to get together over the coming Keshmish holiday.

  But these four men aren’t here to complain about the weather or to make holiday plans. They certainly aren’t here for the pleasure of my company. They’ve come because they want me to kill something.

  Only it’s my day off, so this better be good.

  “Hastiin,” I greet the man on my front steps. He’s all weathered skin and hard, lean muscle in blue fatigues, skull bandanna hanging loose around his corded neck, black hair shorn skull short. He’s also wearing a small arsenal. An M16 over one shoulder, a monster of a Desert Eagle at his hip, another pistol in a clip holster in his waistband. And I know he’s got a knife tucked in his heavy-soled boot, the left one, and another strapped to his thigh. He didn’t used to do that, dress for a worst-case scenario. But things have changed. For both of us.

  “Hoskie.” Hastiin drawls my last name out. Never my first name
, Maggie, always just the last, like we’re army buddies or something. Likely his way of trying to forget he’s talking to a girl, but that’s his problem, not mine. He shifts in his big black boots, his gear jingling like tiny war bells. His fingers flex into fists.

  I lean against my front door and cross my arms, patient as the desert. Stare at him until he stops fidgeting like a goddamn prom date. I’ve learned a lot about Hastiin in the last few weeks, and I know the man shakes like an aspen in the wind when he’s got something on his mind. Some remnant of breathing in too much nerve gas on the front lines of the Energy Wars way back when. Which doesn’t bode well for me. I can see my day off slipping away with the edges of the dawn. But I won’t let him have my time that easy. He’s going to have to work for it.

  “You lost?” I ask him.

  He chuckles low. Not like I’m funny. More like I’m irritating. “You know I’m not lost.”

  “Then I’m not sure why you’re here. Thought we’d agreed this was going to be my day off. I promised Tah that I’d . . .” I frown, scanning my yard. “Where’re my dogs?”

  Hastiin’s mouth cracks slightly in what passes as a grin and he jerks his chin toward one of his men farther back near the gate. Young guy in fatigues, a fresh-scrubbed face that I don’t recognize, hair tied back in a tsiiyééł. He’s kneeling down, rubbing the belly of a very content mutt.

  “Traitor,” I mutter, but my dog doesn’t hear. Or doesn’t care. All three of my mutts don’t seem to register Hastiin and his Thirsty Boys as a threat anymore. If we keep this business arrangement going, I’m going to have to work on that. I turn back to Hastiin. “So what’s this all about?”

  He squints dark eyes. “Got a bounty come in. Something big and bad over near Lake Asááyi.”

  Most of the lakes around here had dried up. Red Lake, Wheatfields. But Asááyi had stuck around, fed by an underground aquifer that even this record drought couldn’t kill. It seems doubtful that whoever or whatever Hastiin was hunting over by the lake couldn’t be done without me. Which means—