War (The Four Horsemen Book 2)

by Laura Thalassa

  My knees go weak with my fear. I was an idiot to ever not fear this man.

  War’s hands move to my hair, his blood smearing against my cheeks, my ears, my scalp.

  “This is where you surrender, wife,” he says, his voice hushed. “Surrender to me truly, just as you vowed you would.”

  There are so many things War can take from me, but my word isn’t one of them.

  “I surrender to no one,” I say. “And if you once believed otherwise, you are a fool.”

  The horseman’s gaze narrows. He laughs then, that deep, chilling sound raising the hairs along my arm.

  He cups my jaw. “The earth is full of so many bones,” he whispers.

  I don’t know what to make of those words, only that I should be frightened by them.

  War releases my jaw. I can feel my skin smeared with his blood.

  His hand moves to the hollow at the base of my throat. He traces my scar, the shape now smeared with his blood. “This is the Angelic symbol for surrender.”

  Where is he going with this?

  His raging eyes rise to mine. “I am not the only one who can resurrect the dead,” War says. “You were brought back to life and marked just as I have been,” he says.

  The water rushes in—

  I had thought I died that day. A chill sweeps down my spine.

  My eyes drop to War’s tattoos, and now that I look for it, the shape of them is eerily like my scar. I never noticed the similarities. Not until now.

  War runs a hand over his glowing tattoos. “This is my purpose, written on my flesh.” He nods to my scar. “That, is yours.”

  I shake my head.

  “Deny your vow all you want, but it won’t change the truth: you were made to surrender to me.”

  Chapter 45

  War leaves shortly after his final words.

  In his place are zombies, lots and lots of zombies. I can sense them outside the tent, but it’s the ones who are inside—the ones War sent in—that capture more of my attention.

  Most of these ones are a bit more decayed than usual, and their ripeness has me covering my mouth.

  I’m sure the horseman picked these corpses on purpose.

  Proof that War can be just as petty as the rest of us.

  The long hours of the night tick by, and I have nothing to fill them with. Sleep eludes me, and my toolmaking kit and arrows were confiscated with the rest of War’s weaponry, leaving me nothing to do with my hands. There’s still that well-worn romance novel …

  The thought of reading it twists my gut. I couldn’t bear to hear about someone else’s great love life when mine is such a mess.

  I almost killed him. There was a moment when I was leaning on War’s sword where I was putting my full weight into the thrust. Only the horseman’s sheer strength prevented that blade from piercing his skin.

  I rub my eyes, feeling a thousand years old.

  Violence doesn’t fix violence. I know that, and I knew it before I devised my plan. Yet nothing else had worked. I had been angry and tired of watching too many innocents die. And in the end, at least War had that same wounded surprise in his eye that so many of these doomed civilians had. If nothing else, my horseman got a taste of his own punishment.

  By midmorning, the sounds of camp are in full swing. People are laughing, bickering, shaking out dusty clothing, sharpening their blades, or smoking cigarettes and kicking balls around the tents. I’ve already heard the war drums herald in one execution, and breakfast has come and gone. In all that time, War hasn’t returned.

  I’m busy staring at the photo of my family, my thumb rubbing over my father’s face when the zombies around me straighten. Then, as one, they approach me.

  They close in until it’s clear they’re going to grab me.

  “If you want me to follow you,” I say quickly, setting the photo aside, “I will. Just please don’t touch me.”

  The guards stop just short of me, flanking me on all sides. Then, as one, they begin walking towards the door of the tent, and I’m swept along with them. Together, the group of us leave War’s quarters and head towards the center of camp.

  Somewhere in the distance, the war drums start up again, the sound making my skin prickle. The farther we walk, the louder they get, until it’s clear the drums are pounding for me.

  There are hundreds—maybe thousands—of people who have swarmed around the clearing. They watch the group of us pass with a mixture of curiosity and horror. We cut through the crowd, the people around us giving us plenty of room to walk.

  As the morning sun beats down on the clearing and the smell of spilled alcohol and vomit rises up from the earth, this feels like a dream that was left out to rot.

  Amongst it all, War sits on his throne. His phobos riders spread out around him, most looking stoic, but a few of them appearing pleased. Only Hussain, the one rider who’s been kind to me, appears at all concerned.

  I’m brought before War, my guards finally stopping at the foot of his raised dais. I haven’t been bound or manhandled, but it is clear enough that I’m a prisoner.

  The drums are still going, pounding faster and faster, and it’s working the crowd into a frenzy.

  Something bad is about to happen.

  I gaze up at War, and he looks so remote. The horseman gives me a disparaging look, and I feel like I’m just another woman who’s satisfied him for a time. But now I’m a toy that’s more work than it’s worth.

  All at once the drums cut out, and the crowd goes quiet. A breeze blows, stirring my hair in the silence.

  “Devedene ugire denga hamdi mosego meve,” War begins.

  You have discovered my one weakness before I have.

  Around me, the crowd listens raptly, as though they understand even an iota of what he’s saying.

  I stare unflinchingly back at him.

  “Denmoguno varenge odi.” His voice is loud as thunder.

  I cannot punish you.

  Judging by my situation, I’m sure War’s figured out something.

  Beneath my feet, the earth begins to quake.

  My heart skips a beat. I know this sensation.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  Around us, people glance about, unsure what’s going on. Some look more frightened than others; I’m sure those spooked individuals are familiar with this sensation as well.

  Besides War, the only ones who don’t look bothered are the phobos riders.

  War stares at me, his gaze deep and dark.

  “Denmoguno varenge odi,” he repeats.

  I cannot punish you. There’s an emphasis on that final word.

  “Eso ono monugune varenge vemdi nivame vimhusve msinya.”

  But I can punish others for your trespasses.

  The first skeletal hand breaks out from the ground.

  Oh God.

  The earth is full of so many bones, he said last night. I hadn’t understood his words then, but now, as I watch the dead claw their way out of their graves, I understand. Anywhere War goes, he has a ready-made army.

  Someone gives a surprised scream. Then there’s another several screams. I turn around just as a ripple goes through the crowd.

  The dead rise, some no more than bones, others desiccated husks, and others still who look freshly dead. It’s not just human carcasses that are dragged from the ground, either. Animals, too, are pulled from the earth, their bones clattering and grinding together as they move.

  People don’t know what to make of it. Not even as those bones begin to approach them.

  The horseman has never done this before, never wholly turned on his own army.

  I glance back at War. His eyes are stormy, his expression resolute. He’s made peace with my punishment.

  My punishment.

  “Stop.”

  “Mevekange vago odi anume vago veki. Odi wevesvooge oyu mossoun yevu.”

  I thought you’d want them dead. You’ve made it your mission.

  He’s right; I had made it my mission t
o pick off his army. But now that he’s turning on them just like he has every other city … I’m reminded of our shared humanity.

  “Stop. Please.”

  But he doesn’t.

  I don’t see the first bit of blood spilled, but I hear the scream. Now a true, blood-curdling cry goes up. It’s not fear I hear, but pain.

  Another scream accompanies it, then another.

  Most of these undead creatures are nothing more than brittle bone and a bit of dried sinew. It should be effortless to pulverize them into dust. And I’m sure some people do just that, but there are so many dead, and they care nothing about self-preservation, only carnage.

  A skeleton bites a man in the throat so hard blood spurts. Another twists a woman’s neck. All around me people fall to the ground dead.

  All the while, War watches the massacre impassively.

  He’s an evil motherfucker.

  I don’t bother begging again. I tried that tactic before, when War wasn’t trying to punish me. I begged right up until the very end.

  I won’t give him the pleasure of my anguish. Not again.

  This is what heartbreak looks like on a horseman, and it is terrifying.

  Now people are scattering, and the dead are giving chase. Some run towards me.

  My guards, who haven’t joined the fray, unsheathe their weapons. The moment someone comes too close, they attack.

  Another wave of screams come from the tents that ring the clearing.

  Zara. Mamoon.

  I feel the blood drain from my face.

  “War—” I was wrong, I’m willing to beg. “War, please, stop this.”

  He ignores me, his eyes focused on the fight.

  I stride towards him, my hands beginning to shake. My friend, her nephew; I couldn’t live with their deaths on my conscience.

  “War!”

  My guards block my way. I try to shove past them, and they grab me, holding me back.

  “Damnit, War, look at me.”

  “No,” the horseman says, not bothering to speak in tongues; the screams drown out most of his words. “Now is when you look, wife. They fall because you dared to try to kill me.”

  I jerk against the zombies’ hold, but they don’t release me. They turn me around and hold me in place as War’s horde is slaughtered.

  I’m forced to watch the entire thing, and this time, it takes much longer for the living to die than in Mansoura. They lay in bloody piles on the ground, and I guess it’s a small blessing that the dead stay dead.

  I thought I had lived and seen it all—the loss of my family, the loss of my home, the loss of so many people. I thought that the pain was some sort of armor; if the worst happens to you, eventually, there will be nothing left to hurt you.

  Maybe that’s true. But this hollowness has its own frightening ache.

  Eventually, the screams die off and the chaos gives way to stillness. Eventually, my guards release my arms, and I take a staggering step forward.

  The zombies fall to the ground in the next instant. Their task completed, they can rest once more.

  My eyes sweep over the clearing, with its piles of bloody, broken bodies. In one sick wave, the entire settlement is gone.

  That hollow ache is still there. It throbs along my skin and sits like a lump in my stomach.

  It’s quiet. So, unnaturally quiet. The canvas tents flap in the breeze, but there are no sounds of life.

  Zara. Mamoon.

  I take a sharp breath, and their deaths hit me like a physical blow. My entire body trembles from adrenaline and terror and guilt.

  I put a hand to my mouth. I won’t cry. Not in front of this beast.

  I can sense War behind me, his vengeance settling around us like ash drifting to ground. How I hate him. How I’ve never hated anything so deeply in my entire life.

  My heart squeezes.

  I’ve never cared for anything so deeply either. If he intended to break my heart as I have his, then between Mansoura’s destruction and this, he’s succeeded.

  Under my feet, the earth begins to shake once more.

  I cast War a wild-eyed gaze. Is it my turn to die now?

  One by one the dead around me rise, animated once more. But whatever brought that spark of life to their eyes, it’s now absent. That woman will never smoke another cigarette and that man will never play cards with his buddies. The people who drank and danced in this very clearing only last night are well and truly gone—either to heaven or hell or someplace else altogether.

  “I’m never going to stop,” War says.

  My gaze moves to him. I’m so remote I feel as if I’m made of stone. “Neither am I.”

  I turn from the horseman when I hear it. Somewhere in the distance comes a child’s cry. Everything in me stills.

  But he killed everyone.

  I wait to hear the sound again, and sure enough, I do, only now, there are several more cries that join in. I don’t want to believe it. This must be another part of my punishment, making his creatures sound like the living.

  The zombies suddenly begin to move, separating enough to make an aisle from the edge of the clearing to the dais.

  Beyond them, I see movement, and now there’s more crying and a few shouts. Several dozen zombies stride forward, looking grisly from their recent deaths. They move down the aisle, coming right up to where my guards and I stand. With them, the human noises get louder.

  I’m holding my breath as they step away from the aisle, slipping into the crowd of dead, leaving behind a line of very confused, very frightened, very living people. At the head of the line is Zara and Mamoon.

  I choke on a sob, nearly falling to my knees.

  Behind me, I hear War rise. Then, the ominous sound of his footfalls. He comes right up to me, and he presses his lips to my ear.

  “For your soft heart.”

  Chapter 46

  “That was stupid of you,” Hussain says.

  The phobos rider finds me later that day sitting amongst a line of empty tents. I’ve already embraced my friend and her nephew and I’ve processed—or at least I’ve tried to process—the horrors of the day.

  Now I’m simply hiding from what’s left of the world.

  And judging from Hussain’s presence, I’ve clearly done a shit job of it.

  Hussain might be the only one of War’s phobos riders I actually get along with, though I haven’t talked to him in a while. Ever since a rider tried to kill me, the horseman has been a little reluctant for his men to get close. Now, apparently, that’s no longer the case.

  “So many others have already tried to kill him,” Hussain says, sitting down next to me. My undead guards don’t attempt to stop him from getting close. “You must’ve known it wouldn’t work,” he adds.

  I don’t bother asking him how he knows I tried to stab the horseman. My best guess is that War let his men in on his plan. They, after all, stood passively by as the dead killed their comrades. Only the children and the morally pure were spared from death today—oh, and Zara. She’s no innocent, but she was my friend, which apparently saved her in the end.

  “I wasn’t trying to kill him,” I say to Hussain.

  At least, not permanently. Even I know that’s an impossibility. I just wanted the massacring to stop. Coaxing him hadn’t worked. I thought violence might get through to him; it was a language War understood.

  “Then it was an even stupider idea,” Hussain says.

  “Did you come here to make me feel bad?” I snap. “Because I already do.”

  The truth is, I don’t know what exactly I feel. I was cutting these people down in battle only a week ago; I shouldn’t be sad they’re gone, especially considering that War saved the deserving from his wrath.

  Still feel like shit.

  “There is no stopping him, Miriam,” Hussain says.

  “Pestilence was stopped,” I say.

  “You don’t really know that, though, do you?” he says.

  Yes, I want to reply, War essentially
told me so himself.

  But maybe the horseman lied. Maybe Pestilence simply finished his mission before he killed off everyone. How am I supposed to know what each horseman’s divine plan is?

  “So what’s your solution?” I say. “Continue fighting until the world ends?”

  Hussain gives me a look. “My world already has ended. My wife and children are gone, my friends were slain before my eyes. There is no world for me to go back to.”

  I glance over at him then, my brows furrowing. I hadn’t thought of the phobos riders as victims. Not when they are so good at killing.

  “Why do you fight for War if he’s done so much to hurt you?” I ask.

  Hussain gives me a long look, then squints at the sky. “The only part of War that is human is his memory of every battle that has ever been waged. Has he ever told you about those memories?”

  I frown at him.

  “War’s seen us kill tens of millions of people over the centuries, and many of those deaths have been unnecessarily cruel.” Hussain exhales, the sound full of weariness. “He’s just projecting back on us our very worst nature.”

  I give Hussain a skeptical look. “And that convinced you to fight for him?” Because what I got out of that was that humans need to do a better job of being kind. Not go on being savages until we’ve destroyed ourselves completely.

  “That convinced me that there is something inherently wrong with us,” he says.

  I stare out at the empty tents. Some of them are sprayed with blood.

  “So you believe we deserve this?” I ask.

  Hussain kicks a rock with his boot. “Maybe.”

  He gets up and begins to walk away, but then he stops, half turning back to me. “What you did also took a lot of courage, you know.”

  I release a shuddering breath. That one statement, that brief spark of approval, makes my heart hurt and gives me life all at once. We are all part of humanity. We all want to live. We should protect each other, and I tried. I failed, but at least I tried.

  “I can’t stand idly by while he continues to kill,” I say, my voice breaking.

  The phobos rider turns more fully to face me. “Husband and wife pitted against one another—now that’s the true war.” He backs away. “I’m interested to see who will win.”