War (The Four Horsemen Book 2)

by Laura Thalassa

  I feel like a fool for planning even this. There’s no escaping without War knowing. He’s always watching me, guarding me, and I’ve never managed to escape him.

  Still, I don’t slow.

  I have to try. Regardless of what happens, I have to at least give escape a shot.

  It’s easy to walk right out of camp. The dead no longer guard the tent, and there’s not enough living soldiers to sufficiently guard the perimeter.

  That all changes, however, once I get far enough out. War’s formerly undead army is now stationed out here, far enough from the camp that the smell isn’t overpowering.

  The hairs on my arms rise at the sight of all of them standing motionlessly. I can’t tell which way they’re facing, but it seems like they’re all watching me with those dead eyes.

  A moment later the smell hits me. I place a hand over my nose, gagging a little. Five thousand dead bodies rotting away under the summer sun creates a stench. Even breathing through my mouth, I can still taste the fetid rot of them all, it’s so thick in the air.

  It only gets worse as I close the distance between us. None of the zombies move; no one steps forward to stop me, and none of them turn their heads to watch me pass. And then I’m right up to the line of them. There’s enough space between the dead to walk by without rubbing up against them, but I still wait for someone to grab me. I expect it now after so many encounters with them.

  When none of them do, I exhale.

  That was too easy. The thought fills me with dread.

  Now to find a road, any road. So long as it leads away from here, I’ll be fine.

  It takes what feels like an eternity, but eventually I do come across a road. It’s only then that I chance a glance over my shoulder.

  To my horror, about ten meters behind me, a zombie has left its comrades to follow me.

  That’s when I begin to run.

  Chapter 49

  I don’t think I have much time.

  I’m still not sure what bond the horseman shares with his undead soldiers, but I suspect he can sense the world through them. Maybe their bond is strong enough to wake him from sleep, or maybe a zombie is going back to wake him right now. I don’t know how they warn him, only that it’s inevitable that he will be warned—and sooner rather than later.

  The dead soldier is still following behind me. He hasn’t closed the distance between us, but I’m not losing him either. I push my legs faster and faster.

  I need to find a bike as soon as possible. Then maybe I’d stand a chance of losing the zombie, and thus, War.

  Just the thought of the horseman is crushing.

  It’s all the fault of my soft heart, as he would say. It hates this too. With every step I take, it shouts that I’m a fool to run, a fool to leave. It believes in the best of War, which is why I ignore it.

  Hearts are proven to be idiots.

  I haven’t made it a kilometer down the road before I stop running. I thread my fingers together over my head and take several deep breaths.

  This was a bad idea. All of it—every single decision that led me here. Running, sleeping with War, allowing him to insert himself into my life. All of it.

  I glance over my shoulder.

  The zombie has stopped behind me. He seems to be waiting for me to make my next move.

  Be brave.

  My mantra crashes over me, and for once, I think about it in a whole new way.

  I’ve assumed the entire time I’ve been with the horseman that I have been brave, but I haven’t. I’ve been denying and running from this terrible, heady feeling I get when I’m around him.

  But there is no outrunning him or these feelings.

  I need to face the horseman down—in love or in war. Even if it means the worst.

  No more deeds done in the dark of the night. Whatever comes, I’ll face it head on.

  In the distance I swear I can hear the pounding of hooves. Maybe it’s just my imagination.

  I squint into the darkness, and no—there looks to be a figure on the road.

  There’s only one other person confident enough to venture along these roads at night.

  War and his steed manifest out of the darkness, Deimos’s deep red coat looking almost black right now.

  The horseman pulls up short.

  He looks at me, his eyes wild. “Where are you going?” His face is almost mad with panic.

  Be brave.

  “I was running from you,” I say.

  His face crumbles. It’s an expression I’ve never seen on him before.

  “Do you truly hate me that much?” he asks, his voice lowering with his emotion.

  “I don’t hate you at all, War,” I say, the evening breeze tugging at my hair. “And I should, I really should.”

  He stares down at me from Deimos, looking so tragic. The wind tugs at his own hair, and God, even cast in shadow, he’s magnificent. He could never pass for a mortal, not ever.

  I put a hand over my stomach. For the second time today, the horseman notices the action … and again, it doesn’t register.

  “Did you ever think about what would happen?” I say. “A human and an immortal get together, even though he’s sworn to kill her kind, and she’s determined to defend them? Did you ever think about the ramifications?”

  War hops off his mount, moving slowly, like I might run if he makes any sudden movements. “Whatever it is that’s bothering you, we can fix it—I will fix it.” He takes several steps forward, stopping just short of me. “Hate me, curse me, just please come back to me, Miriam,” he says. His voice breaks. “Please, come back.”

  He’s begging. And I’m trusting the universe to pull through for me because there are too many forces at work that are bigger than me.

  I begin to nod, closing the distance between us.

  That’s all the confirmation War needs to reel me into his arms. He holds me tightly for a long time, like I might slip away with the evening breeze.

  Eventually he pulls away enough to gaze down at me, his eyes intense. “I love you,” he confesses.

  I don’t breathe.

  “I love you, Miriam,” he repeats. “I hadn’t known until last night what this strange happiness I felt around you was. But I do now. Being with you makes me feel as though I have swallowed the sun. Everything is brighter, fuller, better because of you.”

  I have no defense against this. I never have. I can take War’s cruelties, I can take his violence. But his love—it cracks me wide open.

  “I love you,” he continues, “and yet it has been destroying us both.” He shakes his head. “I won’t let that continue to happen. I have wounded you and wronged you, and I will change—I vow I will change.” He grips me tightly.

  I suck in a breath at that.

  War told me once that human oaths were brittle things—bound to break with time. In the same conversation he said that his vows—those were unshakeable. And he was right. I begged and pleaded for him to change, I threatened and betrayed, and I got nearly nowhere with him.

  Until now. Because now his vow is changing. And I don’t know what exactly this one entails, only that I’m stupid enough to be hopeful.

  No, not stupid. Brave. I’m brave enough to be hopeful.

  “Say something,” he says.

  Have faith. That’s what I told War earlier. And that’s all religion ever really was for me. Faith. That things will get better, in this world and the next.

  It’s time for me to remember how to have faith in the universe.

  I open my mouth and the words spill out.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Chapter 50

  It takes several seconds for the words to percolate through War. His brow furrows and then—

  The horseman’s eyes widen, and his grip on me tightens just a fraction.

  “Truly?” he asks, his eyes searching mine.

  Hope this wasn’t a mistake.

  I nod, sucking in my lower lip. “Yeah. You knocked me up real good.”

>   War’s gaze moves down to my stomach. After a moment, he places one of his large hands on my abdomen. “You’re carrying my child.” His fingers flex against my flesh. “My child.”

  I see his throat work, and I’m petrified, utterly petrified.

  War’s gaze moves back to mine, and his eyes shine.

  Is he sad? Is he happy?

  The horseman takes my face into his. “I have never felt this … joy.”

  He lets out a laugh, and his eyes … his violent, scary eyes tear up.

  Oh my God. He’s happy. Obscenely happy. And now, for the first time since I found out I was pregnant, I feel a spark of happiness too. More than a spark. I smile a little shyly at him, and he takes my face.

  “Is this what you were running from?”

  I pause for a moment, then nod.

  He presses his forehead to mine. “You will never have to fear me, wife—nor will our children. I swear it before God Himself.”

  Children? Did he just assume there’d be more?

  War kisses me then, and I get swept away by him. I can feel the horseman’s excitement and his hope in the press of his lips. My heart races. He wants the whole human package—marriage, children, everything. I’m not sure I entirely believed it until now.

  “No more, Miriam,” War says. “No more fighting, no more running, no more distrust between us. I understand. Finally, I do. What I have done to you and what I have refused to do for you.

  “I understand,” he repeats, emphasizing the word. “From this moment on, things will be different, wife. I gave you my vow and I intend to uphold it. You have surrendered—I will as well.”

  A chill slides over me then, which is the absolute wrong response because this is everything I wanted.

  “Just say you’ll be mine. Not just in name, but in all ways. Then it is yours. It is all yours.”

  I search the warlord’s face, sure that I misheard him. But this is no trick. All I have to do is give myself over to him. To be War’s wholly and completely … and things will change.

  It’s hard to trust your heart, but it’s easy to give in to it.

  “I am yours, War,” I say. “Now and forever.”

  After we get back to camp, War pulls me into bed and holds me close, his hand drifting down to my stomach.

  “I have a child.” He’s been saying varying versions of this since he found out. He’s still dumbstruck by it.

  The horseman leans down and places a kiss against my stomach, and I run a hand through his hair.

  His eyes rise to meet mine. “I don’t know what it means to have a pregnant wife,” he admits. “I’m wholly unfamiliar with the process.”

  I guess he would be. There’s not a whole lot of pregnant women involved in wars.

  “I’ve never done this either.” For once, we’ve found something we’re both equally inexperienced at.

  “What do you know of it?” he asks.

  “Not much—other than the fact that women stay pregnant for nine months before giving birth,” I say. “I’ve probably been pregnant for a month or more already,” I add.

  “An entire month.” War digests that, looking fascinated and pleased. “My child has been in you that entire time. No wonder you’ve been so bloodthirsty.”

  Oh God.

  “What else?” the horseman asks, moving the conversation along.

  I rack my brain for the few things I do know about the subject. “My sickness and the food aversions—I think that’s part of pregnancy. They say that some women get physically ill during the first few months of pregnancy.”

  War frowns. “This is supposed to happen?”

  I lift a shoulder. “I mean, I think so.”

  The warlord looks massively displeased by that news, and I realize he’s displeased on my behalf.

  He doesn’t want to see me suffer.

  “How long does it last?” War asks.

  “I don’t know.” This was never a topic I looked into with much interest. I hadn’t assumed it would apply to me anytime soon. “Hopefully not too much longer.” It’s a miserable state to be in.

  I bite my lower lip. “And then there’s childbirth.” I guess I should probably go over that one too.

  Since the horsemen’s Arrival, most advanced medical interventions have become obsolete. There are still doctors, and there are still physical procedures and hospitals and all that knowledge we wrote down in textbooks, but the elaborate technology once used to save wayward pregnancies is mostly gone. Women and babies die during childbirth, just as they have for thousands of years before the modern age.

  “What is it?” War says, sensing my mood change.

  “Giving birth can be dangerous.”

  “How dangerous?” he presses.

  I look him in the eye. “I could die. And your child could die.”

  “Our child,” he amends, his hand still pressing against my belly. For the first time since we began this conversation, he smiles a little. “You forget wife—I can heal all manner of injury. As I said before, you and the baby are safe.”

  Me and the baby.

  I glance at War, and I almost want to laugh at the idea of domestic bliss with this horseman. It seems so preposterous. And yet, he’s clearly way into it. Way into it.

  He kisses me. “All will be well. Trust me on that.”

  The change in War starts small. So small I almost think I’m imagining it. He had promised me—no, vowed to me—that he would surrender. And yet I’m not sure I believed him until the proof starts rolling in.

  Over the next several weeks, as we travel down the Nile, War stops attacking the small, satellite communities that speckle the land. Even more staggering, the horseman chooses to spare those few humans who manage to survive his raids.

  It’s a shock to hear—after all, War takes his undead army into battle with him, and those killing machines leave no one unharmed. I’m having a difficult time believing that there is anyone left to spare.

  But there are in fact survivors, and the proof of it comes the day after we leave Beni Suef.

  War and I travel alone on our steeds, the Nile a short distance from us. The rest of the camp—the dead and all—trail far behind us, just as War has always arranged it.

  As we come up to the city of Maghaghah, an arrow zings past me, so close I feel the air shift. I glance at War, a bewildered look on my face.

  This has never happened before during our travels because people don’t know War is coming.

  Another arrow zings by. Then another and another.

  Or at least, they didn’t used to.

  “Miriam, move!” The horseman sounds like a general, and instinctively, I obey him.

  I pull on my horse’s reins, angling myself away from the line of fire. Another arrow whistles—

  My body jerks as the projectile hits me in the shoulder. I grunt, pain and surprise nearly throwing me off my horse.

  “Miriam!” War shouts. His eyes are locked on the arrow protruding from me.

  I stare at my wound, warm blood pooling from it. The pain is there, but it’s buried under my shock.

  Someone just shot me.

  They knew we were coming and they shot me.

  War steers Deimos in my direction, putting himself between me and the city ahead of us. There are more arrows coming our way. Most fall short or go wide, but several come right at us.

  I have to duck to avoid another one.

  The horsemen gets to my side, his flank exposed to the onslaught. His face is calm, but his violent, violent eyes give him away.

  In one fluid movement, he grabs me by the waist and drags me onto his horse.

  I bite back a cry as the action jostles my shoulder.

  And then I’m on Deimos and we’re retreating, though I’ve never known War to retreat, ever.

  As we ride away, I see a few arrows sticking out of Deimos’s side. The horse doesn’t so much as flinch from the pain, though it must hurt him.

  This is what happens when you let peopl
e live. They pass warnings along to cities that haven’t been attacked, and those cities prepare. And then they fight with every last piece of themselves.

  My heart beats a little faster, and I feel a thrilling sense of accomplishment, despite being on the wrong end of this fight.

  This is because of me and War. Without the trades and the fights and eventually, that vow of his, this never would’ve happened.

  War places his hand under the collar of my shirt, near the wound, trying to heal it.

  “I can’t remove the arrow until we’re safe,” he says apologetically.

  I nod, distracted by the warm drip of blood down my arm.

  I chance a glance over my shoulder. The city is quickly growing small, but in the distance, I notice several riders coming after us.

  “War …”

  “I know.”

  We ride for a minute more before the horseman pulls Deimos up short. We turn, so that we can see the men riding out for us.

  War lets them come close. Not close enough to shoot us, but close enough to see that these men are wearing uniforms.

  They’re not just civilians, which means the outside world officially knows the horseman is on the warpath.

  War watches them for several seconds. Calmly, he reaches out a hand.

  A shiver moves through me at the sight of it. One of his hands is healing me, while the other …

  The ground between us and our assailants buckles and shifts. And then the dead rise, just as they always do.

  The earth is full of so many bones.

  The riders’ horses rear back, and even from here I can hear the men shouting. They fire arrows at the skeletal bodies, but it doesn’t stop the dead. The creatures amble towards them ever so steadily. The men turn their horses around and ride back, the dead trailing along behind them.

  Only once they’re gone does the horseman reach for my arrow. Faster than I can follow, he grasps the arrowhead and yanks it out.

  I scream, more out of surprise than pain. A warning would’ve been nice.

  Immediately, War’s hand covers the wound, his touch warm. It only takes a little longer for my flesh to feel tingly. The two of us sit like that on Deimos in the middle of the road as the horseman heals me.