“Speaking of our commander,” says Shadow.
Death’s eternal call still burns within me, but a new call has joined it. Famine, summoning me. Authority laces her demand, whereas anguish laces Death’s. One summons me, the other hunts me.
“How many days since we awoke?” I ask Shadow, a frown between my grey eyebrows.
“Four days.”
The frown deepens, burrowing into my forehead. “Famine normally gives me six days before she summons me.”
Shadow’s trot falters. “You complain about her, then ask why she doesn’t grant you time?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Shadow. I always complain about Famine.” I snap the reins to his thick skin. “Keep riding.”
Hesitation has Shadow tense beneath me. “She is not only your commander, but mine too. We should go to her.”
“I will go when I choose. I am taking my six days.”
Shadow remains tense beneath me, but he lunges forward and gallops as commanded.
We ignore the calls of Death and Famine. Soon, they grow louder within me. Death’s anguish cripples my heart, but it is not strong enough to drown out Famine’s mounting frustration.
Dusk inches closer as we go deep into a forest.
We come across a log cabin.
Its windows are thick with dust, its wooden frame reeks of rot, but the doors are doubled—Shadow can fit through them to the inside. I prefer to have him with me.
Inside, the cold fills the rooms.
Shadow paws at the musty rug by the empty fireplace. Apparently, it’s a good place to fall asleep—he lies down with a loud groan of satisfaction.
As he takes his rest, I search the cabin for any stray humans. It’s empty. Sheets are draped over much of the furniture and the curtains are all drawn. I peel apart the ones at the back of the cabin; glass-panelled doors that open to a dark-wood balcony.
This cabin is odd.
Some wood smells fresh, some rots away in the walls. Certain rooms are clean and the furniture, new. Others are damp and have moth-eaten curtains. It doesn’t seem as though humans have lived in this cabin for a while.
Some items I find interest me. Books with flimsy covers; flowers that are false to the touch; a peculiar stick that holds an eternal amount of ink, a vast improvement on fountain pens; and some gadgets with black strings that connect them to the walls in all rooms—one looks like a plain black box, another is a torch-light of sorts with a shade atop it; and there are switches on all the walls, too.
But the most interesting, I find in the kitchen. It is a tall box, silvery, reaching from floor to ceiling. I tug on the silver handle and—I flinch. A putrid stench hits me. I slam the door shut and scowl at the device.
“Humans,” I drone.
A gust of wind blows through the open doors. The curtains flap against it and part in the centre. And I feel it—the sudden return of Famine’s connection. It is now that I realise I hadn’t noticed her silence, but it is when I turn my gaze to the curtains that I know why she was silent to begin with.
Stunned, I part my chapped lips and fix my shame-filled eyes on her.
Famine stands on the balcony.
Her golden chest plate shines so strongly that it glares at me. A leafy diadem sits across her sun-touched forehead, catching the glint of her loose, yellow hair. But my gaze is drawn to her eyes—molten gold, swirling like a pit of yellow lava.
Her anger is for me.
“I summoned you,” she snarls. “And you ignore me?”
My shoulders slump. “I was … delayed in my response.”
Famine sweeps inside, her shoulder brushing mine. Victoria, her steed, saunters in after her companion and avoids my gaze.
“Hello to you, too,” I say.
Snubbing me, Victoria lies down beside the snoring Shadow by the hollow fireplace.
Famine reclines against the kitchen bench and folds her arms over her chest-plate. Her lashes lower over her gold-flecked eyes as she says, “When I call you, Pessie, I expect you to by my side in a blink of time. The moment you feel a spark of summons, you should be steering your steed my way.”
I bunch my lips and glower up at her.
I wouldn’t dare do more than that. Famine overlooks my insubordination when it’s mild. Though, I wonder what she would do should I defy her outright. The thought tugs something within me.
Perhaps I do know fear, after all.
“How is your mission so far?” I ask to divert her. It’s effective—the tension from her jaw relaxes. “What land did you conquer?”
“All of it.”
Startled, I blink.
All of it.
The First Horserider has never conquered all the land of the world. To conquer them all means to infect them all, to starve them, to kill them.
Our missions in the past were condensed to the world’s corners at a time.
We’re the population control, the reminder to humans that they stand no chance against nature or its wrath. We cleanse the lands that Famine conquers.
Mine and Death’s reach only extends to where Famine has chosen.
Which must mean…
“All of them?”
It’s not pity that overwhelms me, but doubt.
Am I capable of creating a plague that can reach the corners of the world and cripple most? Can I destroy every human in the world? All the cities, the towns, villages?
And the most worrying, what shall become of me when there are no more humans left to control?
“You can’t mean that,” I tell her.
Something flickers in Famine’s eyes. The gold glitters back at me, and for a moment I suspect there to be pity in her gaze. It’s gone once I blink.
I’m foolish. Famine has no pity for me. She has nothing more than a tedious dislike, a disdainful exhaustion.
She unravels her arms from her chest and rests the heels of her palms on the counter.
“One year,” she says. There is a softness to her voice; one that she spares for me. “I have walked this world for one year. My steed and I have galloped across oceans and seas, the continents, islands—the islands’ islands. There is no land left for us to conquer.”
“Those are your orders?” I ask. “To wipe them out?”
“Their ways never change,” Famine answers. “You know that, I know it. We all do. Even the humans are aware of their own behaviour. One of them even spoke of it: ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.’ Though, I doubt he was aware that his words apply so firmly to his entire species.” She pauses and levels her gaze with mine. “And it matters not what we believe, but what They commands of us.”
Before I can stop it, a snort comes from me. And the words flow so effortlessly; “They. When was the last time They came to this world? They have abandoned it and have cursed us to be the caretakers of a most ungrateful species. There are others out there—species that They created.” I rub my hands over my face. “Humans are spreading faster than any plague I have ever created, than any disease I’ve ever bestowed upon this world. And as they spread, the world dies.” I throw up my grey-tinted hands. “I don’t disagree with my orders, Famine. I don’t want to save them. I want to save us—” I gesture between myself and Shadow, somewhere behind me. “Without the humans to cull, what becomes of us? We both know that They don’t care about what fate awaits me or my Shadow.”
Fear bubbles within me, fear for myself and my steed.
My voiced thoughts are true, but my concerns are of the future of the Horseriders when the time comes that we are no longer needed.
Still, Famine is silent in her anger. It fumes within her, tenses all her muscles, pushes against her solid armour, shines in her eyes.
When she speaks, her voice is caged fury; “You should know better than to insult Them. You, more than anyone.”
What more can be done to me?
Those words tempt me. I want to speak them again. Of course, like she said, I know better than that. So
I let them simmer within me.
Famine takes a deep breath. Air isn’t something we need, so the act catches my whole attention.
“What is it you want, Pessie?” she asks, once the lashes of her fury are drawn back into her. “Is killing all of the humans on this earth not enough for you?”
“I want all of them to rot.” I don’t hesitate. My answer is even accompanied by a brisk nod. “Yet,” I add, “I worry that destroying them all leaves me without a duty. What is Pestilence without people to unleash upon? They won’t need me after the humans are gone—I will die alongside them, I imagine.” I fold my arms and lower my lashes. “But what you are asking is too much. A plague to destroy everyone? Disease to kill everything? It’s impossible. I can’t do it.” I snort and shake my head. “And even if I could, there are always—always—immunes, or those who simply … recover.”
“You will do it because I command it.” Her voice is suddenly unyielding. “You will do it because it is your duty, Pestilence.”
Not ‘Pessie’. Pestilence.
I don’t have to tap into our connection to know she fights a volcano of rage. She storms around the counter, as if having a bench between us will soothe her anger.
I round on her, stopping as my hips touch the granite. “What can I incubate and release that will cause that much destruction? What disease can stretch that far?”
Famine brings her hand down on the counter. “You are Pestilence! It is your duty to create it—to make it happen!”
“The greatest plague I have ever created only managed to kill a third of the earth’s humans—a third. That was many sleeps ago, and I haven’t been able to make something that even compares to the Black Death since. You ask for impossible things, Famine. You, better than any other Horserider, must know that the disease creates itself within me. I can only nurture it.”
Famine’s lip curls at me; she rests her hands on the table and leans forward. “Figure it out. It’s a long mission ahead of us. You have all the time you need to perfect it.”
The corners of my lips lift; I almost laugh. Almost.
“I can’t just pluck desired traits out of my disease-pot. This is not cake-making, Famine.” My crooked smile refuses to leave, even as Famine’s jaw works and her eyes turn dark. “But please!” I add, with a sudden false admiration in my voice. “Oh, first Pestilence, tell me what I must do to create the greatest plague ever seen. After all, your plagues were just so successful, weren’t they?” I tap my chin and look upwards. “All of them seemed to be confined to cities and villages, rarely making it over territory lines, let alone oceans. And—oh! Your total death-rates don’t come close to mine. But please, your advice is so desired and so helpful.”
That did it.
Eyes turn molten.
A shiver runs through me, but I steady my stare. I will not look away.
Famine speaks, and her voice startles me; it’s so low, so gentle—dangerous. A whisper. “One of my pitiful plagues took you. And it would have killed you, had you not seen to your own demise first.”
I’m still for a moment.
She’d never told me. I’d never known.
Of all the times we’d traded tricks and methods, not once did Famine tell me that it was her plague that came to Athens. It was her plague that set-forth the beginning of my end. Isn’t that what it was? Would I have laid with Death had I not been dying?
My brows furrow. I have no answer to my own question.
But now that I do know it was Famine’s plague, does it make a difference? I feel different. There’s a hollow spot beneath my heart. It almost touches Death’s hollow spot.
Frowning at Famine, I rub under my chest as if to soothe the new emptiness.
Famine pushes from the counter and backs into the stove.
“I am not only here to deliver your orders,” she says, gold lifting up from beneath long lashes. “There is another.”
“Another what?”
“Of us.” She watches my face wrinkle as I digest those words. “The fourth. The final one.”
It hits me. The one we have been lacking, the one we have waited thousands of years for. The Fourth Horserider.
“War has come.”
Chapter 5
Rage surges through me.
Carpet scratches my feet; I pace back and forth, my footsteps so loud that Shadow awakes to the thumps. All the while, I glare at Famine as she reclines in the armchair. Her gold-flecked eyes watch me move, back and forth, back and forth.
The patience in her gaze infuriates me.
“Me,” I echo, disbelieving. “You want me to guide War.”
“Had I not meant it, I would not have ordered it,” she replies calmly.
I throw up my hands. “What can I teach War?”
“As I remember it, you have experience in taking innocent lives.” Her lips twist into a dark smile. “Before it was your duty, no less.”
“I killed a few people when I was human. I did not wage war. I did not lead armies. What can I possibly offer War as a mentor?”
“Not a mentor. You only have to collect him, then bring him to me.”
“And you can’t do this yourself, because…”
“My duties are unfinished.”
My eyebrow lifts. “You just told me, moments ago, that you’ve conquered all the lands—”
“That is not my only duty, Pestilence.” She rises from the armchair. “I have other matters that, quite frankly, are none of your concern. Do what you have been ordered to do. Find War before he awakens, bring him to me, and in the meantime…” Famine lets her gaze run over me. Behind the gold flecks is a sheet of poorly veiled contempt. “Work on your plague.”
Before she can leave, I block her way to the balcony. The steed, Victoria, huffs at me, but Famine grants me a gaze of cracked patience.
“Death.”
Famine raises her chin and looks down at me. She knows, with that one name, I am asking what I always ask each time I’m woken. And like every time before now, defeat slumps her shoulders.
“As you likely know by now, he is awake,” Famine tells me, her voice rigid like trees before a storm. “But you also know that the Wonder he rests at is far from here. You have time.”
Famine lingers, as if there is something else she wants to say. It smoulders behind the veil of her marble eyes. But when I step aside, she brushes by me without another word and mounts Victoria.
I watch them ride off until the thickness of the trees swallows them whole.
War’s resting place is not so far from here.
It’s the place of ice and penguins, the bottom of the world where the wonder lies—the southern lights. Of all my years wandering this planet, I’ve yet to venture down there.
Tickles of excitement bloom in my stomach.
Call it juvenile for a Horserider, but I’ve always wanted to see Emperor Penguins.
Shadow and I ride for days to the end of this land. A narrow passage of water blocks our way to a small island where we’ll find boats to take us to War. We plod through the seabed to the other side.
All the while Death calls to me.
The closer he gets, the stronger his pull is.
A part of me longs to feel his stir, to touch my gaze to his again. Feel my lips on his, his hands on mine. But I can’t forget what he did to me. Forgiveness is not a trait I nourish.
To silence the dull pain that comes with his calls, I tap out of our connection. My mind and heart close, and all that’s left is a whisper of him.
I shouldn’t close off to the bond. If Famine notices, she’ll tear it back open and I’ll be in for another lecture.
“If you think of him and dream of Death so often,” says Shadow, “why do you ignore him? Why not meet with him?”
I’m silent for a moment, running my mercurial eyes over the rocky terrain.
This island is so different to its mother-island. Where the motherland is red and barren with lush forests plotted along its coasts, this land is ragg
ed and green. So far, we’ve passed lakes and waterfalls, white beaches and evergreen nirvanas.
Was this island once called Eden, I wonder?
“I ignore him for what he has done,” I say, my voice caught in a sigh. “And what he hasn’t done. Our history is tangled in tragedy. I will always love him, but I will forever hate him, too.”
In answer, Shadow gives a huff. I tire him with what he thinks are my petty ways. Yet, as a steed who has never loved, he can only understand so much.
Shadow makes a noise of indignation. “I know love. I love you.”
Pesky steed won’t stay out of my head.
I stroke the side of his neck. “And I, you.”
Soon, our path opens to what appears to be a town. Those strange carriages whiz along a paved road that glitters beneath the hot sun. Not much takes my interest in the town, so we pass through at a slow pace, observing what we can.
I see no sign of sickness in any of these humans. Not the kind of sickness I am used to, that is. But I learn there, that sickness comes in many forms.
Black smoke billows from behind the carriages. It is poison. I smell it. I sense it. And the poison rises up into the air. A plastic bottle rolls down a gutter ahead, pushed along by the breeze. Not a single human stops to pick it up—they pass it by as though it is normal to treat this lush earth as a wasteland.
It’s a wonder how this species still lives.
“What are those?” asks Shadow curiously.
I trace his gaze to a table out front a shop along the street.
Few children gather around the table with an older man I suspect to be their father. Yet, they don’t talk to one another. They don’t look at one another. They have attention only for the strange, rectangular devices in their hands.
Thumbs rap against the gadgets, one child hollers a profanity at his, and the father does nothing. In fact, he is much too interested in whatever his gadget does than to pay attention to the children.
“I have seen nothing like it,” I reply.
We move onwards, leaving the doomed humans behind in the littered, poisoned town. But before we go much further, I steady Shadow with a tug of his metal reins.
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 34