The Seventh World Trilogy omnibus

by Rachel Starr Thomson

But then again…

  “Hurry!” Morel shouted, not caring if anyone was near enough to hear him. “I must leave the city!”

  * * *

  The Ploughman cut a wide swath with his sword as he sprinted for the heap of rubble around the fissure in the ground. He climbed the broken blocks of stone and looked down on the battle. His men had driven into the ranks of the enemy. The sheer surprise of the attack, rising like a whirlwind from the ground, had driven the High Police back.

  But they would not lose ground for long. Over the turmoil of the battle the Ploughman could see a dark river of men moving through the streets toward the coliseum. More soldiers. He closed his eyes and ducked his head for a moment as numbers swam in his head. They were outnumbered—how greatly? His spirit refused to give him an answer.

  A contingent of High Police, spears lowered, drove through the rebels, straight for the gates of the coliseum. The Ploughman thought he heard a child sobbing over the sound of the battle: a Gypsy child behind the gates. He raised his horn to his lips and blew.

  “Form ranks!” he shouted. “Guard the gates!”

  His men picked up the call. Horns that had once belonged to farmers blew the signal, and the men regrouped before the high wooden gates of the coliseum. Many fell before they reached their comrades. The High Police rushed forward. The Ploughman heard himself shouting, “Stand your ground!” His men stood with their backs to the coliseum. High Police surrounded them on three sides. They had no choice but to stand their ground—though they die trying.

  Swords clashed as the High Police reached the rebels. A high, wailing blast sounded on a horn made of bone and scales: the Darkworlders broke ranks and charged forward, led by Harutek and Caasi. The battle surged around the heap of rubble where the Ploughman stood. He leaped down and drove his sword into the nearest soldier. He pulled it out and whirled on another. Beside him, Harutek screamed a shrill battle cry.

  A silver horn blew, and another rank of High Police charged the gates.

  “Hold!” the Ploughman screamed as he ran to join the men who guarded the coliseum. Eyes that had known him since boyhood followed him as he sprinted the length of their ranks. “They must not break through!”

  A volley of arrows rained down on the rebels. Men cried out and sank to their knees as silver-tipped arrows struck, driving through the rebels’ leather armour and burying themselves in the thick wooden gates.

  “Shields up!” the Ploughman cried. He turned his head to see that his orders were obeyed. His men crouched under battered shields. The wailing cry of the underground warriors rang in his ears; they were shieldless, yet still they drove into the vanguard of the enemy.

  The Ploughman felt and heard an arrow drive into his shoulder. He cried out and fell. His knees slammed into the smooth pavement, and for an instant the world swam before him. Then he rose again to his feet and made for the heap of rubble. He climbed with clenched teeth as arrows rained behind him and swords rang and clashed all around.

  From the top of the heap, he watched the archers draw once more and let fly. Too many of his men fell beneath the volley. The enemy foot soldiers were waiting now. When the bowmen had weakened the rebels’ ranks beyond endurance, the High Police would charge again. It was clear enough: the rebels had to take the archers down.

  “Caasi!” the Ploughman called. The young prince of the Darkworld felled two men and turned to face the Ploughman above him. He saluted, his pale skin streaked with blood.

  “The archers!” the Ploughman said. “We must defeat the archers!”

  “We have no protection!” Caasi answered. “Our fish scales cannot withstand their silver.”

  “Scales,” the Ploughman repeated to himself. Light filled his eyes. “Scales!” he shouted.

  Understanding glimmered in Caasi’s eyes. He whirled on his heel and raised a horn to his lips. The high blast called his own men to him, and the Darkworlders disappeared into the ground beneath the Ploughman’s feet.

  They needed time now. That was all. The Ploughman turned his head to those who still huddled beneath their shields at the gate. He blew a charge on his horn. The men raised their heads and shields and ran forward, into the ranks of the High Police, where arrows could not kill them without taking down their own men as well.

  But there was no one now to guard the gate. The commander of the High Police saw through the confusion to his chance. He sounded a battle cry and led the march toward the doors of the coliseum.

  The Ploughman leapt from his place and ran over the slick street to the gates. Power flowed through him as he ran. His face glowed golden; his hair blew wildly in an unearthly wind. He raised his sword and lifted his voice, and the Riders came to his aid. Hooves pounded the ground around him. The battle cry of the heavens resounded through the earth. Twelve golden warriors arranged themselves before the gate, and the High Police drew back in fear.

  You have come, the Ploughman said to them, in wordless thanks.

  We cannot kill men, the lion-haired captain said. This you know.

  I do not ask you to kill. Only guard the gates.

  “March!” the commander of the High Police shrieked. His men surged forward and drove into the Golden Riders, whose horses reared and slashed down with their hooves. The blows passed through the bodies of the High Police, bearing them to the ground but not wounding them. Arrows arced through the air to the gates once more, sticking in the golden warriors. The horses whinnied in pain. High Police surged in, around and under the giants.

  The archers all aimed at one Rider. He gave a cry of anger and pain as their arrows drew blood. Three arrows, expertly aimed, pierced his horse’s right eye. The animal fell to its knees. The Golden Rider dismounted and drove into the High Police, but now foot soldiers swarmed over him. The Ploughman watched in agony as the High Police brought the giant warrior down. High Police stood atop the Rider’s shoulders and screamed victory to the air, even as a gentle breeze turned the warrior’s body to sand and bore it away.

  Strength and fury filled the Ploughman, and he rushed forward. Twelve men were dead at his hand before he became aware that he was fighting. There was fire in his veins, golden fire. The arrow wound in his shoulder grew hot, and the heat seared through his arm and hand, but it was the heat of a forge. It made him stronger even as it burned. The golden sands of the Rider’s body swirled around him as he fought, flecking his skin with glints of gold. He threw back his head and roared like a lion.

  The Ploughman raised his sword, and three arrows hit him. One drove deep into his already-wounded shoulder; one pierced his armour and lodged in his thigh; one slashed through the skin of his left arm. His leg buckled beneath him, and he fell to the ground, racked with pain. He looked through a haze of blood at the battle.

  The ground was trembling. Hooves. The High Police were sending horsemen.

  The rebels were still fighting, but they could not hold much longer. The Golden Riders alone stood between the High Police and the coliseum—but they could not kill. The Ploughman cried out in frustration. The heat of battle-joy left him. They were losing the fight.

  Darkness started to drift across his eyes. But then he heard a high wailing horn, and Caasi rushed from the ground with his men at his back, armoured in the flashing red scales of dragon hide.

  They charged through the enemy, leaving dead men in their wake. They charged for the archers. The Emperor’s foot soldiers scattered before them. Arrows rained down on them, only to bounce off the scales. The archers broke ranks and turned to run—too late. Caasi and his men shrieked and wailed as they bore down on the enemy.

  The skin at the corner of the Ploughman’s mouth cracked as he smiled. He felt strong arms behind him, helping him up.

  “My lord,” Harutek said.

  “I am all right,” the Ploughman said. His leg nearly buckled. “I will live.”

  His hand shook as he raised his horn to his lips and blew the signal for the men to form ranks. Farmers, Gypsies, and stable boys withdrew from the mele
e and formed tight ranks again, though their numbers were thinned. Protecting the gates.

  The Ploughman leaned on Harutek as he heard other men shouting the words that had been his: “Stand your ground! They must not break through to the gates!”

  Harutek led the wounded leader to the fissure in the ground and began to descend with him. “You’ll be safe down here,” the prince said.

  “No,” the Ploughman answered. “I want to see how the battle goes. I want my men to see me.”

  Harutek nodded, though there were tears in his eyes. “Yes,” he said.

  Together they struggled up the heap of rubble until the Ploughman could see. The Emperor’s horsemen were in the rearguard, preparing to ride down on the gates. The rebels could not stand against them. The Ploughman looked up to the Golden Captain.

  The horses, he said.

  Aye, the captain answered. He raised an ornate gold horn to his lips and blew a charge, and the eleven remaining Golden Riders charged forward, knocking down men and riding over them. Army horses lost their nerve before the Riders and bolted. Some charged forward, High Police riding with their lances leveled. A group of them knocked a Rider from his horse and bore him to the ground, lances deep in his chest. The Ploughman closed his eyes and felt a breeze around him; felt sands in the air.

  He did not ask Harutek to tell him what he knew already. Though they fought bravely, though they had already beat enormous odds, they were losing the battle.

  Horsemen, regrouped and determined, charged for the gates.

  * * *

  Miracle lay on the stone edge of the coliseum. Wind whipped at her hair as the world spun around her and the rain lashed down. The Nameless One stood beside her and shrieked strange, harsh words into the black sky. He thrust his hands to the clouds. Lightning, blue and terrible, sliced the air around him.

  Miracle rolled over and fought darkness as her stomach lurched. She could see people far below, pelted by the rain, huddled in little groups. She could hear them crying.

  Her eyes went to a figure who stood before the doors of the coliseum. A young Gypsy woman. The young woman turned and looked up, and her eyes met Miracle’s.

  The battle raged on the other side of the doors. Who could say what side was winning?

  But it didn’t matter who won, Miracle remembered. The man at whose feet she now lay dying would kill them himself. He could do it. She had seen him kill.

  And to think, he had pleaded with her to heal him.

  As though she would ever help him.

  He was too far given to evil to help. He was hardly human. He was sick…

  Lightning danced in the Nameless One’s eyes as he spit the last words of his spell into the dark air. He felt Covenant Fire in his fingertips; felt it crackling through him. This was life. This was power. He was a god.

  He jerked his hands down, and the Gypsies began to die. Old ones and children first.

  Before the doors of the coliseum, Marja fought to stay on her feet as pain racked her body. Dark faces and grinning masks flashed before her eyes. She lifted her eyes to the cloaked figure on the wall.

  “No!” she cried. Thunder drowned her out. The raindrops were black and hot and heavy like tar.

  The High Police succeeded in breaking through the guard before the gates. The doors of the coliseum burst open, and the battle spilled in. The Gypsies were past caring. Some were past knowing.

  A wolf’s howl split the night, strong with rage, and a stag leaped through the battle with a man on its back. Michael jumped down from the stag’s back and began to climb up the wall. He could see her.

  He had to reach her.

  Miracle saw him, too, but she forced herself to tear her eyes away. Slowly, painfully, she raised herself to her knees. Then to her feet. She took a step nearer the Nameless One. He did not see her. He was laughing, and his face was changing. He was a skeleton: a mask with nothing behind his eyes except deepest black.

  But then she touched him. She stood behind him, raised her hands to his face, and held him; and his laughter turned to screams.

  “What are you doing?” he cried.

  “Healing you,” she said.

  The Nameless One fell to his knees as power drained from him. Miracle fell behind him. She cried out and looked to the sky, but still she held on.

  The death throes of the Gypsies were changing. They were only weeping now—and only the living can weep. The rain was rain, and it was not black, or heavy, or hot.

  The Nameless One seemed to fold in on himself. He lay on his face and whispered for her to stop, to let go. But she would not, not until she had driven the pestilence from him. She would not stop until he was human again.

  That would kill him, he reasoned with her in his mind. There was not enough left of him to live—he had lost it all to the Blackness.

  The voice of Michael O’Roarke echoed in Miracle’s ears. She turned to see him leaping the steps and the seats of the coliseum. Kris of the Mountains was behind him, the white wolf following. And Archer: Archer, bless him, he was coming for her too.

  She let go.

  The Nameless One groaned wordlessly and rolled so that he could look into her face. She leaned on her hands, bent over him, breathing hard. She hardly recognized him. He was emaciated and afraid, nothing like the man she had known.

  “Now you are healed,” she said.

  She could not take her eyes from his face, so she didn’t see him pull a dagger from beneath his cloak. Not until the other hand grabbed her throat. His face twisted with hatred as the dagger stabbed.

  Michael shoved Miracle aside and killed the man before the dagger pierced her skin.

  The Nameless One was gone.

  Michael knelt on the edge of the coliseum and took Miracle in his arms. She clung to him, shaking with weakness and pain, and they wept together. Kris of the Mountains stood over them and looked down on the coliseum as the skies cried rain.

  “The battle is lost,” Kris said.

  “No,” Gwyrion growled. “Can you not smell the change in the air? It is just beginning.”

  * * *

  The Emperor had elected to leave on the eastern road, where the entrance and exit of the city was bordered by the high walls of two aqueducts. Now he regretted it.

  Lucien Morel emerged from his coach red with anger. “Why are we stopped?” he demanded.

  “Your excellency,” the coachman faltered. “Look, your majesty…”

  Lucien Morel failed to hear the man’s voice. He could see nothing but the water that was pouring over the road—his road—blocking the way out of Athrom. Water was pouring over the edges of the stone aqueducts.

  The water began to gather around his feet and swirl in angry currents. Lucien Morel turned white as death and scrambled for the safety of the coach. A swift current in the water knocked him from his feet. He landed on his face, and water poured into his mouth and nose. He pulled himself up onto his hands and knees and crawled through the mud, crying in terror.

  The river had come for him.

  He heard the incredulous cries of men and women somewhere in the streets, spreading the news that had even now begun to reach the city.

  “The river has turned back on itself! It flows inland from the sea!”

  * * *

  The Ploughman watched from his vantage point as the battle streamed past him through the open doors of the coliseum. A soldier in black and green leapt up the rock and charged at him, and he calmly watched him come before Harutek cut him down. He looked down at the dead soldier’s face, and the sounds of battle rang in his ears. Battle, and screams—the screams of women, children, Gypsies.

  The forge inside him flared to life once more. He felt the searing heat through his wounds and the strength that came with it. A strength not his own; a strength born of greater powers. For an instant his eyes flashed gold, and he leaped down from the heap of rubble and into the fight. He cut, slashed, whirled, lunged, and soldiers fell before him—ten, fifteen. Thirty.


  Sand swirled around him. Three men charged him and he cut them all down. Five more came. Two before him; one to the left; one to the right; one behind.

  He moved faster than any human being should move. One was dead; two, three, four. He could not move fast enough to kill the fifth. He whirled around to face the man charging him, knowing it was too late, knowing he would die now; and then a blur of red passed in front of him and made a sound like a wounded animal as the soldier’s sword drove into it.

  The Ploughman killed the soldier and knelt by the body of Caasi, Seventeenth Son of the Majesty, clothed in a makeshift cape of dragon hide. The sword had found a rift in the cape and driven home.

  Caasi groped for the Ploughman’s hand and gripped it tightly. The young prince’s eyes were racked with pain, but he gripped harder and licked his bloody lips.

  “We have fought well, have we not?” he asked.

  The Ploughman bowed his head. “Yes,” he said. “You have done proudly.”

  Caasi looked up, past the Ploughman. “I am glad,” he said, “that it was done under the sky.”

  Caasi’s eyes closed, and the Seventeenth Son of the Majesty slipped away.

  The Ploughman bent his head low over the young man’s body. Sobs racked his frame and made the pain of his wounds come back. His face was wet with tears, every other inch of him wet with blood. But there was more—a new wetness, a new warmth around his feet as he crouched on the ground. He opened his eyes and saw clear water washing the blood from Caasi’s face.

  In the distance there sounded a roaring as of a river broken loose.

  * * *

  Soldiers in and around the coliseum froze with their swords in mid-stroke as the sound reached their ears. The Gypsies turned wondering eyes to the gates.

  The seven remaining Golden Riders sent up a shout that echoed through the streets of the jewel of Italya. The rebel army, streaked with blood and dirt, turned their faces east.