Famine (The Four Horsemen Book 3)

by Laura Thalassa

  “Come now,” he says to the panicking room. “The party is only just getting started.”

  The earth trembles again, and the floor all but crumbles apart. Dozens and dozens of plants rise from the depths, ensnaring person after person, until the entire ballroom seems to be a thrashing jungle of sorts. The screams are almost deafening as people struggle fruitlessly to get out.

  I strain against my own plant that binds me tight, the thorns digging into my skin.

  “Stop!” I beg the horseman.

  Famine glances over at me, an angry glint in his eyes. “You I’ll deal with later.”

  He faces the crowd of trapped guests, his attention eliciting another round of petrified screams. Everything about Famine in this moment is menacing—his body, his weapon, his expression.

  Outside, lightening continues to flash and thunder continues to boom. Within seconds rain begins pattering on the corrugated iron roof, getting louder by the second.

  Slowly the horseman stalks forward, making his way towards a large man with heavy jowls who’s bound up in a squat tree. I see the man struggle to get away, but it’s useless.

  The horseman grasps the man’s face, his fingers digging into his cheeks. “Do you want me to stop?” the Reaper asks. I can barely hear him over the pounding rain and the shouts and sobs echoing through the room.

  The man nods vigorously.

  Famine studies him. “Hmmm … And what would you be willing to do to make me stop?” he asks.

  The man squirms under his gaze. “I-I’ll do anything.”

  “Will you now?” Famine says. The Reaper glances over at me and arches a brow, like this is some inside joke.

  “Are you sure about that?” the Reaper presses, his attention returning to his victim.

  The man is visibly sweating, but he manages a nod.

  “Alright,” Famine says. “I’ll stop.”

  The man looks relieved.

  “But.”

  I tense. Here it is, the barbed offer I’ve come to expect from the horseman.

  “If you want me to save all these people,” Famine says. “I need something from you.”

  Famine might be a divine creature, but right now, he sounds like the devil of old.

  “Anything,” his captive says again.

  “Your life for theirs,” the Reaper says.

  My mouth goes dry. The horseman likes doing this—testing the limits of our humanity, all so that he can prove some point about how shitty humans really are.

  The man pauses. There’s terror in his eyes. His gaze sweeps over the other people who are likewise caught in the grip of Famine’s lethal plants.

  Before the man can respond, the tree that holds him fast now releases him. He stumbles forward, just barely managing to catch himself before he falls.

  “Well?” the Reaper says. “On your knees then.” As he speaks, Famine spins his scythe again, the blade glinting in the candlelight.

  The man is visibly shaking, his eyes locked on the Reaper’s blade. He doesn’t move to his knees.

  Famine takes a step towards him, and the man bolts, heading for the guarded doorway.

  “As I thought.”

  In six quick strides, the horseman is upon him. The Reaper swings that mighty scythe of his, and in one sweeping stroke he beheads the man.

  The room erupts in a fresh wave of screams, these ones louder and more desperate than ever.

  My nausea rises as the man’s head hits the ground with a wet thud, and I nearly sick myself at the sight of his mouth opening and closing in shock.

  There’s blood everywhere, and the room is filled with the piercing cries of all the other trapped humans.

  “You were all given a chance at redemption,” Famine announces, his gaze sweeping over them, “but your will is weak.”

  The Reaper moves away from the body, towards another person, this one a woman.

  She opens her mouth. “No—”

  Her plea is cut short. Famine swings his scythe, separating the woman’s head from her shoulders. Blood sprays as the body collapses into the plant holding her.

  My screams now join the others.

  The horseman has gotten a taste for death.

  Famine moves onto the next person and then the next and the next, that terrible weapon cutting each one down. Mercilessly he executes the trapped townspeople until the floor shines with blood. Those he doesn’t get to are slowly squeezed tighter and tighter by the trees and shrubs until I hear the snap of bones.

  And now the cries aren’t just terrified, they’re agonized.

  At some point my voice grows hoarse from screaming, and I have to close my eyes against the carnage. It’s all so excessively cruel.

  The plant caging me in has grown uncomfortably tight, but unlike some of the other people in the room, it hasn’t broken any bones or crushed my lungs.

  It seems like an eternity passes before the warehouse grows silent. The only noise left is the harsh patter of rain and my sobs. Even then, I keep my eyes closed.

  I hear the wet thud of Famine’s boots as he walks through blood towards me. A whimper leaves my lips, and a tear tracks down my cheek.

  “Open your eyes, Ana.”

  I shake my head.

  The plant holding me now releases its grip. I’ve been caught up in it for so long that my bloodless legs fold under me, too weak to keep me standing. Before I hit the ground, the Reaper catches me.

  Now I do open my eyes and look up at his stormy ones. Behind his head his scythe looms, secured to his back once more.

  I can smell the blood on him, and I can feel it in the wet press of his hands on my body.

  Another frightened tear slips out. I thought I was brave, stabbing his hand earlier. I foolishly thought that if I hurt him, I might actually be able to direct his anger away from these people and onto me.

  Instead I only enflamed his fury.

  “You’re the best of humanity I’ve seen so far,” Famine’s voice is silken, “and I have to say, I’m not too impressed.”

  With that, he scoops me into his arms and begins heading towards the door, kicking the odd head out of his way as he does so. Bile rises up my throat once more.

  “Put me down,” I say, a tremor in my voice.

  “So you can stab me again?” He huffs out a laugh. I can hear the soft splash of his boots as they step through puddles of blood. “I don’t think so.”

  The only people who are left standing are Famine’s men. They stare stoically at the carnage, but inside they must be freaking out. I know I’m freaking out, and I’ve already seen this many times before.

  “Why are you the way you are?” I whisper staring up at his blood-speckled jawline.

  Mean. Evil.

  That jawline seems to harden as he glances down at me. “Why are you the way you are?” he retorts. “You fucking stabbed me in my hand.”

  “So you killed an entire room for it?”

  “I was going to kill them anyway.” As he walks, the trees and bushes part, making a walkway of sorts for us.

  “How can you possibly be a heavenly thing?” I ask as we leave the building. Outside, the rain is coming down hard, soaking me within seconds. “You meet compassion with violence, and mercy with betrayal.” More tears slip out. “If there’s one thing in my life I regret, it’s saving you. And if I could go back and undo it all, I would.”

  “You would choose to not help me?” Famine says, glancing down at me, rain dripping off his face. Just from his tone and the look in his eyes, I know I’ve hit on something sensitive.

  “After what you’ve done?” I say. “In an instant.”

  “After what I’ve done?” A muscle in Famine’s cheek jumps, and the rain seems to come down harder. “This is not a war I started, it’s just the one I’m ending.”

  I glare up at him, my dark hair plastered to my cheeks. “What you’re doing isn’t ending some war, it’s just evil for the sake of evil.”

  Overhead, the sky flashes, and for an in
stant Famine’s face looks inhumanly harsh.

  “How dare you judge me—you, who are nothing,” the Reaper says, coming to a stop. “Nothing but self-aware stardust. In a hundred years you and your petty, self-important beliefs will be gone, your memory cast from the earth, and everything that makes you you will be scattered to the winds. And still I will exist as I always have.”

  “Am I supposed to be upset by that?” I say. “That in one hundred years you’ll still exist as this, soulless, festering thing, while for once in my life I’ll get some goddamn rest?”

  Famine flashes me an angry look. A second later he lifts me up, and for an instant I think he’s going to hurt me just as he has everyone else. But then I realize that his horse is right behind me, blending into the dark night.

  He sets me down hard on the seat, and I’ve only just managed to adjust myself when Famine follows me up, his body pressing in close.

  Grabbing the reins, he clicks his tongue, and his horse takes off.

  The rain and wind whips against my face, but I hardly feel it. I’ve gone numb. Maybe that’s why I don’t immediately notice that Famine’s cutting through fields rather than taking the main road. The crops rise around us like phantoms in the darkness.

  The sky flashes, lighting up the world. For an instant I can clearly see stalks of sugarcane around us, but as I stare at them, they begin to wither, their leaves looking like long, curling claws reaching for me.

  The sky flashes again and again, and the thunder seems to fill the whole sky. Rain leaks from the heavens like blood from an artery.

  It’s a nightmarish ride, made all the worse by the Reaper’s dark, forbidding presence at my back.

  I quake when I see our house in the distance, lit up by candlelight. We’re going back, and it’s an awful sensation, to survive all this death—like I’ve missed the boat to the afterlife and all that’s left for me is to waste away here.

  The horseman nearly rides us into the house before pulling his horse up short. A few guards meander about the property, but now that we’ve arrived, they start to approach us. They must see something in Famine’s expression, however, because they stop several meters away from us, not daring to come any closer.

  The Reaper swings himself off his steed, and before I can so much as move, he reaches up and hauls me off his horse as well.

  I glare at him. “I can get off on my own.”

  “Can you now? That’s news to me. You’re always harping on getting everyone else off.”

  Wait, was that a sex joke?

  I don’t have more than a moment to process that before Famine tows me by the wrist into the house, leading me back to the room I was tied up in all day.

  Naturally, I fight against his hold, trying to yank my wrist free. It doesn’t deter the horseman. If anything, I get the impression that he wants a knock-down drag-out fight.

  When we get to the room, he practically tosses me inside, and I stumble forward before whipping around.

  If he wants a fucking fight, I will give him one. Already I’m fantasizing about slamming these big-ass boots into his nutsack.

  He follows me into my room, his body dripping with rainwater. I, too am soaking wet, the water sliding down my legs.

  “Well?” I say angrily. “Why aren’t you leaving?”

  The Reaper scowls at me, looking like he’s about to say something. Instead, he walks back to the door and kicks it shut with his booted heel. Then he wheels about, unholstering his scythe and tossing it on the bed.

  “I’ll leave when I want to leave,” he says.

  Anger makes my face flush. “Get out.”

  He stalks forward, ignoring my words altogether. “You look at me like I’m a monster, but I’m not the one who spent years inflicting torture on a helpless prisoner. The horrors I endured—”

  “You think I don’t know pain?” I say over him. My voice comes out louder and angrier than I intend. “I lost both my parents by the time I was a teenager, my aunt abused me, and my cousins did nothing to stop her, but that didn’t prevent me from mourning them all when you killed my entire town.

  “And then, left with nothing, I had to fend for myself, and I consider myself lucky that my madam was the one who found me.

  “I was seventeen when I started to sell my body. Seventeen. Still just a teenager.”

  I step forward as I talk, closing the distance between us. “You think I don’t know pain? Degradation? I could sit here all night telling you about the horrors I’ve endured—the clients who beat me, who raped me, who told me I was worthless all while using me. Just because it hasn’t completely broken me doesn’t mean I don’t understand all the ways we can hurt one another.

  “So don’t act like you invented pain. It’s an insult to the rest of us.”

  The more I talk, the more Famine’s anger seems to drain from his face. By the time I finish—my chest heaving with my emotions, angry tears pricking at my eyes—his expression is almost soft.

  You’ve felt it too, his face seems to say. The horror of suffering. He looks both comforted and oddly devastated by that.

  “See?” he says quietly. “Look how awful your kind is, that they would hurt their young. Tell me I am not justified in killing them all.”

  I level him a long look. “You’re not justified in killing us all.”

  He takes a step forward, his armor brushing against my chest.

  “And what do you think I am justified to do, little flower?”

  “Leave us be. If we’re awful and doomed to die, we’ll kill ourselves off. If we’re not, then we won’t.” As I speak, one of those angry tears of mine slips out. Hopefully the last one. I’m tired of crying in front of this man.

  The Reaper reaches up a hand. He pauses for a moment, staring at that tear, then he wipes it away.

  I don’t know what to make of this situation—or of him for that matter. Not two hours ago he gruesomely killed an entire warehouse full of people. Tomorrow he’ll probably finish off the rest of the city. Why is he bothering to be gentle with me? What’s the point?

  Famine is still standing way too close, and for a moment, his gaze drops to my lips.

  It’s a shock to see the obvious hunger in his eyes.

  I know that look.

  But just when I think he might act on whatever heated thoughts are running through his head, he takes my hand and leads me out of the room and into the living room, where a large fire roars in the fireplace. He moves us over to it.

  “Sit,” he says.

  I scowl, but I do as he says.

  The Reaper releases my hand, heading into the dimly lit kitchen. He’s gone long enough for me to turn my attention to the fire.

  I twist my hair, squeezing the water from the curly locks.

  I’m still soaking wet, but the fire more than makes up for the slight chill.

  Famine returns with a pitcher, a basin, and a cloth. He comes to my side and sets the items down.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “You’re hurt.”

  I do in fact have dozens of little cuts from the nasty plant I was restrained in. And then there’s my injured shoulder.

  “Why do you care?” I say.

  “I don’t know.” He frowns as he speaks.

  The Reaper pours the water from the pitcher into the basin, and dips the cloth in. Then, taking my arm, he begins to clean my wounds, brushing the washcloth over the small, bleeding puncture marks that dot my skin.

  This is ridiculous.

  I try to withdraw my hand, but the horseman holds it fast, refusing to stop, and I’m left watching him work.

  Methodically, he cleans one of my arms, then the other, being extra diligent with my shoulder wound. He then moves on to my neck and chest. As he does so, I catch sight of his injured hand. It’s still open, still bloody, but he’s made no mention of it and gives no indication that it hurts. But it must. I know he feels pain.

  And I feel a whisper of shame. Even this monster feels more remorse
for what he did to me than I do for what I did to him.

  You also haven’t killed hundreds of thousands of people.

  There is that.

  Famine pauses halfway through, shucking off his armor. Beneath the metal, his wet shirt is plastered to his chest. After a moment, he removes this too.

  I jolt a little at the sight of him. For the first time in five years, I see his bare flesh and the strange, glowing green tattoos that are etched onto it.

  Lines and lines of them snake around his wrists like shackles, and more rows of them drape over his shoulders and around his pecs, giving the markings the appearance of a heavy plated necklace.

  The symbols look like writing, but it’s written in no language I’ve ever seen.

  Famine resumes cleaning my wounds, and I continue to stare at his chest. Before, I thought that Famine looked like some mythical prince. Now he looks far more like the archaic, otherworldly creature he is.

  “Inniv jataxiva evawa paruv Eziel,” he says.

  My breath catches for a moment as the words wash over me, drawing out goosebumps.

  “The hand of god falls heavy,” he translates. His eyes flick to mine. “You were wondering what they said, weren’t you?”

  I nod, my brows drawing together.

  “What langua—”

  “The one God speaks.”

  I pause, staring at the words a little longer.

  “I shall take their crops and cast them out, so that nothing may grow,” Famine continues without my prompting. “And many shall hunger, and many shall perish. For such is the will of God.”

  There it is, the proof that this is supposed to happen.

  It’s quiet for a long time. Then, softer, Famine says, “I was always meant to be the cruel one.” His eyes flick to me, and for once there’s something more than seething anger in those eerie green irises. “Pestilence, for all his disease, has always been perversely drawn to humans. And War was made from human desires. Terrible as my brothers are, I am worse.”

  After all I’ve seen the Reaper do, I believe him. Yet if you had asked me which of the four brothers was most awful, I wouldn’t have placed Famine at the top of that list.