A FAMINE OF CROWS
The Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse
Book 3
_______________________
A.A. Chamberlynn
Books by A.A. Chamberlynn
The Four Horsewomen Series
A War of Daisies (Book 1)
A Death of Music (Book 2)
A Famine of Crows (Book 3)
A Pestilence of Pride (Book 4)
A Bargain with Angels (Book 5)
A Dance with Demons (Book 6)
A Song for the Devil (Book 7)
The Zyan Star Series
Martinis with the Devil (Book 1)
Whiskey and Angelfire (Book 2)
Vengeance and Vermouth (Book 3)
Black Magic and Mojitos (Prequel Novelette)
Sorcery and Sidecars (Origin Story Novella)
The Quinn Chronicles (A Zyan Star Spin-off Series)
Death and Dating (Book 1)
Death and Promises (Book 2)
Death and Eternity (Book 3)
The Timekeeper’s War Series
Huntress Found (Book 1)
Huntress Lost (Book 2)
Huntress at War (Book 3)
Other Books by A.A. Chamberlynn
Of Blood, Earth, and Magic
www.AlexiaChamberlynn.com
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A land ravished by magic, a circus of rebels, a girl with a deadly secret.
There was a time when the Tribes lived in harmony. Sun, Moon, even the fabled Shadow Tribe. That time is no longer. Now the land has become a wicked wasteland, plagued by strange creatures, enchanted storms, and bubbles of trapped time, remnants of the Shaman Wars. Magic has been outlawed by the Sun, the Moon have gone into seclusion, and the Shadow are all but annihilated.
For Elea, the idea of peace between the tribes is a nothing more than a legend from the history books. She works for a circus of outcasts who travel between the Sun cities. All she wants is freedom: from the circus, to perform her magic, to be herself. But she possesses a deadly secret that makes any chance of liberty impossible.
Ashe is heir to one of the seven Sun cities. He rebels against his overprotective father by competing in illegal fight dens. Like most Sun, he believes that science is the future, and he's never traveled outside the walls of his city due to the dangers that lie beyond.
When a new kind of evil begins to terrorize the land, Elea and Ashe find themselves thrown into the center of a coup that could destroy Iamar. To fight the enemy, the Sun and Moon must unite, something that hasn't been done in three hundred years. But first they must find the Moon Tribe, and that means crossing Iamar, which grows more and more unstable as the dark magic spreads. Dark magic which has everything to do with Elea and her terrible secret.
Copyright © 2021 by A.A. Chamberlynn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information contact A.A. Chamberlynn at www.alexiachamberlynn.com
Cover design by Novak Illustration.
Chapter One
Felicity
As the first rays of morning sun cut over the red ridges and the tops of the pines, Felicity listened to the heartbeat of the earth. She sat cross-legged in the grass by the cabin, eyes closed. The sound of it had awoken her at some point in the night, and she’d realized that while the sun may sleep, the earth never did. She spun round and round, ever awake, ever vigilant.
Felicity could feel the pulse of it beneath her, radiating up through layers of rock and soil. She could feel the warmth of the soil, could taste it almost. And beneath the surface, beyond her physical eyesight, she had a sensation of color. All the different colors of the earth, far from human eyes, a beauty that no one would ever see. No one but her.
She wondered what it all meant. The Riders had figured out that these elemental powers—earth and water for her, stars for Dynah, night sky for Penelope, and metal for Willow—had nothing to do with their power as Riders. Nothing to do with the Apocalypse. So where did they come from and why?
“Felicity? What are you doing out here?”
Felicity opened her eyes at the sound of Dynah’s voice. The light rising over the horizon illuminated Dynah’s red curls and bathed her in a halo of gold. It might have made her look like an angel, but Felicity now knew that angels were not at all what she’d grown up to believe they were. Far from it.
“I can—” she paused, suddenly realizing how extraordinary it would sound. Even after everything they’d been through. Even after battling gods and goddesses and monsters and stopping the Apocalypse.
“You can tell me,” Dynah encouraged softly. She sat down on the ground next to Felicity and smiled, pulling her curls over one shoulder.
Felicity felt her heart stumble in her chest. Dynah still had that effect on her. “The earth. I can feel her heart beating.”
Dynah straightened. “Really?”
A nod. “It woke me up several hours ago, so I came out here to listen.”
“I was sleeping like the dead—” Dynah winced at her own pun— “I didn’t even notice.”
“As you should. We did just save the world two days ago.”
Felicity knew that save might be a strong word. After all, they had also started the Apocalypse. And it wasn’t over yet. There were still many, many things they had to set right.
“Well, I hope that doesn’t happen every night. What will you do?” Dynah blinked her blue eyes and took Felicity’s hand in her own.
“I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, then Dynah said, “Well, the least I can do is make breakfast.”
She got up and ascended the creaky wooden stairs of the front porch of the abandoned house they had found. Felicity sincerely hoped that the house wasn’t abandoned because of them. Because of the destruction they’d caused when they rode forth, sowing war, pestilence, death, and famine in their wake. She wasn’t sure they’d ever be able to truly make amends for that. Even if they did find a way to reverse their powers as Riders and undo the harm they’d caused.
The cabin wasn’t far from Hawk’s Hollow, just a bit to the north and west. No neighbors for miles, situated on top of a bluff overlooking a valley and a nearby creek. Dynah had called forth a few dozen skeletons to form a perimeter around the yard as a deterrent to anyone who happened by, as well as summoning her bone dragon to stand guard. It had proven an ideal spot to recover from spending nearly a week in the angels’ dungeon with barely any food or water. Not to mention the epic battle at Asgard that had occurred after that.
Chicory coffee scented the air a few minutes later, and Felicity got off the ground and went inside. Penelope and Willow had just drifted into the kitchen as well, haired mussed and yawning. The three of them took seats around the rough-hewn table while Dynah hovered over the stove. One would never have guessed that four young women barely into adulthood were the Riders of the Apocalypse.
“We need to rescue Atsa,” Penelope said by way of good morning. “We’ve had sufficient time to rest and recover.”
“Minor problem,” Willow said. “Have you figured out how we’re going to do that?”
Penelope frowned, and Dynah patte
d her sister on the back as she leaned over the table and poured coffee into mugs for each of them. “With our powers. We’ll figure something out.”
“Yes, I think we will,” Willow said. She paused to sip her coffee and it steamed up around her face. “After we’ve learned more about our magic. By either finding someone to help us, or figuring out that spell in Sekhmet’s book.”
Felicity’s awareness shifted to the book, to where it sat in her cloak pocket, right up against her hip. Sometimes, it seemed to emanate heat when she turned her thoughts to it.
“So, you think we should just leave Atsa in another realm for even longer? With nothing but darkness and a goddess of spiders?” Penelope’s dark eyes bored into Willow’s green ones.
“I’m not saying it makes me happy,” Willow retorted. “But I don’t see what choice we have. No point going to rescue him if we can’t in fact rescue him.”
Penelope crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Willow.
“We wouldn’t want to get his hopes up,” Felicity interjected. She rested her clasped hands on the table. “If we’re not sure we can do it yet.” She offered Penelope an apologetic smile.
“I think Felicity is right,” Dynah added over her shoulder as she flipped eggs in the skillet.
“Of course you do,” Penelope mumbled.
Felicity turned her head to look at Penelope. What was that supposed to mean? “I’ve been studying the book,” she said, trying to avert the subject in a more positive direction. “I just need to find someone to help me understand some things.”
“What things?” Penelope asked.
“Well, it mentions in the spell things about the moon that I don’t quite understand. And there are items you need to perform the spell—materials I’m unfamiliar with.”
“I think we need someone who can help us figure out our powers in general. Not just our powers as Riders, but this elemental magic,” Dynah said. “Who knows, maybe we have other powers, too, but just don’t know it yet.” She shrugged.
The Riders fell silent as Dynah began placing eggs onto plates. She had cut slices of thick brown bread as well; all things Willow had managed to obtain in a nearby town. A town abandoned because of the chaos of the Apocalypse. They hadn’t tried to return to Hawk’s Hollow, the spark point of it all. It had been an unspoken agreement between them. None of them were ready to go back there.
Felicity shivered. She didn’t know if her parents were alive, and further, she didn’t know how that made her feel. Her father had been decent to her, if not very present, but her mother…she felt relieved to be rid of her mother, and with that came waves of black guilt that threatened to swallow her whole.
When Dynah set a plate of food in front of her, she dug in immediately to distract herself. “Thank you,” she murmured. The salt and heat of the egg hit her tongue, and she followed that with a small bite of the bread.
“Of course,” Dynah said, shooting her a look of concern from under her long lashes.
“Well, I think we should go see my grandmother again,” Penelope said before taking a big bite of her eggs. “If we’re not going to rescue Atsa.”
“Or we could try Sassafras and Indigo,” Willow added. Her fork made a loud scrape across her plate. “They seemed willing to help.”
“I think we should see Nascha first,” Dynah said. “The Navajo are close, plus we might not be able to find Sassafras again so easily. She might have moved camp by now.”
Felicity nodded, and she saw Willow nod, too.
“Okay, then. Let’s get mounted up after breakfast,” Penelope said.
They finished quietly and hurriedly, and a half hour later they had the horses saddled up and ready to go. Felicity mounted and ran a hand down Music’s sleek black shoulder. The mare looked perfectly normal when she was just standing here, when they weren’t summoning their powers as Riders. No galaxies swirling within the depths of her dark coat. No rips in time and space when they galloped.
It might have taken normal riders and normal horses the better part of an hour to ride down out of the canyon, and another few hours to cross the plains traveling south to Navajo territory. But of course, they were not ordinary. And they could cover ground with a quickness.
The horses leaped off the canyon’s edge where the cabin was situated and spiraled like birds of prey out to the plains. When solid ground fell beneath their hooves, they moved across it like a cyclone. Burned it up, eating an enormous stretch of landscape with every stride. And so, it was not very long at all before they reached the outskirts of the Navajo reservation. Penelope took the lead and guided them toward the small settlement where her grandmother lived.
They had almost reached the cluster of hogans that Nascha called home when Felicity felt a prickle up her spine. She thought for a moment it was merely the wind, but the heaviness in her gut told her otherwise. Pulling back on Music’s reins, she pivoted in her saddle and looked behind her.
At first she saw only a large cloud of dust coming toward them from about a mile away. It moved rapidly, too rapidly to be natural. Music snorted and pawed the ground. When it was a few hundred yards away, the cloud slowed and the dust dissipated. Felicity cupped one hand over her eyes to see through the mid-morning sun.
From out of the dust, four riders emerged. Their horses were red, white, black, and pale.
Chapter Two
Penelope
Penelope’s heart thudded to a stop as she looked at the four riders fanned out in front of them. A flaming rider sat on the red horse, carrying a sword. One with a crossbow sat on the pure white horse. The rider on the black horse held a metal scale in one hand. And the rider on the pale horse wore a cloak of deepest black.
It could mean only one thing.
They had been replaced.
The color of the horses and the items the riders carried weren’t the only clues. These other Riders looked like each of them, except for the faces. The faces were strangely blank, with only impressions of eyes, a nose, and a mouth. As if they had been formed sloppily from wet clay and left to dry that way. Penelope shivered in horror.
She didn’t have time to observe them further. The copies of them pulled coils of glowing rope from beneath their cloaks. Penelope remembered such weapons all too well. It was the same material used by the bounty hunter who had captured them for the angels. The one who they found out later was Willow’s father. It suppressed their magic as Riders so they couldn’t fight back.
It didn’t, however, work on their elemental powers. Felicity stretched out a hand and sent the earth rolling toward them, like a wave on the ocean. Willow called to her counterpart’s sword and it came flying through the air toward them.
Their opponents’ horses leapt into the air to avoid Felicity’s attack. And then, hovering over them, the Felicity copy reached out and sent three pillars of dirt shooting straight into the air around them. Domino reared and Penelope clung to his neck. Willow wasn’t so lucky, and one of the columns of earth knocked her off Bullet. Moon bolted and Music went to her knees as the ground shook around them.
How was this happening?
And then, in sobering clarity, she knew. Sassafras had told them that each set of Riders had the collective knowledge and power of all the Riders who came before. Which meant that these Others had their elemental powers, as well as everything else.
Penelope watched as the sword Willow had claimed went flying back to her copy, along with her own blade, and her Colt pistol. Then Felicity convulsed in her saddle, doubling over. A few yards away, Dynah did the same on Moon. Penelope’s eyes traveled from the outstretched hands of the Willow copy to her friends. It was the corsets, she realized. The other Rider was using the metal in their corsets to crush them.
Since there was no night sky at her disposal, and her powers as Pestilence weren’t helpful in this situation, Penelope pulled her bow and fired several arrows at the copy of Willow. The Others cast them aside easily. So, she did the only other thing she could think of. She le
t out a scream and rode straight for the enemy.
The other Willow’s concentration broke, and she turned her attention to her attacker. Domino galloped straight for them. Penelope didn’t see the flash of the sword until it was almost too late. She jerked Domino’s reins and shifted her weight in the saddle, veering to the side and ducking beneath the swing of the blade.
Her abrupt shift in weight at high speed made Domino stumble. The Others surrounded her. They rode in, pressing closer and closer. Penelope could see the whites of Domino’s eyes as he snorted in fear. Penelope’s copy reached out a gloved hand for her, and somehow Penelope knew that if she touched her, it would be all over. Her magic. Her life. She had no way to escape. She watched the melted wax face of her copy as it reached out to claim her.
A wind dropped out of the sky then, kicking up sand and bearing down on them like a train. Penelope heard a voice riding on it, and turning her head, squinted her eyes against the maelstrom of dust.
Nascha walked toward them, both arms raised. Her silver hair flew free behind her, her dark eyes burned with power. The words of the Navajo fell from her tongue. With each step she took, the Others retreated. As she drew closer, Penelope could see that her outstretched hands trembled with power. The gazes of all four copies pressed into her, but she did not blink, did not stop her advance. Her words grew louder and louder, booming across the land like thunder.
A final wall of wind burst toward them, and Penelope was sure it would knock her over, but it moved right past her into the Others. They turned their mounts and galloped north. A moment later, there was a pulse of green light and they vanished.
Penelope turned to her grandmother, trembling and awestruck. “How did you do that?”
Nascha’s lips turned up in a grim smile. “It is a spell of protection for our people. A ward against those who seek harm from setting foot on these lands.” She gestured to the small cluster of hogans behind them, the home of the Gray-Streaked Dawn Clan.
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