I barely register the tears tracking down my face. How did we deserve this? What could we have possibly done to deserve this?
The dead ignore me and War completely. It’s almost surreal, and for an instant, I remember what it was like to watch television. To be like a fly on the wall as some great scene unfolded around you. You watched it, like a specter, but you were never touched by it.
I force myself to my feet. In a trance, I pull my bow off my shoulder, and grab an arrow. And I begin to shoot the newly dead.
A mother, a grandfather, a husband, a daughter, a neighbor. They hardly react to the arrows that cut through them. I keep shooting, even as I cry. I shoot until there are no more arrows left to shoot. And still the dead keep killing.
I pull out my dagger from its holster and stride into the fray. The undead don’t fight me. They part like the Red Sea, moving around me to hunt down more innocents. I can’t seem to even get close enough to them to sink my blade into their flesh.
I want to scream.
“You think I wouldn’t know of your treachery?” War calls out behind me.
I turn to face my heavenly husband, and I’m shaking with all my anger and anguish.
“You hadn’t even left camp when my men told me.” He begins to casually close the distance between us, ignoring the carnage around him, even as blood sprays onto his black clothing. “How my wife slipped away—on my horse no less.”
There is only one thing in this world he will spare, one thing he can’t bear to lose. One way he might stop.
Fear washes through me.
Be brave.
I let him get close. It’s only at the last minute that I bring my dagger to my throat.
War stops, still too far away to make a grab for my weapon, but close enough for him to see it pressed to my skin. His eyes widen, just for a fraction of a second. The horseman didn’t foresee this coming.
“Miriam,” War uses his menacing voice, the one that makes you want to piss yourself. And yet there’s a spark of fear in his eyes.
Right now I’m too reckless to care about either.
“Stop the attack,” I demand.
“I will not be threatened,” he warns.
I dig the knife a little deeper, until I feel a sharp prick and warm blood spills from the wound and down my neck.
The horseman’s eyes follow the line of blood, and now he looks like a man watching sand slip through an hourglass.
But I’m the one running out of time. The screams are quieting now; the dead have overwhelmed the living. It’s not going to last much longer.
“Let them live,” I say. I think I’m back to begging.
He doesn’t.
He doesn’t, and I feel my heart break. I didn’t even know it could be broken. Not by War.
I can’t sway him. We are all truly lost.
I feel my tears coming faster now, each one dripping down my face. It obscures the horseman’s form, which is probably how he manages to close the remaining distance between us.
In an instant, he’s looming in front of me. He wraps a hand around the hilt of my knife and tries to pry it from me. He’s being too gentle, holding his strength back, and rather than forfeiting the knife, I move with it, stumbling into War’s body so that now he’s holding both me and the blade. The edge of it still bites my skin.
“Do it,” I say, goading him. “It was so easy for you to kill them all off. Kill me too.”
Now he does use his inhuman strength. War yanks his old dagger away, and I see fury in his eyes.
“You are mad, wife!” he says.
“You can’t do it,” I say, even though I already knew this. “You’re so sure of your cause, and yet you can’t kill me.”
“Of course I can’t, Miriam. God gave you to me!” he bellows. “Do not squander your life to make a point! I promise you, you won’t get it back.”
“You don’t think I know that?” I say softly.
The horseman grabs me, too angry for words. Deimos has loitered nearby, and War stalks over to the creature, carting me along with him. He hoists me onto his mount.
Only hours ago this man was inside me. I remember his eyes on mine; he stared at me like I was some strange miracle.
That was the dream. This is the reality.
He hasn’t joined me on his horse yet, and I stare down at him as the last of the city falls, their cries going silent, one by one.
“You’re only willing to follow your god when you have nothing to lose,” I say. “But when you do, then you defy him? You’re no tragic savior, you’re a weak-willed monster.”
Chapter 43
We ride in silence for a long time, during which War has tried to touch my neck wound twice, only for me to slap his hand away. It feels too much like giving in, letting the horseman heal me.
“I’m not going to stop trying to warn them,” I say into the darkness. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
“I’ve gathered as much,” he says.
I don’t know what to make of that. But at least the battle lines have now been officially drawn.
“I could kill them all instantly, you know,” War says, out of the blue. “Every town, every nation. Man wouldn’t stand a chance.”
I don’t react. I think I’m numb.
“I used to do such things,” War continues.
I stare out at the dark landscape, repulsion rolling through me.
“I woke about two years ago,” he begins, “right around the southern tip of Vietnam. Back then I had no army, only the dead I raised from the ground. But it was enough. It was more than enough. Every city I came upon was wiped out within hours.”
I lock my jaw to keep myself from telling him what a monster he is all over again. He knows. I can hear it in his voice.
“I don’t kill like that anymore. Despite my battle-lust, there is a part of me—a growing part of me—that takes issue with such tactics.”
So you simply kill us slower, I want to accuse him, but what’s the point? I’d rather not waste breath arguing with War over his method of killing people when what I really take issue with is the fact that he is killing people.
He falls silent again, and the two of us spend the remainder of the journey brooding.
When we arrive back at camp, it’s still dark, still silent as the grave.
I pinch my eyes shut. Don’t think about graves.
A few soldiers on duty watch us curiously as we ride through.
It feels wrong being back here. Like the entire trip was some dark reverie.
War pulls Deimos to a stop in front of his tent. There the undead wait for us, and I quake at the sight of them.
I know what they are truly capable of. I saw it firsthand only hours ago.
War hops off his steed, nearby torchlight making his golden hairpieces glint.
When I don’t follow him down, he reaches up for me and pulls me off the steed himself.
For a second, I think he’s going to bring me into his arms. There’s a look in his eyes, like half an apology, and I almost believe it. But the hug never comes.
He grips my upper arms, his expression fierce. “If you were anyone else, wife,” he says, his voice low, “I would kill you myself for your actions.”
I raise my chin. “Then kill me and let me be free,” I say, my voice hollow.
His hold tightens on me. “Goddamnit, woman,” he says, giving me a shake, “do you not feel a single shred of what I feel for you? I’m telling you this because I couldn’t—I couldn’t ever kill you. I can destroy an entire civilization, but not you, Miriam. Not for a thousand different slights you might visit upon me. I’d sooner cut off my own hand than hurt you.”
I’m blinking back tears all over again, and I’m angry and sad and frustrated and heartbroken all at once.
“Then cut it off,” I snap back at him, feeling the poison of my emotions in my veins. “And while you’re at it, make it your sword arm.”
I know I’m being cruel. Right now I relish it
. It feels good to wound the horsemen when nothing and no one else can.
The words find their mark. War releases me, looking shocked, his eyes more naked than they usually are.
Now that he’s let me go, I turn on my heel and stalk away.
I’ve only made it about five steps when one of the undead lurking nearby trots over, making its way to me. I glare at War over my shoulder.
“You are staying with me tonight, just as you do every other night.” His voice is deep, controlled. Right now, he is one hundred percent the horseman, set to destroy my world.
“Like hell I am,” I say.
The zombie comes in close enough for me to recoil at its smell, but it’s War who closes the distance between us, coming so near his chest brushes mine.
He tilts his head down to me.
“I’m giving you your dignity right now.” War leans in. “And something tells me you still have plenty of dignity left in you. Don’t force my dead to sling you over his shoulder. Now, get in our tent.”
I glare at him for a second or two. My body practically shakes with the need to undermine him. But the horseman’s already proven once tonight that I can’t get away.
I bolt anyway.
Defiance—even fatalistic defiance—feels good.
I don’t get ten meters before one of his undead soldiers runs me down. I’m shoved to the ground, then hauled into the corpse’s arms.
I curse at him, at War, at God, at every other useless person in this camp. I’m mindless with rage. The horseman wiped out an entire city with his will alone. And it was the most awful sight I’ve ever seen.
All because I tried to save them first.
My curses become sobs. The zombie carries me all the way to War’s tent, where the horseman already waits.
“I hate you, you rat bastard,” I say to him as I’m dumped on the ground.
War doesn’t respond. Instead, he moves through his tent, removing every weapon he stores inside his home. He hands each of them to his undead soldier. “Store these in a secure location,” he tells the creature. “And once you’re done, bring hot water for the basin.”
I don’t move from the ground, even as the soldier leaves with War’s things. There are still more weapons in War’s tent, and the horseman continues to strip the room of them until every last one lays in a pile.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I don’t trust you with sharp objects right now.”
So he’s disposing of them.
“That’s smart of you,” I say softly, “because the moment you close your eyes, I will try to skewer you.”
The horseman appears mildly amused as he walks to his table and pours himself a glass of spirits. At least, his expression appears amused. His eyes are serious.
He takes a sip of his drink. “I can rise like my dead. You cannot. Therein lies my problem.”
It takes me a moment to put together the meaning behind his words. When I do, I raise my eyebrows. “You think I’m going to kill myself?”
War watches me, his face inscrutable.
The horseman swallows the rest of his drink down, then he pours another and kneels down in front of me to hand me the glass. When I don’t take it, he sighs and polishes it off himself.
“Why do you care if I kill myself?” I ask, from where I sit. My temper still burns hot, but right now, curiosity is overpowering my hate.
War rises and returns to the table, pouring himself another drink. Once again, he returns to my side and offers it down to me. I hesitate, then stand and take it from him.
“This isn’t a peace offering,” I state. He can’t buy my forgiveness. Not after what I saw and what he did.
“I didn’t intend for it to be one.”
I move to the table and sit down. I don’t know why I’m playing nice at all. War just did the most godawful thing I’ve ever seen. But then everything that’s come after that event has diverged from the appropriate script. I’m supposed to kill him, and he’s supposed to punish me, yet none of that is happening.
War fixes himself another drink, then sits down across from me.
The undead soldier comes back inside the tent, carrying a steaming pitcher of water. Silently, he pours it into the bathtub at the back of the tent, then exits, pausing only to pick up more of the weapons War deposited onto that pile.
“How can you want us all to die?” I ask.
“I don’t want you all to die.”
“Right, it’s your boss who wants us gone.”
“Believe it or not,” War says, looking tired, “there are other creatures on this planet worth saving—creatures that humans have systematically wiped out. Have you ever considered the fact that even if you’re God’s favorite child, you’re not his only one?”
“So you’re doing this for the mosquitos then?” It should be funny, but I’m still so angry I want to throw my drink at the tent wall.
“There have been several extinction events on this planet, Miriam. And before my brothers and I appeared, the world was heading for another—all thanks to humans.”
So we’re being killed off to protect everything else that lives on this rock. I hate that the bastard actually manages to sound altruistic after this evening’s events.
“Your very nature is flawed,” War continues. “Too inquisitive, too selfish. And too brutal. Far too brutal.
“But no, Miriam, I don’t want all humans to die. My very essence was borne of human nature. Without you, there is no me.”
A chill runs down my arms. With every swing of his blade, the horseman is killing himself.
“So you’re not sorry for tonight,” I say.
“I cannot change my task, wife,” his kohl-lined eyes hold an age-old heaviness to them.
“You can decide not to do it,” I say.
“And why should I?” he challenges.
“Because your wife begs you to.”
War stills a little at the word wife. It’s not often that I acknowledge who I am to him. I know he thinks it means that I believe in this strange marriage of ours, and maybe I was coming around to the possibility. But right now I only say it because I know it gets under his skin in a way few other things can.
“Humans have the luxury of being selfish, Miriam—but I don’t.”
It doesn’t feel selfish, trying to spare countless people from slaughter, but I can also tell from the sharp look in War’s eyes that tonight, my words will fall on deaf ears. I’m too emotionally invested, and he’s too adamant about his cause to be swayed.
I take another sip of my drink. The dead soldier has come back inside, carting more hot water to the basin and scooping up another handful of weapons on his way out.
The bath is for me, I know it without even asking. So I finish my drink and leave the table, stripping on my way to the tub. I don’t care what War sees, nor do I care right now if the corpse comes back in and gets an eyeful of boobs. Some of my anger really has ebbed away, but only so that a terrible kind of numbness can set in.
I step into the shallow bath, and I begin to wash myself because I smell like a corpse. I keep my back to the horseman, not interested in seeing him or talking to him or interacting in any sort of manner. Halfway through cleaning myself off, the zombie does come back in and I don’t bother covering myself. It doesn’t matter; his sightless eyes stare at absolutely nothing as he completes his task.
“So is that it, wife?” War’s voice rings out. “You’ll now pretend I don’t exist?”
“That would be impossible,” I say, so quietly I’m not sure he hears it.
The horseman’s chair scrapes back, and I think for an instant he’s going to approach me. After a moment’s pause, however, his footfalls move in the opposite direction. The tent flaps rustle, and then War is gone.
I towel off in the grim silence of the horseman’s tent. I’m exquisitely alone, and yet I can feel the horseman’s eyes everywhere. I know his dead lurk just outside the tent, waiting for me to run.
I toss my towel over a chair and slip into some clean clothes—clothes that someone else washed and dried and folded. Clothes that aren’t mine and don’t feel like mine, just like the rest of this place.
Then I move back to War’s table and I pour myself another drink, my eyes going to the flickering lamplight around me.
War’s a fool if he thinks blades are the only way to die. All this canvas, all these open flames. Fires break out in camp every week. It would be so easy to start one in here and let these flames finish the work they began in that burning building.
But I don’t knock over a lamp or set fire to the walls. I don’t want to die, despite my earlier bravado.
I close my eyes, a tear slipping out, and then I take another drink of the liquor. And then some more. I want to forget every unpleasant memory since the horsemen arrived.
I can’t. I already know I can’t, and getting drunk is only going to make me feel shittier. No amount of alcohol can strip away what I’ve seen. I push away my glass.
I’m living amidst an extinction.
That’s what this is. Only, rather than humans taking the entire world out along with ourselves, the horsemen decided it would just be us who died. Us crappy humans.
Getting up, I slip into War’s bed, ignoring the way it smells like him. My body is weary, my heart is weary, and shortly after I close my eyes, I drift off to sleep.
I’m awoken sometime later by the horseman, who joins me in the bed, one of his arms wrapping around my waist.
I stiffen in his arms. I’m not ready for this.
I try to wriggle away, but he holds me fast in place. He has to strong-arm everything, apparently.
This fucking endless evening.
“You are in my arms, and yet I sense you are far, far away from me,” War says. “I don’t like this distance, wife.”
At least he feels how remote I am. He can stop me from physically leaving his side, but he cannot prevent me from emotionally retreating.
The two of us stay like that for what feels like hours. I don’t think either of us sleep, but we don’t get up either.
A chasm has opened up between us—or maybe it was always there, but now it can’t be ignored.
War (The Four Horsemen Book 2) Page 30
