War (The Four Horsemen Book 2) Page 9

  Nausea rolls through me. That’s the man I’m dealing with. A horseman who has already killed off countless. A horseman who enjoys the carnage.

  As soon as we near the opening of War’s tent, the phobos rider steps aside, leaving me to enter alone.

  Inside, War sits on a chair, his fingers steepled and pressed to his mouth.

  When he sees me, the horseman’s eyes come alive. My heart stutters a little at the sight.

  Out of fear, not flattery. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

  The horseman stands and comes up to me, and he’s just as intimidating as ever. He reaches out to touch me, but I flinch away before he can.

  Things are different now.

  War frowns. “You slept in my arms only two days ago, and now you can’t bear my touch?”

  If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the horseman sounded a tad wounded.

  “I didn’t mean to sleep next to you,” I say.

  “Didn’t you though?” he throws back at me. “I lavished your bed as best as I could, and still you came for me.”

  “Stop rewriting what happened,” I snap.

  He steps in close. “Am I?”

  “I wouldn’t knowingly sleep with you,” I say. “Not while you’re butchering my kind.”

  “I am doing what I must, just as you are,” he says. “Can you fault me for it?”

  “Yes.” I damn well can.

  “If you knew what lay on the other side of death,” he says, “you would know it is nothing to fear.”

  “And what about pain?” I add.

  “What about it?”

  “If you don’t care about the fact that you’re killing us, what about the pain you’re causing us?”

  “Your kind only feel it for a short while.”

  I stare at him. He doesn’t get it. Pain is pain, and death is the end—maybe we go on in some other form, but it is an end. Our bodies die, and all those earthly hopes and dreams die along with it. He’s overlooking the fact that there’s worth in life itself.

  I step back. “Why did you call me to your tent?”

  “The fight tomorrow is not for you,” he says. “You are to stay here, in my tent. I will have all the amenities you might need.

  Ah, so he is happy to kill people, but when it comes to me, he doesn’t want me touched by his violence.

  Surviving is no longer good enough.

  “What if I want to come along?”

  War’s eyes narrow. He stares at me for a beat too long, and I have to fight the urge to fidget.

  “What mischief are you up to?” he says.

  “Why are you worried?” I say a tad defensively. “What could I possibly do?”

  “You could die.”

  “If you’re so confident God sent me to you, then surely you know He will spare me—or are you unsure after all?”

  The horseman’s mouth curves up. “Challenging me will get you nowhere, wife.”

  “Let me come.” So that I might kill all your loyal killers.

  When he doesn’t respond, my gaze moves to his lips.

  There are other ways of convincing the horseman …

  Adrenaline spikes my bloodstream at just the thought. I know the horseman wants to kiss me. He wants that and undoubtedly more.

  “Please,” I insist, trying again to coax the horseman with my words. “It’s only fitting that”—I hesitate over my next words—“your wife should be out there fighting alongside you.”

  He scrutinizes me, but I swear he looks a touch convinced. His eyes drop to my lips, gazing at my mouth the same way I was gazing at his just moments ago.

  Victory is within reach; all I have to do is—

  Before I can think twice about it, I wrap my hand around the back of War’s neck, my fingers brushing against that dark, wavy hair of his. I was sure it would feel coarse—like the rest of him—but it’s soft. So soft.

  War’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly at my touch.

  Standing up on my tiptoes, I press my lips to his. The kiss is over before it’s barely begun—I’m not even sure something this brief could be called a kiss. Nonetheless, the horseman looks thunderstruck from it. Thunderstruck and hungry.

  My hand slides from his neck and my heels touch the ground. “You’ll get another one if you agree to let me fight.”

  War’s eyes are alight with want as he studies me. “I knew you were going to be trouble.” He looks away and runs a hand down his jaw. “This makes me twice as reluctant to let you go tomorrow. And yet …”

  He turns back to me, a fierce edge to his features.

  “Paruv Eziel ratowejiwa we, pei auwep ror.”

  God’s hand protects you, but mine cannot.

  My entire body shivers as the words pass through me, my knees weakening from the sound of them. The affect lingers for several seconds before dissipating away.

  “What was that?” I say, rubbing my arm.

  “Angelic—my native tongue.” He gives me an intense look. “Tomorrow I will not be able to shield you from battle. You will have to keep yourself safe.”

  Holy crap, is he really going for this? Only minutes ago he seemed convinced I should stay out of the fray. Who would’ve known some cajoling and an itsy bitsy kiss could change all that carefully calculated consideration?

  “So is that a yes?”

  Instead of answering me, War reels me in, tilting my face up. Before I fully know what he’s doing, his mouth is back on mine.

  His kiss isn’t anything like the one I gave him. I know it the moment our lips crash together. This kiss is raw desire, and it cuts me wide open. I haven’t been truly kissed in over a year, and even that experience pales to this one. War’s lips burn against mine as he crushes me to him.

  My knees were already weak from his earlier words, but now they completely give out, and it’s his grip alone that keeps me standing.

  The horseman smiles against my mouth, more than aware of his effect on me.

  His need is sparking my own. I kiss him back—I don’t think I could do anything but kiss him back in this moment.

  I’m going to pay for this later … but right now I don’t really give two shits. I’ve forgotten what self-control feels like.

  War parts my lips with his own, and suddenly his tongue is pressing against mine. His body feels like sin, but he tastes like heaven.

  My hands move back into that soft hair of his, and my core is on fire. If this is what his kiss does to me, I can’t imagine what everything else would feel like.

  I don’t know who ends the kiss, but eventually our lips part.

  I stagger out of War’s arms. Now I’m the one who’s gobsmacked. I stare at his mouth.

  My God, I’ve never so badly wanted someone I disliked. But then again, here’s another side of War I’m only beginning to see—the reckless, passionate warlord.

  War breathes heavily, that overwhelming body of his heaving with the action. I thought he might flash me one of his mocking smiles; he knows exactly what he did to me. Instead, he steps towards me, his expression determined, clearly ready to resume that kiss.

  I take a halting step back. “I can’t.”

  The correct response should’ve been no, but the truth is, I want to kiss the horseman back. It’s embarrassing how much I want that.

  His gaze is fixed back on my lips.

  “Why,” he says. It’s hardly a question.

  I take a deep breath, beating back my lust. One day my vagina might stage a coup and overpower my brain—but that day won’t be today.

  My eyes meet War’s. “Because tomorrow you’re still going to ride out with your army, and it’s going to break my heart.”

  Chapter 12

  We assemble before dawn.

  It’s a quiet, somber thing. I’d like to think that the soldiers around me are just as pained at the thought of killing innocents as I am, but I don’t know.

  I’m one of several hundred who’s given a horse. The rest of the army is heading in on foot
—well except for the few men and women who are manning the giant carts they’ll bring into the city, carts that will eventually return to camp stacked with stolen goods.

  The soldiers have me wait off to the side of the army procession, just like last time I left camp. And like last time, I hear the pounding hoof beats of War’s horse cut through the early morning air. War rides out of the darkness, the torchlight making him look particularly menacing.

  I stare at his blood red horse. Deimos, he called the creature.

  War stops when he gets to me.

  “Stay safe,” he says, his voice as serious as I’ve ever heard it.

  “Try not to kill too many people,” I respond.

  A smile curves his lips. “There’s no such thing as too many.”

  Ugh.

  “Farewell, wife. We’ll meet again on the battlefield.”

  With that, War rides to the head of the procession. The soldiers who can see him lift their weapons and torches and whoop.

  Idiots.

  Slowly, the entire army begins to move. I slip into line along with the rest of them, my nerves ratcheting up. The lot of us are heading into Ashdod, a city nestled along the coast of New Palestine. Home to many, many people.

  The ride in is unnaturally quiet. No one speaks with each other, so the only sound is the fall of hoof beats and footsteps. Dozens of soldiers carry torches, and the firelight illuminates their somber faces.

  On one side of my waist is War’s sheathed dagger and on the other is a sword I lifted earlier. It’s a bit too heavy and the edge is fairly dull, but I’m going to need to use it anyway if I’m going to throw myself into the fray.

  I feel my resolve hardening into place.

  Rule One has always been: bend the rules—but don’t break them. But if the rules are wrong, then they need to be broken. They need to be smashed to fucking pieces.

  And today I’m going to do just that.

  War’s army takes out the aviaries first.

  As soon as I enter the town, I can hear the birds’ shrill cries. Fire already engulfs several buildings, and in one of them, there are birds trapped inside. All around me people are fighting and screaming and fleeing and dying, but it’s the sound of those birds’ cries that truly chills me.

  To attack the aviaries is akin to cutting off any and all warnings that could be passed along to the outside world.

  I assumed War met with his men to talk about battle strategy, but I hadn’t actually thought about what that strategy might look like.

  A lone bird soars through the air, its form partially obscured by the plumes of smoke rising from the burning city. I dare to hope that it escaped the fire, that it’s carrying a warning someone managed to scribble out before it was too late. I hope that it’s heading somewhere that hasn’t already been hit by War.

  And I hope that the bird actually gets there.

  Go, I silently cheer it on.

  It has a fighting chance, it really does.

  But then I see a few archers on a nearby roof. I see those soldiers cock their bows and aim. And then I see them release their arrows. There must be a dozen of them arcing through the sky.

  Most miss the bird, but one hits the creature square in the chest. It tumbles out of the sky, and I feel my hope plunge with that bird.

  There will be no warnings to pass along, just as we weren’t warned. We’ll all just fight and die and War will move on to destroy more cities until the entire world is gone.

  We’re facing a mass extinction, and we’re not going to survive it.

  Chapter 13

  It’s awful. The things I see.

  The bodies, the blood, the needless violence. But the worst, the absolute worst, are the faces of the civilians as they lose everything all at once.

  Some of them don’t even run. They see the lives they built for themselves torn down, and they stand in the streets and simply weep. All of these people survived a civil war. They’ve seen destruction and violence sweep through once already. And for a second time, they have to endure it. Some of them simply give up. If the world is this hard to live in, it’s not worth living in.

  I ride through the city on my horse, my heart in my throat.

  Buildings are utterly engulfed in flame. Worse yet, Ashdod happens to be a city that people flocked to after the Arrival, and the shantytowns I ride past appear to be even more flammable than the older buildings. It’s nothing but a wall of red-orange flame; even the ground seems to burn in these newer, more desperate neighborhoods, and I can hear the horrible dying screams of those trapped inside.

  I stop my horse, my eyes scouring the landscape. I’ve been so set on fighting War’s army that I’ve forgotten that I can still help people live. Isn’t that the ultimate goal? To survive this apocalypse?

  I catch sight of a mother and the two children she presses close to her, and I can’t not react. That could’ve been me and my family. It once was me and my family.

  I guide my horse to them and hop off, keeping the steed’s reins in my fist.

  The woman’s eyes are pinched shut, like that can shut out the nightmare, and she’s shushing her crying children.

  “You need to get out of the city,” I tell her. When she doesn’t react, I grab her upper arm. She screams and flinches away. “Listen to me,” I snap, shaking her a little.

  Her eyes open at the tone of my voice.

  “Take your kids, get on this horse, and ride as far and as fast from the city as you can. I think the army is heading down the coast, so ride in any direction but that one.”

  She gives me a shaky nod.

  “There should be some food and water in the saddle bags. Not much, but enough to keep you going for a little while. Don’t stop, not until you’re far, far away.”

  When she doesn’t move immediately, I jerk my head to the horse, who’s growing more and more agitated at the violence around us. “Hurry, before they kill us all.”

  The woman seems to snap out of whatever spell she was under, bustling herself and her children towards the horse. Quickly I help her and her children up onto it, and then I hand her the reins.

  “Stay safe,” I say, echoing War’s earlier words.

  With that, she taps the horse’s sides and Thunder—or whoever that horse is—takes off. I stare at them for several seconds, watching them ride away. I have a terrible feeling in my gut that they are no better off than that bird that escaped the aviaries. That within a mile or two, they too will be shot down.

  I hope not. I can’t bear the thought of that family getting torn apart like mine was.

  The sounds of war drift in—the screaming, the shouting, the weeping, and amongst it all, the wet slap of bodies being sliced open.

  I pull out my sword.

  Be brave.

  I turn just as a man aims a long-barreled gun at me. At the sight of it, I freeze.

  My heart is in my throat.

  I haven’t seen one of those in months. But I remember guns, and I know what flesh looks like when a bullet tears through it.

  I take in the man’s white shirt and pajama bottoms. He was probably sleeping when we came riding through—and now he’s fighting for his life. There’s blood splatter on his shirt, and shit, I really don’t want to fight him, I want to help him.

  “Please,” I say raising a hand to placate him. “I’m not going to—”

  I don’t see the man’s finger move, but I hear the gun blast. Metal shrieks as part of the gun explodes, blowing away the owner’s face.

  At the sight of him, I cover my mouth with the back of my hand, forcing down my nausea.

  This is why people stopped using guns. These days, firearms had a nasty habit of jamming. You were more likely to kill yourself than you were to end an enemy.

  I only have a few seconds to process the fact that the man’s dead and I’m not before I’m swept along on the tide of the fight.

  Over the next couple hours, there are others who I help in the melee. I’m not entirely sure it makes mu
ch of a difference. I want to keep saving innocent people—and I will—but it’s hard to see the point when they are so overwhelmed by soldiers. It’s War’s army that truly needs to be stopped.

  The army’s wagons roll through the town, and marauding soldiers load them up with goods. Sacks of grain, jugs of water and whatever spirits they can get their hands on. Dried fruit, nuts, farm animals—which they will promptly butcher because chickens and goats don’t travel well.

  What isn’t being sacked is being burned to the ground. The entire city seems to be on fire.

  Ahead of me, my eyes fall on a dead soldier, a bow and a mostly full quiver still strapped to his back.

  I stare at the items for several seconds. The bow is big—made for a man of stature—and the grip will be unfamiliar, but there it is. I’m far better with a bow and arrow than I am with a blade. And a weapon like that would give me the ability to injure enemies rather covertly.

  Without another moment’s hesitation, I run for it, ducking and swerving to avoid the battles raging in the street.

  I slide to my knees at the side of the fallen man. His blood is running like a river from a head wound. I try not to look at him any more closely as I begin to pry the bow and quiver from his body.

  I have the bow over my shoulder when a woman on horseback charges down the street, and I have to roll out of the way so that her steed doesn’t trample me. A moment later, I’m back at the man’s side, lugging his quiver away from his body, the arrows rattling within it.

  I’ve got it!

  The quiver is fitted for a much bigger torso and the bow is heavy and strange in my hand, but I have them both!

  Now I run, my eyes scanning the streets for a good building to perch myself inside. There’s not much to choose from, considering that most of the city is burning, but I spot a few buildings that are resisting the flames.

  I sprint for one of them, a three story structure that must’ve once held offices or apartments. Finding the stairwell, I take the stairs two at a time. Sweat drips down my skin, and I cough as I breathe in the smoky air.

  On the third floor I head into one of the rooms, which are not offices after all, but apartments. The family inside screams, and an older woman tries to bash my head in with a pot.