War (The Four Horsemen, #2)(8)

With a jerk of his reins, War turns around and rides out of the camp, and I’m left to figure out the situation alone.

By the time the sun is setting, my wrists are bound behind my back and I’m forced to wait in a line alongside other similarly bound individuals.

I don’t know if this is what War had envisioned for his wife when he dropped me off, but it feels about right.

The other captives have trickled in throughout the day. There’s maybe a hundred of us; we probably amount to a fraction of a fraction of the city’s total population. And the rest of the city …

When I close my eyes, I see them. All of those people who breathed only a day ago now lay dead in the street, food for scavengers.

For a long time the line of us just stands there. A huge man a couple meters in front of me is trembling uncontrollably, probably from shock. I can see blood splatter across his back.

Who did he lose?

Stupid question. The answer must be everyone. The only difference these days is who everyone includes. A wife? Parents? Children? Siblings? Friends?

One of my clients once told me that there were over fifty members of his extended family. Did they all die today?

The thought brings bile to the back of my throat.

My attention sweeps over our surroundings. Most of the other captives in line are male. Male and noticeably athletic. I search for another female amongst us. There are a few. Too few for my taste. And all of them are young and pretty, the best I can tell. A couple of the women cling to children, and that is another shock to my system. I don’t know what sickens me more—that these small families are now at the mercy of these savages, or that there must be countless more left behind in Jerusalem …

I close my eyes.

Always knew this day would come. The day when the Four Horsemen finished what they started.

But knowing couldn’t prepare me for the reality of it. The bodies, the blood, the violence.

This is some sick nightmare.

“I’m going to enjoy you later.”

I blink my eyes open just in time to see a man pointing his blade at me, his free hand moving to his crotch.

It takes a mountain of effort not to react.

My mind flashes to all the pretty women in line.

What is this camp planning on doing with them?

With us?

A chorus of screams interrupt the thought. The crude man’s attention is drawn away, towards the front of the line where the screams are coming from.

The man flashes me a mean smile, backing away. “I’ll have you soon enough,” he promises.

I stare at him a long time, memorizing his features. Long face, the beginnings of a beard, and dark, receding hair.

My gaze moves over the other men guarding us. They all have a mean look to them, like they’d rob you and rape you if the opportunity arose.

“Move! Move!” one of the soldiers shouts.

The line of us shuffles forward.

A ways in front of me, another prisoner leans over and vomits. A couple of the soldiers laugh at him. And the screams, those piercing, terrible screams, they continue intermittently, followed by the camp’s boisterous heckling.

I can’t see ahead to whatever’s going on; there’s too many people and tents in the way, but it turns my stomach nonetheless. There’s a peculiar agony to waiting when you know something bad is coming for you at the end of it.

It’s not until I move around a bend in the line that I get a view of what that bad thing is.

Ahead of me, there’s a large clearing free of tents and shrubbery. Standing in the middle of it is a man holding a bloody sword. A captive kneels in front of him. They’re talking, but I can’t quite make out what they’re saying. All around them, men and women ring the space, watching with hungry, avid eyes.

Sitting on a dais a short distance away and overseeing it all is War.

My heart lurches at the sight of him. This is the first time I’ve seen him since he captured me.

The man with the sword grabs the captive’s hair, dragging my attention back to the two of them. Now I can hear the captive’s cries.

They seem to fall on deaf ears. The man with the sword pulls his blade back, and with one clean swing of the weapon, he beheads the captive.

I turn my face into my shoulder, breathing against the cloth of my shirt to keep my rising sickness at bay.

Now I understand the screams and the nausea.

The prisoners are being culled.

It takes an agonizing thirty minutes for me to move near the front of the line. In that thirty minutes I’ve seen several more captives die, though many have walked free.

The huge man I saw earlier, the one who trembled uncontrollably, is now at the front of the line.

Someone grabs him roughly, leading him to the center of the clearing before pushing him to his knees. He’s no longer shaking, but you can practically smell his fear tinging the air.

For the first time, I make out the executioner’s words over the noise and distance.

“Death or allegiance?” he asks the kneeling man.

Suddenly I understand. We’re being given the option to join this army … or to die.

My eyes swing over all the people standing around. They must’ve all chosen allegiance. Even though they might’ve watched the horseman kill their loved ones and burn down their towns.

It’s unfathomable.

I won’t become the very thing I fought against today.