War (The Four Horsemen, #2)(83)

I can’t look at the fallen couple who spent their final minutes trying to relay my message.

Outside, the soldier is trying to yank my arrow out of her flesh. I shoot her again, this time in the leg.

She screams, half in pain and half in anger. “What the fuck are you doing?” she accuses, clearly recognizing me.

I lean over her and grab the arrows from her quiver, adding them to my own supply. Just in case I run low.

“I’m trying to save humanity, asshole.”

With that I stalk back inside and kick the door shut.

I’m going to die today.

That thought has crossed my mind during pretty much every battle, but today it settles on me with cold certainty. A macabre part of me wants to know what War would think about that. He seems to care a great deal about my wellbeing, but he doesn’t love me, and he doesn’t mind death, and he’s brought me into battle once again despite how dangerous it is.

Would he mourn me?

He might, I think.

I head back over to the desk and grab the scribbled messages from where they lay. Between the husband and wife, they managed to get two more notes written. I take them both and fold them up, cramming them into tubes attached to the back of the first two pigeons I reach. Clutching the birds close, I rush back outside.

The soldier I shot is still there, leaning against the wall, trying to remove my arrows.

“What you’re doing is pointless,” she huffs, watching me as she works.

“Yeah, right back atcha,” I say, eyeing her futile efforts to remove the arrowheads.

I release the birds, watching them rise into the morning air. I don’t linger long enough to see whether or not they make it out of the city. I think it might crush the last bit of my hope if I saw them fall.

I head back inside. There are five more birds in the cage. Between three people, we’ve only managed to release three birds.

I grab the pen and paper from where the woman dropped them, and I begin to scribble out the same message I instructed the couple to write.

It’s an odd sensation, fighting against the horseman—fighting against God Himself, apparently. This is about the time that people pray. Instead, I’m trying to sabotage War’s efforts. I don’t know where that puts me on the scale from good to evil. I always assumed good was synonymous with God. I don’t know now. But this feels right. I have to assume that’s worth something.

I miraculously manage to get two more birds out with messages before a phobos rider hops through the window.

Our eyes lock and a bolt of recognition shoots through me.

Uzair, the man who caught me spying on War and who caught me killing another phobos rider.

“You,” he says. He stalks towards me.

My bow is resting over my shoulder and my dagger is still holstered. Before I can reach for either, Uzair grabs me by the hair and yanks me forward. I stumble, yelping when a clump of hair rips free. My hands go to my head, my eyes pricking at the blinding pressure on my scalp.

“What are you doing?” I demand. But I already know.

This is about the phobos rider I killed back in Arish. It might also be about the second rider that War killed, the one who challenged the horseman when he removed me from the lineup of traitors.

Without answering me, Uzair drags me outside, where smoke from several burning buildings now obscures the morning light.

I knew I had a rocky relationship with War’s phobos riders, but I didn’t realize it was this bad. They are, after all, relentlessly devoted to their leader.

I guess that devotion doesn’t extend to me.

Hussain had warned me to watch my back. I just hadn’t listened carefully enough.

Uzair throws me into the street. As I hit the ground, I hear an ominous wooden crack come from one of my weapons.

Please let that be one of my arrows. Anything but the bow.

“Get up, you filthy bitch,” Uzair demands.

Gritting my teeth, I push myself to my feet.

“Eating our food, sleeping in our camp,” he says, prowling towards me. “Sucking the warlord’s cock.”

He closes in on me and, pulling a fist back, he swings. I stumble out of the way, just barely managing to avoid the hit.

“Just because War won’t let you suck it himself doesn’t mean you have to get jealous.” I’m goading him. I don’t care.

The phobos rider comes at me again. Swinging once, twice, three times. I evade the hits—each by a hair’s breadth.

“I was hoping I’d come across you,” he says. “I thought you’d be smart enough to stay away from the fighting. It’s so easy to die out here.”

His meaning is clear: it’s so easy to make you disappear.

And it really is. People don’t pay that much attention. Everyone else is busy killing or saving themselves. It was sheer bad luck that this man caught me killing his comrade during the last battle.

I grab War’s dagger and unsheathe it.

Uzair smirks at the sight. He pulls his own sword out, which is much bigger and longer.

Fuck me.

In fighting as in sex, bigger tends to be better.

Never going to win this way.

My eyes sweep over the street—over the combatants and the carnage. Far in the distance, I see War. He’s hard to miss on his red steed. But this far away he can’t possibly recognize me in my black pants and dusty shirt. I’m just another civilian about to die.