War (The Four Horsemen #2) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,78

are screaming or lying dead in the road. In an instant, my trade with the horseman feels like foolishness. Like too little too late.

I move inward, passing a burning mosque and a café whose outdoor tables have all been overturned. I run past shops and apartment buildings, past the dead who will be cruelly re-animated before the day is done.

Three blocks up the battle is raging. Many of the soldiers around me rush forward, heading directly into the fray. I move a little slower, trying to remember the directions Zara gave me. I need to eventually find my way to the west end of the city, in case she needs some help.

I’m not even halfway there when I hit the thick of the fighting. Soldiers on horses are cutting down everyone. People are screaming, fleeing—it’s all becoming horribly repetitive.

I notice a soldier grab a woman in a burka, a knife at her throat. He fumbles at her clothing, trying to lift it up. All that modest clothing, all her piety—it hasn’t saved her from this. War made it forbidden to rape in his camp, but he hasn’t forbidden this.

In the next instant, my bow is in my hand. I reach behind me, pulling an arrow from my quiver, nocking it in place.

I remember those demanding hands on me. I remember what it felt like to get pawed at. To feel my clothing ripped open. The fear and humiliation that this was happening to me and that I was helpless to stop it.

I don’t even realize I’ve aimed and fired until the arrow cleaves through the soldier’s back, the tip of it bursting through his chest. The woman, who’d been sobbing and begging, now screams at the sight. The soldier stumbles to the ground, and the woman manages to get away.

I lower my bow, my breathing hoarse. Sweat is beginning to bead on my face. For a moment, I can’t seem to remember myself.

Find Zara.

I blink several times. Right. I sling my bow over my shoulder and run.

Chapter 30

It takes far longer to cross the city than I anticipated. The streets are utterly congested with fighting—if you can call it that. It’s more like seek and destroy; Arish’s civilians run, and War’s army chases them down.

I make it to the ocean, and my heart stops at the sight of it. All that crystalline blue water looks like something from a dream.

Or a memory.

My lungs pound. The sunlight above me grows dim even as I struggle.

I open my mouth to cry for help.

The water rushes in—

I shake the memory off and continue on, following a street that runs alongside the beach. As I move, I see people swimming in the sea … and I see that some soldiers have headed out after them. There are a few boats that speckle the water, a disappointing number of them capsized, likely by the very people who are currently bobbing out there with the waves. Everyone wants to be saved.

“Miriam! Miriam!”

I turn at the panicked sound of my name, and there’s Zara.

We’re nowhere near the westernmost end of the city. That in and of itself is enough for my unease to grow. But it’s the sight of her slumped against a beachside building, her headscarf in tatters around her shoulders, that truly has me concerned.

I sprint over to her.

It’s only as I get close that I see the limp little boy cradled in her arms, an arrow jutting from his chest.

Oh no.

I slide on my knees to her side.

“I couldn’t save them,” she weeps, bowing her head over the toddler’s body. “I couldn’t save any of them.”

My stomach turns at the sight of the wounded toddler in her arms; he must be her nephew. Someone did this to a little boy. They shot him in the chest like his life meant nothing.

“They’d already come through by the time I arrived,” she sobs.

We’re coming from the east, leaving civilians only true escape to the west, one of War’s soldiers said when they were strategizing their attack It might be best to split the army and come at it from both ends.

War’s soldiers must’ve done exactly that.

“I’m so sorry, Zara.” I hadn’t even thought to warn her of this—not that it would’ve done much good. I’m sure she rode as fast as she could to get to her family. If she was too late, there was never a chance for them to begin with.

I feel tears well in my eyes as I glance down at the toddler.