Besides, I felt an incessant pull toward something that could only behim. And that pull was leading me unerringly onward and deeper into these mountains. I shuddered at the reminder of my Chosen, but I wasn’t sure if it was a shudder of dread or desire. Either way, I despised both emotions.
I rested the tip of my bloody sword on the ground and wiped away the blood splattering my face. Looking at my friends and fellow fighters, I saw the same weariness in their eyes that had to reside in mine. Every battle was one step closer to freedom, but this one had cost us more lives, and all those lives weighed heavily on our shoulders.
“Well, that was fun,” Lix muttered as he straightened his blood-splattered, blue tie with rainbows and unicorns on it.
He bent to pick up his baseball cap and smooshed it onto his skull. A red B was on the front of the hat. I didn’t know what it stood for, and I didn’t care.
Despite his words, Lix wasn’t as jovial as he usually was after a battle. There was a time when he and his fellow skelleins would charge happily into a fight with their swords raised, their teeth chattering eagerly, and their bones clacking as they ran. There was also a time when there were alotmore skelleins.
Now, Lix was all that remained of the skelleins in the Wilds. Four others lived at the wall, and there were more on the other side of the world, but he was alone out here with us. Although he would never admit it, I suspected the endless fighting had also robbed him of some of his joviality.
Lix planted the tip of his sword in the ground and leaned against it. He crossed his bony legs, uncapped his flask, and drank whatever alcohol was inside.
Shax ran a hand through his golden blond hair as he studied the carnage. “Let’s get our own buried.”
We didn’t speak as we worked to bury the humans. By now, it was so commonplace no one had to talk, and we finished in less than an hour.
“Now what?” Amalia asked.
“I say we find some more and kill them too,” Lix said as he took another swig of alcohol.
“I say we find someplace to clean up and rest,” Magnus said.
“Or we could do that,” Lix said. “I like that idea better.”
Chapter Five
Wrath
“The enemy is nearby,”Death said.
I didn’t bother to lift my head from my work on polishing the blade of Bale’s sword. “And?”
“There are a couple dozen of them,” Death replied.
“Do you think we could take them?”
“We are without War and Pride.”
“We are.”
I set aside Bale’s sword and lifted my head to look at my fellow horsemen. Death wore the black clothes and cape he discovered when we arrived on Earth. Behind the seals and in Hell, we didn’t wear clothes. On Earth, we adapted to the style of the humans who once ruled it.
I didn’t understand why we’d done this, considering none of us really gave much consideration to the humans. They were an afterthought, a mere nuisance on this plane whose life and death cycle was a vital part of my survival. I didn’t wish them dead or locked away somewhere; I simply wanted them to stay out of my way and continue with their lives so mine could continue too.
I’d never paused to think about why any of us started wearing their clothing once here, but we all had, except for Lust. At first, I refused to wear anything. Then I found some things I liked, and after a while, the others found somethings they liked too. I was naked about as often as I wore clothes, but I was gradually wearing them more.
“We do not require the others,” Death said. “The enemy has recently battled some lower-level demons; they are tired and battered. We will be able to destroy them.”
I lifted an eyebrow at this bold statement coming from the head cradled in the crook of his arm. Death was broad through his shoulders, and though he had white ligaments running over the top of his head, his skull and fingers were skinless. His thighs and torso were also full.
The white of his skull gleamed in the fire dancing across my fingertips as his greenish-blue eyes, the color of rotting flesh, stared at me. Over his shoulder, his pale horse also stared at me from the two red orbs in its bony head. Death lifted his head, and, gripping it in both hands, he brought it down on top of the spine sticking up from his neck. With a sharp crack, he twisted it into place.
“Were you spying on them?” I asked.
I kept my irritation over this revelation hidden. If he had told me he was going to spy on the palitons, I would have gone with him to see them—to seeher.
“No,” Death said. “One of the beasts who attacked them escaped. I ran into him in the woods. By the time I found the battle site, the palitons were gone. We can track them.”
