“War, give our company a warm welcome and bring your brother back to me,” the god says.
The legs of War’s horse are on fire, flames licking over his red coat, and his eyes flash toward me as he throws his head before rearing, eager for the fight.
There’s no way out but past the god and the horseman. I turn and tug Riley away from the horse he’d gone back to. His horse is displeased when I do so, but he doesn’t fight me when I throw Riley onto Quill’s saddle and swing on behind him. I snap thin chains onto my scythes—which will help me retrieve them since I can’t in this state—as War merely watches. It’s like he’s watching a child play on a swing set.
He doesn’t fear me.
He knows that while I might have once been a formidable god, I am now nothing.
But I won’t let them have Riley.
“No, no, no,” Riley yells, trying to leap off Quill to return to his horse. I barely manage to catch him in time and pin him down to Quill’s back.
“Riley, I’m not strong enough to free him. We have to go.”
“No, I can’t go. No, please. I can’t go. Let me stay. Let me stay,” he begs, desperate and delirious.
The god laughs at this display. “See? Even he wants to stay. There’s room for you too, if you’d like. I can lift you back to greatness. Strength doesn’t come just from followers who love you; it can come from followers who fear you too.”
“Riley, you can’t stay,” I say, and I feel the magic welling up inside of him. It’s out of control as he cries out, and suddenly the white magic tears through the air, ripping the world around us apart when Riley loses control of it. Quill bolts and I cling tightly to Riley as Quill rushes for the exit while the stable threatens to collapse around us.
War and the god are distracted by the magical attack, but it’s not enough to keep them away as War lunges at me. Quill leaps past him, avoiding the sword that arcs through the air but unable to avoid another horse that neither of us had seen. Its rider is cloaked in rags that cover their face and body. The black horse looks skeletal, and mist is flickering around it.
When it collides with us, Quill is flung off his feet, and I tuck Riley in tight so he doesn’t get hurt when we hit the ground. I roll back onto my feet, but Riley pulls from me as I discover that his horse is dashing right toward him.
Did Riley free him with his magic?
The horse tears past War and the newcomer I have to assume is Famine, but it’s like the world stops when the god steps forward and slams his cane down again. Riley’s horse trips and falls to his knees. He tries to lunge up, but his mane and tail are being blown back as I see that he’s turning to sand, just like Conquest’s horse did.
Riley screams, unable to see what’s happening but sensing that it’s something horrible.
The smirking god holds an hourglass in his hand, so cocky that he doesn’t expect my scythe to slice right through the spotwhere he’s holding it. The hourglass falls to the ground as his blood sprays out, and Kit scoops it up in her mouth and runs to me. Riley screams again and grabs his head an instant before he collapses to the ground.
I lift his unconscious body and toss him onto Quill’s back before leaping up myself. I dip down and grab Kit by the scruff of the neck as she jumps up.
War is furious. He swings a sword covered in flames that leap off the weapon and tear across the ground, creating a huge crack in the dirt that stretches out toward us. The giant rift is filled with flames that leap up and bite at us if we get too close, but we only have one way out of here and that’s across it. Quill stumbles but manages to keep his feet under him as he leaps over the rift.
And I realize that Conquest was nothing compared to this horseman.
Quill is faster than War’s stocky horse, but the man’s power seems to be able to reach out as far as the eye can see. He’s tearing up the terrain while Quill leaps and jumps, trying to avoid the relentless hits and bursts of flames that erupt out of the ground. I tuck Riley in tightly and cram Kit into his shirt a moment before I see something…
The Door… the Door leading back to Riley’s world. It’s so close… but there’s someone standing in front of it.
The person lifts up their hand and hundreds of undead rise from the dirt, rushing for the horsemen. They won’t keep them back for long, but it might be enough to hold them away from us. Quill runs as fast as he can move, racing across the ground as the person I now see is Mickey waits until the very last second to back through the Door. I shove Riley’s head down and duck myself as we pass through it.
The instant we’re on the other side, I leap from Quill’s back and slam my hand against the Door to destroy it.
“Well, that was fucking terrifying,” Mickey says, and it occurs to me how glad I am I didn’t take him through the Door but had him waiting for me instead. He wouldn’t have had a beast as fast as Quill to ride, and it would have slowed Quill down to have three riders… we likely wouldn’t have made it through.
“Do you think they’ll reopen the Door?” a woman asks, and I turn to see that Imani is standing there with Vinny.
Mickey explains, “I called them, prepared to have Imani throw up a barrier if they came through after us.”
I nod and respond to Imani’s question. “I don’t know why they haven’t. It doesn’t mean they won’t. But they’ve known Riley has been over here for a week now and have done nothing… they might now, though.”
Riley begins to slide off Quill, who has tried to pin Riley in place with his antlers so he doesn’t fall.
I hurriedly grab Riley and pull him down into my arms.
