Loss (15 page)

The white horse sneezes a question.

The Conqueror absently rubs the bald spot behind one of the steed’s ears as he replies, “It’s a type of insanity, certainly. But that doesn’t make them mine. I can’t stop them.”

His steed lets out a phlegmy snort.

The Conqueror sighs, and the sound rattles in his throat. The horse is right; he could stop them. He could unleash minor illnesses upon the lot of them and force them to retreat, to return to Tours and Lyons and Vendôme and forget this eloquent preacher boy with his talk of rescuing Christiandom. But no—he dares not. One of the Four may not stand against another, not without consequences.

And these children have already been claimed.

The boy is leading his army in song as they slowly wind their way toward the large port of Marseille; the sound of thousands of footfalls mixes with the swell of voices, forming a sonorous melody that is both hypnotic and horrifying. Over the sounds of their campaign, the Conqueror hears War’s booming laughter. He can’t bring himself to look overhead and watch the Red Rider soar over her army of children.

(Billy hears the laugh and he thinks of a girl in red.)

The next human waves rolls past him, and he spies one of the few girls who have been swept up in the madness of righteousness. She must be no more than eight years old, and when she grins she shows off a gap-toothed mouth. She’s marching off to die along with thousands of her brothers, and still she grins.

He sees his long-dead daughter grinning at him, and he thinks of plums.

“Is it not glorious?”

War’s voice is like thunder, and the words are the spatter of winter raindrops. He frowns up at the Red Rider as she and her steed spiral down toward him. Her armor catches the sunlight and slashes it back at him in blinding strokes. Around one gauntleted hand, the reins of her warhorse are wound tight. The other hand wields a long sword as immaculate as his own coat and pants. Like his uniform, the weapon’s cleanliness is a lie—beneath the pure white of his clothing are the diseases and filth of the world, and buried in the metal of War’s sword is the blood of humanity waiting to be shed. Her face is hidden, as always, by her helm, but within the shadows of her visor, her eyes glow like twin fires.

(And Billy finds her both a complete stranger and strangely familiar.)

“Red,” the Conqueror says, inclining his head slightly as her steed lands. The warhorse snaps its teeth, but its Rider pulls back on the reins at the last second. The white steed blows out a sound that comes across as vaguely insulting. Picking up on his horse’s tone, the Conqueror gives voice to his derision. “Admiring your work?”

“Of course. There is so much to admire!” She takes in the swarm of child soldiers with one sweep of her gauntleted hand. “Thirty thousand! Even in my wildest dreams, I did not imagine one half-mad shepherd could be so successful.”

“Shepherd
boy
,” says the White Rider. “They call him prophet and treat him as a saint, but the boy is barely twelve.”

“And not even three months ago, that boy was tending sheep in Cloyes.” War booms laughter. “There is much to be said about shepherds and leaders, White! They exchange one flock of followers for another.”

He doesn’t know if the knot of anger in his belly is due to War’s presence; she has the unsettling habit of amplifying people’s emotions, even those of the other Horsemen. What Death sees in her, he’ll never know. He supposes she must be beautiful beneath her armor, but it would be the beauty of an inferno feasting on the air—all-consuming, deadly. But then, who better to be Death’s handmaiden than one who gleefully encouraged slaughter?

“They are not a flock,” he snarls. “They’re
children
.”

“They’re strengthened by their innocence and thus certain of their victory.” War laughs again. “As if innocence has anything to do with it. Might makes right. Anything else is just wishful thinking. Did you know that the boy is claiming that when they reach Marseille, the waters will part for them as the Red Sea did for Moses? Such lovely lies people tell themselves!”

Curious despite himself, he asks, “Did the waters actually part for Moses?”

“That was before my time, White. And that incarnation of Red was far more concerned with the war of the Egyptian firstborn than the escape of the Hebrews.” Within her helm, the fire of her eyes brightens. “After plagues upon plagues, the slaves slaughtered lambs to smear blood upon their doorposts, claiming it would save their own firstborn from the final plague upon Egypt. The Egyptian firstborn adults had no wish to feel Death’s cold touch, so they approached their pharaoh and demanded that the Hebrews be set free. It was the Egyptians who struck against their own pharaoh and his generals when he refused to grant his precious slaves freedom.” She laughs, and the sound is like the clanging of swords. “Did the waters part? Does it matter? The Egyptians brought War and Death to their doors. Who cares whether the waters parted or swallowed the slaves whole?”

“It might make a difference to the thirty thousand children who think they won’t drown.” The Conqueror looks for the grinning girl among the throng of boys, but she is lost, adrift somewhere among the sea of her brothers.

“Their faith will buoy them.” War kicks her steed, and it begins to trot in a circle around the Conqueror and his white horse. “Even though their own Pope doesn’t bless their so-called Crusade, the children believe their God is on their side. I
love
people, White! They can convince themselves of anything, given the right motivation.”

He slides her a look. “And the right push.”

“Of course. Whether sheep for herding or lambs for slaughter, people are wonderfully responsive.” Her sword gleams in the harsh sunlight. “And they are so easy to cut down.”

His teeth grind together. “They are not
lambs.”

“No? Tell me, White—where is their precious Pope? Why does he remain silent when the footfalls of thirty thousand children shake this country’s very foundation? The Church could stop it,” she says, one confidant to another. “But it doesn’t. It doesn’t stop a similar movement happening even now in the Rhineland, with another shepherd boy leading thousands more children to the seaside. Why is that, White? Could it be that their religious leaders hope these toy soldiers will shame their rulers into yet another, proper crusade?”

Fury sears him, and it takes all of his control not to summon his Bow and let disease strike War’s bloody heart. “
Another?
There’s been a hundred years of crusades! And for what purpose? To claim a city?”

“Not just any city. A holy city. So say these humans—therefore, it must be true.” War jerks back on the reins, forcing her red steed to halt. Pausing to watch the children’s ongoing march, she says, “So many truths, these humans have, but only one world to fit them in. How can they not always be at the brink of war?”

“You’d drown the world in an ocean of blood,” he shouts, “and it still wouldn’t be enough for you.”

“Of course not. There will always be war.”

“Phaugh!” The Conqueror leans over and spits; where his saliva lands, the ground sizzles. “You’ve whispered to the boy, dazzled him with images of glory—coaxed him from his home, encouraged him to stir the souls of thirty thousand children and lead them to nothing but pain and death. And for no purpose other than war!”

“You complain of a century of warfare,” she says casually as she looks at thousands of children happily striding toward their doom, “and you forget that our domains cross. Warfare and disease are good bedfellows. Think of the sicknesses that embraced the Knights of the Cross: heat stroke, food poisoning, fevers, epidemics, spreading from soldier to soldier. Where I go, White, you follow.”

“I follow no one!”

“Is that what you think? How charming.”

“You twist things to make them fit your narrow worldview,” he snarls. “And worse, you pervert your station. Instead of moderating war, you have kept the crusades in motion for more than a century. A century! Now you’re leading these children to the battlefield. We are supposed to provide
balance
, not encourage their baser instincts!”

War turns to look at him from over her broad shoulder. Her face is hidden, but he can feel her glance stabbing through him. “
Balance
,” she says, turning the word into a curse. “You sound like Famine. Does the Black Rider speak for you now? Are you nothing more than a puppet?”

His nostrils flare; he feels something on his face blister and crack. “I am not the only one who adheres to her philosophy. When Death offered me the Crown years gone, he told me the same thing. Balance, Red. We are to balance the ills of humanity, not tip the scales.”

She laughs mockingly, and it’s the sound of fire cauterizing a bloody stump. “And you say that
my
worldview is narrow. Didn’t our Pale lord tell you our final purpose when he gave you your pretty crown?”

His good eye narrows, while his milky eye remains wide and shocked. “What purpose?”

He cannot see her mouth, but the smirk in her voice is all too clear. “Where is your philosophy now, White? Why aren’t you quoting your sweet Black’s words to me? Could it be that Death’s handmaiden knows more than you?”

He snorts, and mucus flies from his nose. “You talk but say nothing.”

“I say much,” she purrs. “I say to you now what our cold Pale lord said to me one moonless night when I warmed him with my passion: This world is ours to do with as we will, until the time comes when we Four shall ride.”

“We Four ride all the time,” he says, trying to ignore his sudden chill. “You speak nonsense.”

“We ride, certainly. But not together. Even when our paths cross, we never truly are together. That time will come, White. When this sorry world has reached its end—when our Pale lord has decided that the end is nigh—then we shall ride!” She hefts her sword high, and she shouts, “We Four together, War and Pestilence and Famine and Death, will split the world asunder! We will crush humanity and all manner of living things, slaughtering and infecting and starving them until this world is nothing more than a charnel house!”

His eyes have widened with her every word, and now he’s breathless. “No.”

War bellows her challenge to the heavens: “Our Pale lord will lead us in the greatest battle of all time! We are the Riders of the Apocalypse, and we herald the end of everything!”

His throat tight, he once again whispers his denial.
“No.”

“You complain of this small sacrifice of children,” War says, lowering her sword. “Have you not considered that what we do now is a mercy, compared with what awaits them elsewise?”

The Conqueror slides off his steed and stumbles to the ground. His body shaking, his head spinning, he tries once more to insist that War is wrong, to say
no
, but his tongue is dead and his mouth is dead and the word sticks in his throat.

With a roar to crack the skies, War and her steed leap into the air, and they hover once more over her latest converts; beneath her, thousands upon thousands of children sing of triumphs to come.

The white steed bumps its muzzle against the White Rider’s back, but its Rider does not respond; War’s revelation has ripped away his ability to speak, to move, to do anything but watch, dumbstruck, as the children advance row by row—an army of them, a
river
of them, all enchanted with the possibility of succeeding where their elders have failed. Tears wind down his cheeks as the children’s call to battle spreads like an epidemic of the most sinister pox/

***

Billy barely made it out of the White before he doubled over and vomited. His body shook with spasms as he retched, trying to void himself of the sickness he’d witnessed.

We herald the end of everything.

When the heaving finally stopped, he sat back on his heels and closed his eyes, feeling heat flush his face and neck. Sweat popped on his brow, but it did nothing for the fever of truth searing his soul.

The White Rider was supposed to help end the world.

Billy Ballard was the White Rider. Therefore . . .

No. Impossible. He couldn’t.

War’s lying
, he told himself.
She has to be. No one actually
wants
the world to end. Not even War. Right?

Perhaps in answer, he heard the Pale Rider’s voice: Apocalypse
is just a word, William.

But in his memory of the Greenwood and the archer Robert Hode, the Conqueror had been babbling about the end of the world.

Another memory, Billy’s own memory, shining as brightly as War’s sword gleaming in the sun:

Death told him, “End of the world or not, the Horsemen have a job to do.”

Billy replied, “Which is?”

“Why, preventing the end of the world, of course. And that’s why I need your help.”

Floating in the gray of nothingness, Billy groaned. It made no
sense
. He was supposed to find the Conqueror and bring him back to the real world. The Conqueror was convinced that he, the White Rider, would help bring about the end of everything. But Death had told him, Billy, that he needed Billy’s help finding the White Rider, who, like all Horsemen, had a job to do—namely, preventing the end of everything.

So had War been lying to the Conqueror all those years ago?

“So many truths, these humans have, but only one world to fit them in.”

What to believe?

Maybe he should do what the Conqueror had done: Keep the Bow and refuse to ride. Not like he had a horse, anyway (certainly not the huge white beast he’d never had a chance to ride after the Conqueror tricked him). A Horseman without a horse couldn’t ride. Keep the Bow, say all the right things to Death—
sure thing, I’ll shoot infected arrows at people, you bet
—and then just go on with his life. Just because he had the Bow, that didn’t mean he needed to use it.

An image flashed in his mind: Eddie Glass, puking all over the floor. Another image, worse than seeing Eddie in regurgitation mode: Kurt, racing out of the cafeteria as his bowels threatened to let go, and then Joe, too overcome with illness to move from where he sat, staying in his seat and trying not to soil his pants as diarrhea and fever wrack his body.