Death Rider by Zamil Akhtar

Author:Zamil Akhtar [Akhtar, Zamil]
Language: eng
Format: epub

4

I walked the streets holding Gregory’s head, Niovi beside me. Whispers fluttered through the air as if the city bustled. And yet, no one was here. Sometimes shadows moved in the distance, but whatever made them would flee into an alley when I neared, footsteps too light and quick to be human.

“I call them otherthings,” Niovi said. “They’re curious about what’s going on here. You don’t have eyes, so you won’t see them.”

A chilly shudder ran through me. I cared not for more nightmares, so ignored her until we reached the western gate of Caecara, which was flanked by statues of a four-eyed angel, the eyes stacked in a diamond shape. Atop the walls…nothing. Not the boom of a cannon, an arrow’s whoosh, nor a war cry. Only shadows, whispers, and perhaps otherthings.

I turned to Niovi, seeking answers. A slight, smug smile stared back at me.

“Where is everyone?” I asked. “Where’re all the soldiers we’d been fighting? The city folk? The animals?”

She snickered. “They’re not alive in the way you think they are. Ever consider how we survived so long without food, without clean water, without hope? It was my father’s prayers to Saklas that trapped this city and its people in a cycle of death and undeath. By killing him, you ended his cycle, but you also perpetuated mine.”

I glared at her with disdain. She was toying with me. Don’t let her lying tongue seduce you.

And yet, I’d witnessed worms bring those excubitors to life. Worms that bubbled from the tree’s nectar. There had to be some reason to it.

“Your tree god is evil,” I said. “Look around at the mess your father’s prayers made.”

“What other things do prayers keep alive? Or perhaps bring to life? How would you know if something is alive by chance, or by design?”

I recalled the Crucian boy who’d led me through the tunnel and drooled at the sight of my bared breasts. Argus. Surely Argus was alive. I was wearing his clothes! Niovi was spinning falsehood. Were she not worth a caravan of gold, I’d have cut her tongue already.

I grabbed her silk collar, my knuckles poking her even silkier neck. “Then what about you? What did you pray for? What abominations are you keeping alive?”

She chuckled. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

I shook my head.

Her smiled widened as if she’d swallowed an eggplant whole. “You. You’re what I’m keeping alive.”

Absurd! And yet, I recalled the rainbow shield that had saved me from fire arrows in the sinkhole and the axes of the undead excubitors. It had radiated Alep’s love and light. Was it just some awful god all along?

Don’t let her lying tongue seduce you. My forehead and arms boiled with rage, as if I’d been betrayed. A mistake to have let this witch live. I put my hands around her neck. I squeezed. She croaked like a frog choking on a fly. I twisted my hold as if trying to wring water from a towel. Niovi’s face blued as she beat her fist against my shoulder; she hadn’t the strength to move a mountain.

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