Page 35 of War

Overhead, the full brunt of the midday sun is frying my skin to a crisp. My face feels tight, and I can see the dusty red flush of my forearms.

I’m also sweating like a cow.

I glance over at the horseman, eyeing the maroon armor that he wears over his clothing.

“Aren’t you hot?” I ask him, changing the subject.

If I were him, I’d be effingmiserable.

All that leather just locks the heat in. If I were him, I’d be bathing in sweat. Instead he appears irritatingly unaffected.

“Is my wife concerned for my wellbeing?”

I fix my gaze on a horse stall up ahead. “I forgot—you’re used to hotter climates,” I say. “I hear hell isparticularlywarm this time of year.”

I can feel the weight of the horseman’s eyes on me. “You think I’m a demon?” he asks skeptically.

“I haven’t ruled it out …” My words fall away as I squint a little more closely at another structure ahead of us.

These days you can find newly erected stables and inns and general stores speckled along roadways. They’re the sorts of places you stop at to refuel and rest. It looks like we’re coming up to one such place.

But as we get closer, something appears …off.

Birds circle overhead and there must be more on the ground because I can hear them calling out to one another.

I stare at those birds. Despite the heat, a chill slides over my skin.

It’s not until we pass the general store and the abandoned horse stalls that I seewhat’scaught the birds’ attention.

Close to a dozen birds—eagles, vultures, crows—all swarm and fight over some unmovingthingon the ground.

A few moments later, it registers that the thing on the ground is a human.

I stare and stare and stare and then I’m halting my horse and hopping off.

The birds take flight as I near the body. I use the corner of my shirt to cover my mouth as I peer down at the corpse. I can’t make sense of exactly what I’m seeing, and I don’t try to. The individual is dead. That’s all that matters. Anything else is just nightmare fodder. About a stone’s throw away rests a pile of discolored bones, the grinning mouth of the skull smeared with blood.

I furrow my brows. This looks less like a mass murder and more like some ritual sacrifice.

“Miriam.”

I turn and face War. He hasn’t dismounted. In his hand he holds Thunder’s reins.

“You killed even all the way out here?” I ask. It seems excessive. We’re in the middle of nowhere. This is no bastion of humankind; there can’t be more than a handful of people who live in this particular patch of hills.

“I kill everyone,” War responds smoothly.

Everyone except for me.

I glance at that body again, the body that was once a person with hopes and dreams and friends and family.

“Remount your steed, Miriam,” War says, completely unfazed by our surroundings. “We have a long way to ride.”

It’s not personal. I can tell it’s not personal. None of the suffering War’s inflicting is personal.

My gaze flicks back to the corpse.

Only itispersonal.