? ? ?
Elementals rode their steeds through the cities on the western half of the Mediterran Sea, tearing through factories and warehouses, leaving nothing but rubble and fire in their wake.
Elementals rode their steeds through the cities on the eastern half of the Mediterran Sea, the pounding hooves shaking buildings into pieces, or cracking the land to swallow buildings whole.
And the leaders of the Humans First and Last movement, fleeing their cities, saw a truth about the world just before Namid’s teeth and claws tore them apart.
? ? ?
Alantea rode Hurricane across the waters of her domain, gathering a storm full of fury and vengeance—a storm unlike anything that had been seen in a very long time. She caught small ships and snapped them in half, driving the debris and toxins inland for miles as she struck her enemies’ shores.
On the eastern side of Afrikah, Indeus rode Tsunami, heading for the strait that Earth and Earthshaker had expanded to accommodate the monstrous waves that struck that part of Cel-Romano minutes after Alantea and Hurricane galloped onto the western side of those lands.
And on her island in the Mediterran Sea, ancient Tethys summoned the waters to rise and reclaim the land she had once, long ago, ceded to Earth.
? ? ?
As the waters of the Mediterran receded and the surviving humans stumbled around the ruins of their cities, looking for the living and mounding the dead, the Plague Riders came down from their isolated lairs to feast and breed and establish new territories within the broken cities.
CHAPTER 53
Thaisia
Drops became a trickle, which became a stream, which became a raging flood of failures as the structure connecting the human places in Thaisia broke.
While roads between some cities remained untouched, other roads became asphalt-littered mounds of earth—or disappeared into sinkholes that would expand and deepen if more than a loaded pickup, or a loaded wagon pulled by horses, tried to get around the hole in order to transfer crops or goods and send them on to people hoping to buy them.
Trains were allowed two passenger cars—one for humans and one for the Intuits and terra indigene—and no more than two dozen freight and livestock cars. If some of the cars held goods destined for Intuit villages or terra indigene settlements, all of the freight was usually allowed to migrate across regional borders, but passengers had to disembark unless they had a letter from a terra indigene leader stating that the person had permission to travel to a specified destination.
At first, the railroads defied the restriction about the number of cars they could hook up to an engine, and the first few trains did reach their destinations. After that, no one had to ask why the tracks were destroyed halfway between two stations, stranding passengers and crew too far from any human habitation. And no one asked about what police officers had seen when they finally found what was left of those trains.
There was no mercy in the wild country, and no safety in the dark.
As letters traveled slowly across the continent, humans learned, piece by piece, what the Humans First and Last movement had cost the people of Thaisia.
To: Douglas Burke
For all intents and purposes, the Cel-Romano Alliance of Nations is gone.
—Shady
CHAPTER 54
Moonsday, Sumor 9
Tolya Sanguinati waited at the Bennett train station for the town’s new arrivals.
He had argued for days that phone lines connecting Bennett and Prairie Gold to Sweetwater were necessary, that the sweet blood living with Jackson Wolfgard should not be cut off completely from the beings who would help her stay alive.
At first, the Elders had ignored his arguments as well as Jackson’s pleas because Prairie Gold and Bennett were Midwest towns and Sweetwater was located in the Northwest, and all the wires humans used for their talking had been torn down along every regional border—and no one who tried to repair the lines survived the wrath of Namid’s teeth and claws.
Then came a question: this sweet blood was a howling not-Wolf?
After careful consideration of what that might mean, Tolya told the Elders that the Hope pup was a friend of Meg Corbyn, who was friend to Simon Wolfgard, leader of the Lakeside Courtyard.
The next day, work crews were permitted to repair the phone lines that crossed the regional borders and connected Bennett and Prairie Gold with Sweetwater. And although they were watched every moment, the men on those crews survived.
Tolya wasn’t sure who was on the train. Some Intuits, upon arriving, had taken one look at the town and said they would stay a week to help clean up and clear out the houses, but they had a feeling this wasn’t the place for them to settle and asked for an assignment in another town. Some didn’t even leave the train station before asking for a return ticket home.
It wasn’t an easy place for any kind of human. One of the Intuits said the town felt like it was filled with ghosts. Tolya didn’t tell the young man that it wasn’t human spirits that were spooking him; it was the more primal earth natives who continued to prowl around and through the town—and the most terrifying among them were the ones who shifted to a clawed, furred form that walked on two legs.
The train pulled in. A few passengers got out.
Tolya was a mature, adult Sanguinati in his prime. He certainly wasn’t old. But he looked at the fresh-faced humans getting off the train and felt like a pack’s nanny. It made sense that adults who hadn’t found a mate yet would be the most likely to travel to a new place like Bennett, but did they all have to be so young?
The four males—he guessed they were Intuits by the way they looked around—saw him and kept their distance. They knew he was Sanguinati and he was in charge of this town; they couldn’t have come here without receiving that information. But they weren’t used to having contact with his kind, if any of them had had actual contact with any of the terra indigene.
The female, on the other hand, gave him a bright smile and walked up to him, her hand extended. “I’m Barb Debany. My family calls me Bee because my name is Barbara Ellen, which makes my initials B.E., so . . . Bee. But, new place and all, I would rather be called Barb.”
Wondering why she told him about a name she didn’t want to use, Tolya shook her hand, shifting his palm to smoke for just long enough to get a taste of her blood and know if the chatter was natural or induced by some chemical.
He sensed nothing but the adrenaline made by nerves and excitement.
“Do you have papers, Barb Debany?”
“Oh. Yes.” She opened one of those sacks human females carried, dug around a bit, and finally, looking flushed, produced the letter.
Tolya scanned the document signed by Vlad and Simon Wolfgard. “You’re the one who is going to look after the animals and figure out what to do with them.” He’d flowed through keyholes to unlock doors and release the dogs and cats—animals he’d been told could live outdoors, at least for the summer. Billy Rider, who divided his worktime between Prairie Gold’s ranch and the town’s livery stable, and Tobias Walker had set up areas in the town where they put out food for the dogs and a couple of different spots for the cats’ vittles. The chirpy caged birds were all moved to one house to make it easier to feed them until the “pet person” arrived.
He’d thought the fish in the aquariums were live food for the cats and hadn’t mentioned the creatures to Billy or Tobias, so most of them, by the time someone checked those houses, were floating belly up.
All in all, except for the fish, Tolya thought he’d dealt with the pet problem rather well over the past couple of weeks.
“They told you I’m not a fully qualified vet, didn’t they?” Barb asked, sounding a bit anxious. “I’m just an assistant.”
“You’re more qualified than anyone else here, so now you’re the vet.”