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

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.