The Witch's Eye

by Steven Montano

  The place was an abattoir. Bodies, many of them undead to begin with, had been crushed, torn, perforated or burned to a crisp. Shell casings, shattered steel and snapped bones were everywhere. Gutted remains smoldered on the floor amidst piles of twisted vehicular wreckage.

  The open hole in the ceiling where the Razorwing had crashed through was clouded with mist and steam. Ronan could just make out the dying light of cold stars through the haze.

  Nothing moved. The battle was long done. Ronan’s boots crunched on debris as he walked through the carnage. Rot carried on the musk wind, a stench so hard it felt like grit in his teeth.

  He heard a moan from somewhere nearby. Ronan drew his blade. He quietly moved past wrecked vehicles and the burning dead. The moan sounded again, louder than before, as Ronan approached a pile of bodies.

  The Revenger lay half–buried in the mound of corpses. His left leg was trapped beneath a fallen Troj, a nine-foot tall monstrosity that must have weighed half-a-ton. The man’s other leg was free but bled from a gunshot wound, and one of his hands had been partially crushed. Mottled hair and wild eyes regarded Ronan stupidly.

  Ronan knelt down. The man seemed to come to his senses, and started crying.

  “Please…” he whispered. “Please…”

  “What happened?” Ronan asked quietly. “Who won?”

  “What? Who won?! I’m fucking dying beneath this giant…”

  “And you’ll probably stay there,” Ronan interrupted. He kept his voice even, his tone soft. “Unless I do something about it. So don’t be an asshole. Tell me what I want to know.”

  “Bastard,” the man said.

  “True.” Ronan looked around as if he’d get in trouble for what he was about to do. Still kneeling, he put the edge of his blade against the man’s free leg and slowly cut open his calf. The Revenger howled as blood gushed from the open wound. Ronan stopped. “You were saying?”

  “They pulled back, all right?!” the Revenger screamed. “Everyone pulled back!”

  “Why?”

  The man looked frightened, like he shouldn’t say. Ronan held his blade up again.

  “Fane!” he said. “It was Fane! Fane showed up and started attacking everyone!”

  “Fane?” What the Hell? “What are you talking about?”

  “They were armed to the teeth,” the Revenger explained. “They would’ve given that Wing a good fight even if the vamps had been at full-strength, but they weren’t, because the Suckheads had been fighting us. Everyone scattered when Fane showed up. After Rake vanished down the hole and Burke was killed, the others…just took off.”

  Fane had been a part of the Southern Claw, but the growing influence of the merchant’s organization the Hammer and Fist had brought the city-state’s loyalties into question, which was especially troublesome since Fane provided much of the Southern Claw’s armaments. Cross’s team had learned that Fane planned to defect from the Southern Claw, and that the Hammer and Fist had hired and outfitted an elite mercenary army.

  Defecting is one thing, Ronan thought. But this sounds like they’re on the march. Are they gobbling up more territory? And if so, why in the hell would they start way up here, so far from their own city?

  Voth Ra’morg was still a good distance from any Southern Claw settlements, but Ronan didn’t think that even a rich city-state like Fane was equipped to start conquering the wastelands.

  No, this force was up here for a purpose. The question is…what?

  “Thanks,” Ronan said. He stood up and turned to leave. He didn’t think he was likely to find any useful items there; at a glance, everything of value seemed to have already been stripped from the corpses.

  “You…you can’t just leave me here!” the Revenger shouted as Ronan walked away. “Christ, man, I’ve got a wife…”

  “She’ll miss you,” Ronan said. “I know your work. You and the other Wardens are all pieces of shit. If you’re asking me for pity, you might as well just save your breath.”

  Ronan left him alone. After a minute the Revenger’s screams turned to sobs, but Ronan kept moving, and soon he couldn’t hear the dying man at all.

  Ronan made his way back to the surface. The battle had spilled into the cold warehouse over the subterranean tunnels. Broken machinery and corpses were everywhere. One Revenger’s face had been smashed in, but his leather armor was still intact, so Ronan peeled it away from the body and donned it himself. The corpse smell was strong, but Ronan had worn a dead man’s clothing before.

  He emerged topside into the ruins of Voth Ra’morg. Buildings leaned at odd angles, and wires and cables dangled like steel vines. Ronan smelled gunsmoke and blood. Shells and shrapnel and pools of gore covered the cracked stone streets. He took an AKMS and some spare magazines off a Revenger who’d been shot in the back.

  Ronan searched for a way out of the city. Distant bomb blasts fell miles away, but there was little else to be heard. Iron-thick smoke swept through the streets. Mangled corpses twisted like burned paper in the bitter wind. Bruise-colored clouds filled the darkening sky.

  A sizable conflict had taken place outside of Voth Ra’morg. When Ronan and the others had fought their way into the city, Revengers and Kothian undead infantry had been locked in battle against the considerable resources of a full Ebon Cities Wing backed by Troj mercenaries and a host of Doj zombies. The Grey Clan, along with Burke’s small contingent of loyal troops, had been caught in the middle, and later Fane’s forces had showed up and taken everyone on. Judging by the evidence left on the battlefield, the Fanian force had been massive. Ronan saw spent howitzer shells, bomb craters and heavy tracks left by Southern Claw-style troop transports and trucks.

  Ronan quietly approached the marsh fields to the south. Small patches of red and yellow fire danced on higher ground to the west, where rows of Kothian Scarecrows and vampire-controlled Troj had done battle.

  What a mess this turned out to be, Ronan thought bitterly. We never should have taken that job for Pike. Ever since that mission into the Bonespire, everything went to shit.

  Ronan moved using the massive stakes outside the city for cover. He rubbed his hands together and breathed into them. His back and shoulders still ached from the climb, and the damage his body had taken over the past several days was quickly catching up with him.

  He wanted to locate Maur, or at least figure out what had happened to the Gol, but first he’d have to find a place to sleep for the night. He had to be careful – just because Fane’s troops had moved on didn’t mean they didn’t have eyes on the area.

  Where are they going? he wondered.

  He moved through the shadowy murk. Syrupy water and clumps of dark mud covered him up to his knees by the time he had the remains of Burke’s airship in sight. The port side had been torn apart, and much of the vehicle appeared to have been trampled, likely by the same Doj zombies who’d barreled through the area.

  The stench of burning flesh was strong as Ronan trudged through the marsh. What he’d thought were mountains of grey soil turned out to be the now inert Doj zombies, left to spill their insides into water already filled with iron sediment and gore. Bloodflies clung to the meat islands.

  Memories flooded back to him. He remembered walking through ankle-deep cesspools, his eyes straight ahead, blood rolling down his back from where the whip had lashed him. He still quivered whenever he thought of that day, and the many days like it.

  The interior of the ship was almost completely dark. The broken fuselage dripped oil and gasoline, and Ronan heard the echo of dripping fluids.

  Yeah. Now this looks like a good idea.

  Still, Ronan had no supplies aside from a dead man’s armor and a couple of weapons, and if he was going to try and make it all of the way back to civilization on foot – which would be a five-day hike, minimum – he’d need clean water and whatever rations he could find. While humans couldn’t digest the disgusting rot grubs and midnight blue slugs the Grey Clan liked to dine on, Ronan was sure Burke’s squad ha
d brought along some provisions of their own.

  So long as the Fane force didn’t clean it all out.

  Ronan took a breath before he entered the remains of the vessel. He’d been raised by the mages of the Crimson Triangle to hold little regard for his own life, so exploring the potentially undead-infested wreckage of an airship wouldn’t be anything new. He was used to charging into dangerous situations without a second thought. Kane used to say he was crazy.

  Which was strange, Mike, because you used to do the same thing. You wanted to die, I think…and you wanted to do it saving someone you cared about.

  That’s the difference between you and me. When I die, I’ll face my fate alone.

  It took Ronan a couple of hours to search the ship. He found more than his fair share of bodies, all of which had started to mummify because of the cold.

  At least none of them rose up and attacked me.

  Night fell on the plains. Ronan thought the inside of the vessel was colder than the outside. He found a small can of kerosene and lit an oil rag, which he wrapped around the end of a Gray Clan mace. The flames illuminated walls covered with white scum, frosted minerals and blast residue. The ship had flipped upside down, and the ceiling/floor was riddled with dents and shattered glass. Ronan moved carefully so as not to slice himself open as he walked in near darkness. He heard the whistle of the frozen wind outside.

  He found a small stash of jerky in an overhead – now floor – compartment, as well as an extra armor coat, which he decided to wear over the Revenger’s armor. None of the instruments on the ship functioned, and it was completely without power. The craft had become a coffin partially sunk in an icy bog.

  Ronan found what looked to have once been someone’s private quarters. He started a fire with the kerosene and rags and kept the door cracked so the smoke wouldn’t suffocate him, but not so wide that the light would attract any unwanted guests. Besides scouts from Fane, Koth, the Ebon Cities, or wherever-the-hell else, there were predators to fear in that part of the world, Bloodwolves and Morags and Gorgoloth, and he hadn’t come all that way just to become an easy meal for some wastelands beast. He also remembered the massive worms that had burst out of the ground during the battle, and the thought of them made him shudder.

  I hate worms.

  Ronan sat, warmed himself, and after a while he stripped down and hung his clothes near the fire while he wrapped his body in a dry blanket he’d unearthed elsewhere in the ship; it was stiff and smelled of mothballs, but it did its job keeping him warm.

  Quite a sight I’d make if something came to eat me now.

  The air filled with the odor of burning cloth. The smoke stung his eyes, and the room was cast in a flickering red glow. Ronan stared into the flames.

  Now what?

  He had no idea where Maur was. Most likely the Gol was dead, killed in the fighting or made a prisoner to one of their many enemies.

  He could also be hiding, Ronan thought. Camped somewhere out of the way, like me. But for some reason Ronan thought that was unlikely. The only reason he’d survived the battle was because he’d literally fallen out of it. And even if he is alive, how in the hell am I supposed to find him?

  But the thought of not looking for Maur didn’t settle well with Ronan. There were very few people he’d ever gotten along with over the course of his cursed life, let alone cared about. Cross was missing, probably taken in the battle; Black had vanished; Kane and Ash and Grissom were all dead. The only one Ronan even had a chance to help now was Maur.

  What the hell else are you going to do? he asked himself. Wander around the wastelands? Been there, done that…not as fun as advertised.

  Either way, he knew he’d accomplish little in his current fatigued state. It had been at least twenty-four hours since he’d slept. Ronan put his mostly-dry clothes back on, positioned himself so he was out of sight, and propped himself against the wall with the gun on his lap and his blade at his side.

  He fell into a light sleep.

  Ronan dreamed of pain.

  When he woke he remembered lashings and scorched skin, bamboo slivers and fingernails being peeled back. The scars on his chest and arms burned. His mouth was dry, and his lower back ached.

  He slowly rose to his feet. The small fire had gone down to embers, but even in the darkness Ronan found the hilt of his katana hidden in the folds of the blankets. He gave his eyes a moment to adjust and shook himself to fend off the cold.

  What woke me?

  The air was silent. He kept his breaths shallow. Dim sunlight spilled in where the ship had been torn open at the far end of the hall.

  A horn bleated in the distance. The sound echoed through the vessel.

  A Gorgoloth war horn. Shit.

  Gorgoloth were ravaging ebon-fleshed marauders, primitive and tribal beasts. The Southern Claw had only barely managed to keep the hordes confined to the Reach.

  Ronan’s first instinct was to stay put and let whatever was happening outside blow over, but it occurred to him Maur might somehow be involved. He quickly donned his armor, gathered his meager supplies in a small and weather-beaten backpack he’d found in what was left of the cockpit, and made for the nearest exit.

  The morning sky was flat and red. Salt and ice floated on the surface of the thick marsh. Damaged warships littered the area like broken steel islands, and the murky waters were thick with greying corpses and oil slicks.

  Ronan spied dark silhouettes on the ridge to the southwest. Thick columns of greasy fumes stained the sky. He heard the scramble of a nearby fighting force, heavy feet and steel weapons, pack beasts and wagon wheels. Ronan kept himself low as he crept through cold water and made his way across the marsh. The frozen dawn was crimson and gold.

  He approached the ridge. The sun would be at his back when it rose, which would work to his advantage. He pressed himself against the mud-covered slope, for he heard a large group of creatures at the top of the rise.

  Ronan climbed. By the time he’d made it halfway up the slope the pungent musk of Gorgoloth skin and boar hide filled the air like a cloud. He heard their guttural voices bark at each other through the morning air.

  Loose stones and frost-rived rock crumbled beneath him as he made his ascent. Ronan’s muscles still burned from his climb out of the pit, but compared to that, this climb was easy. Soon he fell into a steady rhythm, digging his fingers into the soft stone, taking a breath, hauling himself up, breathe, haul, fast and steady. Within a few minutes he reached a basalt ledge. He peeked over to survey the level ground at the top of the slope.

  A vampire warship had crashed just a short distance from the edge. Its razor fins and cold iron armor were dented and cracked, and the remains of its undead pilot had spread across the ground in a grey slick.

  The wreckage wasn’t the source of the smoke: nearly fifty Gorgoloth had set up a crude camp near the downed vessel. Loose tents made of mammoth hides and giant reptile skins had been erected around a heavy bonfire fueled by the smoking remains of humans and undead. The ashes of the slain floated into the dawn sky.

  He saw the Gorgoloth, seven-foot-tall ebon-skinned nightmares, humanoids with large ape-like faces, leonine manes, thickly knotted muscles, ritual scars, necklaces of teeth and stark white eyes. They adorned themselves in bone armor and yielded brutal-looking spears and edged shields. They had a deep hatred for all other creatures, and they knew no fear.

  Bad day, Ronan thought.

  The Gorgoloth threw more bodies onto the fire. Their prisoners were held in a large cage made of wood and scrap-metal. As Ronan looked on from the edge of the hill one man was held down and savagely beaten by a Gorgoloth with a heavy stone club. The brute kept bringing down the weapon even long after the man’s skull had been smashed to pieces.

  The other prisoners watched on in horror. They were plains settlers and soldiers, miners and farmers…and Maur. The diminutive Gol was alive and looked to be reasonably unharmed, though his skin was covered in dried blood and dirt.

&nbs
p; Ronan also saw Jade huddled next to Maur. The witch from the Shard looked haggard and exhausted, and she was as covered in stains and scratches as the Gol was. Ronan wasn’t sure how he felt about the fact that she’d survived. He certainly wasn’t going to expend a lot of energy trying to save her, though he had to admit her magic could come in handy.

  Too bad she couldn’t have used it already. I suppose she could only take on so many of them at once…and all it takes is one rock to crush that pretty little head.

  There were at least two dozen prisoners. The cage was secured to the ground with iron stakes.

  Fifty Gorgoloth. Fuck.

  He lowered himself back down and propped his feet against a jutting stone. He had to think.

  The dim ice-yellow glow of the rising sun melted the mists. He saw the extent of carnage in the marshy fields below. Ronan stayed in that position, listening to the Gorgoloth and the sobs of prisoners.

  The sunrise was beautiful. He’d seen many in his life, and they never ceased to amaze him. They were one of the few things of pure beauty left in the world.

  After a few minutes he’d come up with a plan to free Maur. It wasn’t a terribly good plan, but it would have to do.

  TWO

  BREED

  Cross walked through a land of ice and blood.

  The Carrion Rift was a damp and hellish place. Its lower cliff walls were a maze of walkways, stone platforms and sloped outcroppings that protruded from the cliff on either side of the half-mile wide chasm. Beneath him waited curling black smoke and the distant roar of churning waters, dark silhouettes of wild Razorwings and the echoing calls of subterranean creatures. He looked up and saw jagged rocks and broken cliffs of salt-encrusted granite and blood quartz. Rancid mist flowed down the stone. The rift walls over his head were devoid of paths, and he’d have to figure out how to continue once he got that far.