“I’m gonna cut you, bitch,” he said quietly. He couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m gonna cut you good.”
“What’s going on?”
Tain rode up quietly. His face was almost invisible beneath the hood of his heavy cloak. Piercing wind scraped across the plains behind him.
Krayker hesitated.
“Just gonna teach our new prisoner a lesson,” he said.
“No you’re not,” Tain said. He spoke softly, and yet his words carried loud. The man’s spirit wound her way into the wagon like a slithering coil of seductive energy and latched onto Cross with hot claws. She smelled of new-formed glaciers and volcanic heat.
Krayker was pushed back by an invisible force, and his eyes went wide as he fell to his knees.
Cross took a deep breath. He knew what was about to happen.
Pain shot through his gut. His body was thrown back against the bars by a phantom force, and he fell to the floor of the wagon. Hands grabbed him, and it took all his strength to fight them off. Nails painfully raked his face. Someone kicked him in the shoulder, and then the groin.
Cold air blasted through the wagon and threw everyone back. Cross heard groans and cries, but after a moment the air went silent.
He unfolded himself. Pain wracked his body. He couldn’t find the strength to rise. Someone helped him to his feet. Cross couldn’t see with the sweat in his eyes, and he was so dizzy he almost fell over again. He wondered if his ribs were cracked. Blood ran from his split lips, and his tongue probed a loosened tooth.
Flint held him up. The man was shaken, and there was blood on his cheek. The boy, Shiv, helped support Cross from the other side. They slowly escorted him back to the bars while the rest of the prisoners recovered. Every motion sent jolts of pain across Cross’s skin. Blood oozed from his forehead and ran down the side of his nose. It hurt to breathe.
Krayker was on the ground outside, holding his groin and moaning in pain.
Tain stood next to the wagon and looked in at Cross. The mage’s unshaven face was drenched with sweat, and one of his eyes was made of glass. Deep scars ran down his right cheek, and he was skeletally thin, almost gaunt. He had a sour expression on his face.
“Don’t do that again,” he said quietly. “Next time I’ll let Krayker have his way with you.” He nodded at the prisoners in the wagon. “Or I’ll give you to them.”
Cross couldn’t find the breath to respond.
Tain turned away, and Cross’s heart sank as he watched him go. The bandit leader wore Soulrazor/Avenger slung across his back.
That’s why he spared me, he thought. He wants to know how it works.
Cross rested. The rocking motion of the wagon lulled him to sleep in spite of his pain.
The prisoners remained docile. No one wanted to incur more of Tain’s wrath, especially since one of the men had died from the ethereal torture, and another seemed to have permanently lost his sight. The fact that the blind man was an enormous brute was the only thing that kept the others from tearing him apart.
Cross couldn’t imagine how long the slaves must have been imprisoned for them to have turned so savage. He’d already lost track of time, and Flint and Shiv had been prisoners longer than he had. He was surprised the others had allowed an older man and a young boy to even live through the first night.
His stomach twisted with hunger. His cracked lips leaked syrupy blood, and the scratches on his face and neck stung. His back and shoulder were stiff.
The world passed by in silence. The sun rode low in the sky. Occasional heaps of gravel were all that broke up the monotony of the terrain. The air smelled of volcanic ash and burning cinders.
“You okay?” Flint asked. Cross realized Flint had already asked him that question, and he just hadn’t answered.
“Yeah,” he coughed. He wasn’t, and he was fairly certain Flint knew that, but he’d been raised to always say you were OK when people asked, even if you weren’t.
“You,” Flint said as he patted Cross’s bleeding forehead with a small piece of cloth, “are a fucking idiot.”
“There actually was a point to all of that,” Cross said quietly. “I wanted to see how easy they were to bait. It was a bit of a gamble.”
“A bit,” Flint laughed.
They looked outside. Krayker rode at a distance. Joro was the nearest slaver, and he seemed completely disinterested in the wagon.
“They’re quick to anger,” Flint said quietly. “But Tain keeps them in line.”
Cross finally managed to sit up; his back burned with pain, and the wounds on his neck and face stung. He’d have to figure out a way to sterilize himself, since there was no telling what infections he might catch from the other prisoner’s filthy fingernails. He didn’t think he’d been bitten, which was probably the best news he’d had all day.
“He also wants me alive,” Cross said quietly.
“And why is that?” Flint asked.
“My sword,” Cross said. “He wants to know how it works.”
“How hard can it be? It’s a sword, isn’t it?”
“Not exactly,” Cross said.
“All right, so now you know you can bait them, just like you also know that doing so is pointless, since Tain could kill us all with a thought,” Flint said. “Damn warlocks.”
“Damn warlocks,” Cross echoed.
Flint leaned in closer. There was anger in his voice.
“Don’t endanger my boy like that again,” he said. “I’ll take my chances in Dirge, or in whatever hellhole they’re taking us to. We might survive in a place like that – we’re hard workers, we don’t start trouble, and we have skills. None of that matters, though, if we die because you want to test the waters and see if you can escape.”
Flint spoke quietly so as not to be heard by anyone but Cross. Shiv was asleep nearby. The boy had a fresh bruise on his face, and he looked bone tired and too thin.
Cross looked at the boy while he answered Flint.
“Your son?”
Flint hesitated before he answered.
“Yes.”
Cross nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I won’t put you in danger again. Not if I can help it. But Flint…I have to get out of here. And not just for me. Someone needs me.”
“Someone needs me, too,” Flint said. “And I’m not going to let him die on account of someone else.” Flint’s eyes were cold and hard. Cross saw years of pain in that gaze.
He nodded.
They crossed fields of ironstone and pyrite slate turned red beneath the bleeding sky. The land looked burned. They passed bone-white trees and shallow pits filled with salt and shale.
Cross knew the area. He’d been there before: they were a day’s ride north of Dirge.
The wagon groaned to a halt just before dusk. Clouds of dust covered everything in a dry white cloak. The slavers made camp for the night. The horses were tied, watered and fed oiled grains and oats.
Dry rations were passed among the jailors. Krayker brought the prisoners cupfuls of beans and rice that had been mixed to the consistency of paste and rendered utterly tasteless. Each prisoner was handed their own tin, so long as they were able to take hold of one; those who couldn’t because they were too wounded or fatigued to get to the bars in time were simply ignored. Each prisoner was also handed a dram of water.
Some minor scuffling occurred between some of the larger slaves as they tried to bully or take each other’s portions, but Cross, Flint and Shiv were left alone, likely out of fear as to what would happen if anyone meddled with Cross again, since he’d clearly been singled out for protection by Tain. Flint and Shiv seemed to be safe so long as they stayed close to him.
Cross had to eat slowly in order to keep his food down. His tongue was so dry it soaked the water up like a sun-burned sponge, and before he knew it most of the liquid was gone and he didn’t feel like he’d even taken a drink.
Night fell quickly. The slavers lit a small fire and circled round it with their weap
ons ready. The distant brays of Bloodwolves echoed through the black skies.
Flint and Shiv huddled together for warmth, while Cross sat and rubbed his arms with his hands while he shivered. The smell of urine was strong as prisoners relieved themselves through the bars. He was happy that’s all they did.
The camp was in clear sight of the wagon. Cross saw crackling flames and pots of beans and armed criminals sitting and laughing and jeering at one another. A Vuul named Saul walked a perimeter with a 12-gauge shotgun. The grey-skinned brute towered over them all, and he occasionally glared at the prisoners as he circled the wagon. The empty and open plains were so dark and vast it seemed like the wagon teetered at the edge of nowhere. Cold wind cut through the bars.
Cross faded. He drifted in and out of sleep.
“Wake up.” He looked up and saw the woman, Kala. Her stark face and high cheekbones were wreathed in shadow, and her dark hair had been pulled into a top knot. “Tain wants to see you,” she said.
The cage door opened. Saul kept his shotgun aimed at Cross. Cross was surprised no one made any attempt to rush the door in spite of the gun – several of those men had looks in their eyes like death would have been preferable to spending another day locked in that cage. Cross was almost one of them.
Kala wrapped steel wire around his wrists, which she secured so tight he thought he’d lose circulation in his hands. She led him stumbling past the campfire. His muscles felt gelatinous. The wagon wasn’t tall enough on the inside to allow anyone to stand completely straight, so he’d been sitting or squatting for what felt like ages.
The other slavers laughed as he passed them by, joking about “fresh meat” and “not wanting to be in his shoes”. Krayker made a throat-slitting motion at Cross and smiled.
Kala led him out into the darkness.
Tain sat at his own campfire, a small blaze that billowed dark smoke. The warlock’s personal camp was a good twenty meters away from his men. The small tent seemed exposed, especially considering the array of beasts that stalked the Bone March, but if Tain was concerned he didn’t show it. The mage sat cross-legged in front of the fire with his ringed hands crossed on his lap. Shadows flooded the inside of his hood, and the crackling firelight barely lit his lower jaw.
The warlock nodded, and Kala turned and left them alone. Cross tensed his fingers. The wire loosened, just enough that blood flowed back into his hands. The ground was uncomfortably hard and covered with bits of bone and twig. A single pale tree hung over Tain’s tent like a jutting wishbone. The Bone March stretched all around them, vast and silent, cold and dark. Cross tasted rot in the sharp cool wind.
He waited for Tain to speak. He’d been summoned there, and wanted to see how Tain would approach him. Making threats or demanding to know what was going on wouldn’t get him anywhere, and Cross knew it. Tain had all the markings of a hard man. He dominated his subordinates with magic, which in many ways made him the Southern Claw’s worst nightmare. Mages were humankind’s most efficient and valuable weapon against the vampires of the Ebon Cities. Every mage – and their numbers were not so great as some imagined – was an invaluable commodity, and the White Council did what they could to secure the loyalties and talents of each and every one from a very young age. But mages were human, and in spite of the call of service not all desired a life in the military, or felt any real loyalty towards the human race.
Cross somehow had the sense the warlock knew exactly what was running through his mind. Tain’s spirit coiled around the man’s body like a pulsing electric snake. The hairs on the back of Cross’s neck raised as she reached out at him with liquid tentacles. He tasted ozone and cold air.
Tain sat perfectly still. Cross tried his best to match the effort, but he was weary and sore. Blood still flowed through his mouth from cracked lips and cut gums, and his head throbbed from the beating he’d taken. It was sometimes easy to forget he was older now. Even though his mind seemed to regard his imprisonment at Margrave’s ethereal hands as a flash of moments, the fact remained that twenty years had passed. Usually he didn’t notice, but sitting there in the uncomfortable dark, bereft of rest and healing, Cross felt like an old man.
“The sword,” Tain said. It has been so long since Cross had sat down it took him a moment to register the man’s voice. The fires of the larger camp were behind them, seemingly a world away.
“What about it?”
“Watch your tone, warlock,” Tain said. He must have seen a reaction on Cross’s face, for he added: “I know you aren’t a mage anymore…but you were once. I’ll have you tell me about that, too, sometime. But for now, I just want to know about the sword.”
“Why?” Cross said. “It’s just a blade.”
A spirit’s razor caress hugged his skin. She stayed liquid, an ethereal shape, but at the same time she was sharp. A fog with teeth. Intangible points pressed against Cross’s throat, eyes and wrists. She could have closed in if she wanted to, and splayed him open.
“You were saying?” Tain whispered. The man’s voice was cool and emotionless. His spirit roiled with anger, but the warlock who commanded her just sat impassively. He looked like he’d just as soon eat a turnip as torture Cross, and that he’d get as much enjoyment from either act. “I know the blade has arcane potential. But it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. You know what it is. You’ll tell me, or I’ll turn you inside out. My spirit will keep you alive while I remove your organs, one by one, and feed them to you.”
The casual voice chilled him. Cross breathed deep, and tried to think.
“It was made for me,” he lied. He was a terrible liar.
Hopefully I can figure out how to lie well really fast.
“By who?”
“The Crimson Triangle.” That was a gamble. The renegade outlaws controlled a massive cartel of slaves, drugs, assassins and black magic in the southern Ebonsand Sea, and they always took the Southern Claw by surprise with their ingenuity and cunning. Alchemical solutions and arcane drugs unheard of on the mainland had a way of appearing out of the Triangle’s oceanic territories. While Tain was likely well traveled, very few people actually dealt with the Triangle.
And if you’re wandering around the northern wastes, you probably haven’t been that far south. I hope.
Tain said nothing. His spirit didn’t relent. Cross felt ice press against his skin like glacial knives.
The mage reached into the darkness and pulled out a long piece of cloth. He unwrapped it on the ground in front of him, and Cross saw the glint of the harlequin blade, deep black and pure white steel fused together at the core, a hand-and-half weapon with a pommel bound in leather.
“What is its purpose?” Tain asked.
“It contains my magic,” Cross said. “My spirit was ripped away by a Rakzeri shaman. A priest-thaumaturge in Blacksand offered to help me recover it. As it turned out, he worked for the Crimson Triangle.” He nodded at the blade. “It wasn’t cheap.”
Tain was silent, considering Cross’s words. Cross tried to steady his breathing and maintain his composure.
Danica would be proud. She was always a better liar than I was.
“How did you wind up in the Carrion Rift after you were in Blacksand?” he asked.
Cross laughed.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
To his surprise, Tain laughed, too.
“You’ll tell me anyways,” he said. “Tomorrow. When you show me how to extract your power from the blade.”
Kala was at his back. Cross hadn’t heard her approach. She reached down and hauled him to his feet by his bound wrists. She was surprisingly strong for such a lithe woman.
“Wait,” Cross said. “Why would I do that, when you just plan to sell me in Dirge?” His heart leapt into his throat as Tain’s spirit wound her way up his legs like a slithering serpent and coiled around his testicles. Pain shot up his stomach and into his chest.
“If you don’t do as I say, I’ll make you eat them,” Tain said calmly. �
��And then I’ll spread your two new friends in the wagon wide open.”
He released Cross and went back to admiring the blade, playing his fingers along its length like he caressed a long-lost lover.
Kala led Cross back to the wagon and locked him in.
Flint woke at his return, and cast him a sideways glance.
“Nice chat?”
“Be ready,” Cross whispered.
“For what?”
“We’re getting out of here. Tomorrow.”
EIGHT
CLAW
She rested in a pool of blood.
Crimson steam thickened the air of the limestone bath chamber. Tall archways led off to dark corridors filled with the sounds of song and running water.
Her eyes were heavy. Dragon’s bath was filled with arcane fluids and necrotic unguents provided by zombie theurgeons and local mage-scholars. Lorn had once been a city of learning, a place of arcane experimentation and historical research, and great advances had been made in the art of regeneration. That was a long time ago, before Lorn had surrendered itself to the Ebon Cities, but most of those same mage-scholars were still there, plying their trade under the careful supervision of the vampire regime.
Dragon’s mind raced with images of broken ruins at the edge of the wastelands, subterranean realms controlled by wolf-headed sorcerers with sawblade teeth and shadow cloaks. She walked through a cold necropolis and swam through seas of blood, basked in the light of midnight stars and watched pale dancers on a vampire shore.
These were ancient places, distant places. The visions were difficult for her mind to hold onto. Some she remembered, most she forgot.
She couldn’t even remember her own name.
Every now and again, memories would almost come to her, but when they did Lynch brought her to the bath chambers, where zombie doctors took her to the specially prepared blood pools.
Her body healed, and she grew stronger. Her steel limb was removed when this happened, so she sat calm and quiet, naked and one-armed in the freezing liquid.
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