The Witch's Eye

by Steven Montano

  “I guess the blade is useless to us, then,” Tain said. “Which means you’re useless, too.”

  The stench of rot intensified. Cross heard a distant scream approach like a locomotive. Suddenly, a towering rampart of blood and smoke exploded up from the ground like a geyser. Cross, Tain and Kala were all thrown back. Cross saw faces in the shifting pillar, twisted and contorted souls wracked with agony. Something hovered at the core of the ghostly blast: a smoking lens of crimson ice hanging in the air like an eye. It looked into him, looked through him.

  Cyclonic force battered Cross’s body. The vortex doubled in size. Outside the ravine, the arcane storm tore the landscape apart. Trees fell into the sky, uprooted by the spectral hurricane. Blood and sand whipped out with a sound like rasping metal. Bones and grit flew through the air.

  Cross froze. A rush of power from the sword surrounded him…protected him. Cold energies gelled against his body like liquid steel. The air around him turned black as he was encased in an onyx shell, an armored sarcophagus. Cross struggled to see through the iron-dark surface of the ebon cocoon.

  Bodies exploded into bursts of skin and gore. The whirlwind diced Saul apart like a head of cabbage. Horses flew to pieces.

  Cross was thrown back, but the storm couldn’t penetrate his armor. Everything smelled like fire. His sweat burned. Caustic wind pushed him hard against the wall.

  The storm raged on.

  Tain lashed out at the wraith tempest, that undead storm fused around the smoking eye of ice. The gem watched the potent spirit shape into a spike of acid and fire, but even the warlock’s assault wasn’t enough. His spirit was scattered, her screams lost in the dead tide.

  Kala leapt in front of Tain to protect him and was lifted into the storm. Blood rained down as her body was ripped apart.

  Tain stood stunned. Claws of smoke reached down and took hold of him. Night-hard talons punched through his chest and lifted him up. His torso cracked, and his insides spilled out.

  Screams echoed in Cross’s mind as the prisoners were torn apart.

  Flint. Shiv.

  He tried to stand, but the wind knocked him back. His cries of pain were lost in the phantom wind.

  He struggled, helplessly. Blood and sand hailed down on him.

  Finally, after what felt like hours, the storm faded. Needles of sunlight poked through the crimson darkness. His shield dissolved, and shards of obsidian fell to the ground.

  Cross stood up. His body was wracked with hurt, but he stumbled back to where they’d pitched him into the ravine. The hills had been cracked open and the trees looked like broken matchsticks. Red mist clung to the ground.

  Smoke and ash condensed and receded into the eye of the storm, that piece of floating ice. It was opaque, blackly red and darkly frosted. He heard its voice, malign and ancient, vast and unsettling. The air was made cold and dead by its presence. It hung like the cold space between the stars.

  He only saw the eye for a moment before it was gone. It had left nothing but ruin in its wake.

  The wagon had been pushed onto its side and decimated. Bits of wood and metal and bloody remains covered the ground. Plucked organs spilled putrid fluids. The air was charnel, and smelled like a slaughterhouse.

  Cross turned away and covered his face. He saw his sword in the dirt at the bottom of the trench. The blood-covered steel ran with richly dark smoke.

  It had saved him. Only him.

  Why?

  Cross picked up the weapon slowly. Strength poured through his body. His shaking hand steadied. He took a deep breath.

  He saw the eye of ice in his mind’s eye, and held it there.

  After a time, Cross investigated what was left of the wagon.

  The stench of human and animal remains hung thick. Blood steamed in the cool afternoon air. Twisted body parts sizzled like they’d been put to the torch.

  The wagon was in splinters. Wheel spokes protruded from human remains. The gory ruins of the horses had spread like paste. Twisted intestines were coiled around broken pieces of wood.

  Cross’s chest was tight. He thought about Flint and Shiv, victims of other men’s cruelty, in the wrong place at the wrong time, torn apart by the whim of the icy eye. Hatred boiled in his heart.

  He’d never heard of such a creature, a specter fused to a core of diamond, but he vowed to learn anything and everything he could.

  The more I know, the easier it’ll be for me to destroy it.

  Cross searched for salvageable equipment. Most everything had been torn to fragments, so he didn’t expect to find much. He started with the remains furthest from the epicenter of the carnage.

  After a few minutes he uncovered a Smith & Wesson Model 36 and a sawed-off Remington 870. They were both covered in gore.

  As he searched, something stirred at the center of the wreckage. Wood creaked and fell apart. Cross saw shadows emerge from the devastated wagon. He checked the shotgun, made sure it was loaded, and moved closer to the pile. His heart pounded.

  Flint pushed his way out from under the shattered wood. He held Shiv in his arms.

  “Help!” he yelled, and he flung a piece of debris away. Cross laughed with joy and ran over to them.

  “How…?”

  “Don’t ask,” Flint said. His Irish accent seemed thicker when he was exhausted and stressed. “Because I don’t know.”

  Cross gripped Flint’s arm tight to make sure he was real and not just some trick of the wastelands. He helped them get free of the destruction.

  “Try,” Cross said with joy in his voice. Flint and Shiv were covered in grime and dirt, but apart from a few scrapes and bruises they both seemed to be okay.

  “Something grabbed us,” Shiv said excitedly. Like her father, her accent came through heavy now, and she didn’t bother trying to masquerade as a boy anymore. “Something…black. Like a ghost.”

  “Damndest thing I ever saw,” Flint said as they caught their breath. Cross led them away from the wagon. He tried to distract Shiv so her eyes wouldn’t linger on the putrid remains all around them. “It’s like we were…blessed,” Flint said. He laughed. “It’s like we were blessed.”

  Cross smiled, and nodded.

  The sword saved you, he thought. He’d explain it to them later, not that he could understand it himself. The proximity of the weapon sent a chill down his spine. Soulrazor/Avenger’s power resonated like a heartbeat.

  Thank you, he thought to it. But…why? What are you up to?

  They rested a while and then went back to searching for supplies. They had a long trek across the wastelands ahead of them.

  TEN

  DRIFT

  Talon Company was a mobilized infantry unit consisting of roughly 100 soldiers, a handful of land vehicles — mostly M35 cargo trucks and a pair of Panzer tanks – and a half-dozen Bloodhawk warships. They traveled west-by-southwest towards Rimefang Loch. Their course would take them near Ath, one of the largest and most fortified city-states in the Southern Claw, but only after they crossed a vast and icy region that was spare on resources and populated by creatures who by and large regarded humans as little more than fresh meat.

  The convoy moved across grey moraines and past crusted saltwater marshes on the southwestern edge of the Reach. Cold mists covered the ground, and massive cedars covered with hoarfrost stood near deep fissures that smelled of pitch. The air was bitterly cold. The hilly region offered plenty of cover from which enemy forces could launch an ambush, but luckily Talon Company had enough firepower and magic to repel anything short of a full battalion.

  Ronan saw everything from the air. The lead warship was called Ravage, and it soared two-hundred feet above the ground at the head of the convoy, while the sister ships, Revenge and Hardshell, kept watch for threats coming out of the wastelands. Ronan and Maur rode with Crylos and Ankharra. Stark commanded Revenge, while a warlock named Traven commanded Hardshell, which was where they held Jade.

  The Southern Claw employed a friendlier method than the Ebon Citi
es or Black Scar did when it came to restraining captive witches. Special gauntlets had been locked in place around her hands to prevent her from moving her fingers, and a null field kept Jade’s spirit at bay and at the mercy of her captors. Jade was essentially powerless, since a spirit couldn’t manifest without the aid of its joined mage.

  Crylos wasn’t going to relent on the issue of Jade: she was a wanted criminal, and she would see justice in the courts at Ath. Maur was upset, and Ronan supposed he understood, since she’d helped the Gol escape from Voth Ra’morg, and they’d kept each other safe when they’d been incarcerated by the Gorgoloth. Ronan knew what it was like to live in fear, and he understood the bonds that developed in those kinds of situations.

  Still, she’s not one of us, and she never was. She’d kill us as soon as help us if it got her what she wanted.

  Ronan watched the world pass by through the forward nautascope display. The earth beneath them was grey and littered with icy snow.

  The inside of the warship was cramped and noisy. Steel rivets rattled in place. There were no seats aside from the pilot’s and gunner’s, so Ronan and Maur kept switching places, navigating between bulky pieces of wire-covered equipment and ducking beneath pulleys and handles as they tried their best to stay out of the way.

  Maur was quiet as he studied the controls in the Bloodhawk. He’d mentioned to Ronan earlier that he’d never seen the newest model, and he was curious to see what upgrades had been made. Ronan had no doubt the Gol was cataloging the information away for selecting their next vessel, whenever they could afford a next vessel.

  Will there even be a ‘next vessel’? Everyone else is gone, or as good as gone. Do you really think you and Maur are going to keep the team going? That part of your life is over, pal.

  He felt empty inside whenever he thought about the team, whenever he thought about how much he needed them…about how little he wanted to be on his own again.

  Maur came over and looked at the screen with Ronan. They were still a day out of Ath. Ronan had hoped they’d stop in Wolftown, but Crylos insisted they had plenty of supplies, enough even for the newfound refugees, and that a stop would only delay them.

  Too bad. I really enjoyed those ruffians. Ronan had also wanted to visit the place where Grissom had died, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. For some reason it seemed a decent thing to do.

  “Ronan,” Maur said. He could barely hear anything over the vibrating metal and groaning engines. Ronan and Maur had both been given fresh clothes but had kept their old armor, since Maur’s was form-fitted and Ronan’s had been modified by Ash to help repel direct hits from arcane strikes, so the two of them still looked like they’d just stepped out of a dust storm.

  “What?”

  “Maur worries for those who aren’t here.”

  Ronan nodded.

  “Yeah. I do, too…but I think we need to accept the possibility we won’t be seeing them again.”

  “Yes,” Maur nodded.

  “What else?” Ronan asked. “I can tell you have something more on your mind.”

  “Maur wonders what you are still doing here,” the Gol said.

  Ronan looked at him. He wasn’t about to tell the diminutive pilot he was there to keep his little ass safe, and that that was going to be his job until he told Maur otherwise.

  “Ronan might ask the same of Maur,” he said with a small smile.

  “Maur doesn’t know. Maybe he needs the money.”

  “Does he?” Ronan asked. “The team made plenty, and it should still be secure in the manor. Maur could probably take his cut and go on his merry way.”

  They hit a pocket of turbulence. Ronan held onto the overhead beam while the ship bobbed up and down.

  “Maur wouldn’t do that,” the Gol said. Ronan just nodded. “Maur isn’t sure what he’s going to do after all of this.”

  “Yeah,” Ronan said. “He’s not the only one.”

  Crylos was behind them, having a heated discussion with one of the other ships over the comm. He practically shouted to be heard over the sound of the engines.

  “Maur wonders what will happen to Jade.”

  Ronan smirked.

  “Maur just loves everybody,” he said. “I don’t.”

  He looked at the screen. He felt Maur’s eyes on him.

  “Maur doesn’t understand why you…”

  “…are glad that a woman who works for a guy who tried to screw us is going to get what she deserves?” Ronan said. “I’m confused why you’re getting your underwear bunched up about her.”

  Maur stared at him. After a moment the Gol pulled up his face-wrap and picked up one of the operations manuals, which he buried himself in without another word.

  Way to go, Ronan told himself.

  “All right, listen up,” Crylos said. Ronan felt the ship alter its course. They’d turned south. “We have a problem. It’s time for you boys to earn your pay.”

  They were on the ground twenty minutes later, heading south by southwest towards the remains of Wolftown. Perimeter scouts reported that something had happened to the borderlands community, so a group was being sent to find out what was going on.

  Ronan and Maur were accompanied by the warlock Traven and a trio of soldiers: Moone, one of the survivors from the Gorgoloth raiding party near Voth Ra’morg, a blonde kid named Cunningham, and a skinny red-headed woman named Reza. The six of them drove across the salty wastelands in an armored dune buggy equipped with a top-mounted .30 caliber machinegun and enough fuel for them to get to the settlement and report back to Talon Company, which would make camp for six hours before moving on. If need be the scout team would catch up with the rest of the Company at Ath.

  The thought of something happening to Wolftown bothered Ronan much more than it should have. Yes, he had a great deal of respect for Roth and Creasy’s people, for their hard ways and harder lifestyle, but they chose to live in the wastelands and hunt the deadly Bloodwolves. They knew the risks. They had no illusions over what sort of life they chose to lead.

  So what the hell are you getting all soft for? he asked himself. Get a hold of yourself before you get you and Maur killed.

  Dead forests loomed like a dark stain to the south. The air was the color of rust, and diffused light shone on shards of ironstone and green marble.

  The dune buggy proved for a bumpy ride, and there was barely enough room to contain them all. Cunningham whistled as he drove, and it didn’t take long for Ronan to wish he had some industrial strength tape to seal the boy’s lips shut. Reza, Moone and Maur sat in the back with Ronan, while the mage Traven, who was twenty if he was a day, sat up front. His purple and black cloak rippled in the breeze, and his steely eyes were locked on the jagged hills to the north.

  “You guys used to work with Cross?” Reza asked him. She had heavy tattoos of intertwined serpents and blades on her neck and shoulders. Her hair was cut short, and she had a gruff and direct sense about her that Ronan liked.

  “Yeah,” Ronan said. “Up until the point where he fell into a coma and disappeared.”

  “Man, that sucks,” Reza said. “You guys were cool.”

  “Yeah,” Ronan nodded. “We were.”

  “That business in the Reach,” Cunningham called back as he drove. The icy wind hit them full on. Ronan’s scalp was frozen, and even with his cowl up his scars burned from the touch of the cold. The sound of the grinding engine growled through the empty night, and the vehicle bounced along so violently everyone had to keep a tight grip on the roll bar to avoid being thrown clear.

  “What about it?” Ronan called back.

  “Well, did that really happen?”

  “What business?” Ronan said after he thought about it for a moment. “We were in the Reach a lot!”

  “Seventy Gorgoloth?” Cunningham laughed. “Led by a crazy warlock who went AWOL? They say your team handled all of them without losing a single member.”

  Ronan thought back. He had vague recollection of the event, but the deta
ils escaped him.

  “A hundred,” Maur called back. “It was a hundred Gorgoloth. And the team did lose someone.”

  Reza smiled at Cunningham’s obvious disbelief. Ronan smiled, too, but the smile faded when he realized why he couldn’t remember that battle: he hadn’t been there. He’d been told about it. That mission had taken place before he’d joined the team. Whoever they’d lost had been the person he’d replaced.

  Maur is just as affected by all of this as you are, he reminded himself. Maybe more so, because he actually feels things. So go easy on him, you prick.

  “Maur,” he said. “What was the name of that damn cat? The one Grissom took in?”

  “Fifi,” Maur said. “Maur thought it was a dog.”

  Reza laughed.

  “Me, too,” Ronan nodded. “We need to check on it when we get back.”

  Maur nodded. Though a cowl concealed Maur’s face, Ronan was pretty sure the Gol was smiling.

  The buggy roared across the broken plains. Within a few minutes they had the smoking remains of Wolftown in sight.

  ELEVEN

  NEST

  The Razorwing flew low over the rocky hills south of Wolftown as the sun fell behind a mass of iron-black clouds. The landscape was wreathed in smoking shadow.

  Dragon, Renaad and Cristena lay against the platform tied to the Razorwing’s back. The night wind scaled against them, and the air smelled of broken pine and gas.

  Wolftown’s ruins smoldered in the distance. Pale flames and dark smoke curled into the sky. The smoking corpses of humans and wolves littered the ground around the jury-rigged city.

  The reptilian beast unfurled and made its descent. Dragon gripped the support chains. The world tilted. Her arms and legs were firm against the platform, but the rest of her body lifted a few inches as the creature dipped down from out of the sky.

  The Razorwing was nearly silent as it landed. It wound in its tail and folded its night-black wings so the riders could dismount. Dragon leapt down, and the ground felt strange beneath her boots.