The Witch's Eye

by Steven Montano

  “Nothing?” Reza asked.

  “No,” Traven answered.

  “Then we don’t know shit,” Ronan said, and he climbed out of the dune buggy. To his surprise, Moone and Reza followed, and Traven wasn’t far behind. Maur moved to come with them as well, but Ronan motioned for him to stay. He needed someone to keep his eyes on Cunningham, and Maur seemed to get the idea because he nodded, albeit reluctantly.

  Ronan, Traven, Reza and Moone slowly entered Wolftown.

  “I’m going to be next to useless in here,” Traven whispered. “I’ve never been this close to so much corrupted death energy. It feels different from Ebon Cities magic. More…twisted.”

  “It could be Kothian,” Ronan said. They moved past piles of black timber and banks of melted salt. “Or something we haven’t seen yet.”

  “That’s what worries me,” Traven said.

  Moone and Reza took the point. The icy wind kicked dust in their path, and the sun had melted to a red stain behind the greasy clouds. Ronan held the Norinco ready and loosed the kukri secured to the side-draw scabbard behind his back, as the weapon was smaller and quicker than the katana he carried slung over his shoulder.

  Traven’s eyes shone. He motioned a stop. They’d come to the edge of the compound, just inside the outer gates. A large flame cannon nest sat in front of a small building made of steel and stone. Clawed and decimated bodies were everywhere. The charnel stink in the air was heavy, and the smoke pained their eyes.

  Moone and Reza took up position on the other side of the nest. A .30-caliber was mounted on a swivel rack up above. Ronan looked at Traven, who stood struggling for breath. The young mage looked lost. His hands shook as he tried to hold onto his spirit.

  “Traven?” Ronan urged.

  The warlock nodded. Sweat poured down his face. He held a finger up to his lips, pointed at the building, and made a circling motion with his fingers.

  Something waited for them on the other side of the structure. Everything went silent. Ronan heard the wind, and the sound of ice on the ground cracking beneath his boot seemed to roar like a cannon.

  A pair of revenants leapt from the shadows, one male and one female, both armed with blades and chains. The male’s hand-cannon spewed red-white blasts, and Traven’s shield barely rose around Ronan in time. Metal fragments flew away like iron flies.

  The air exploded with gunfire. The two revenants dodged in and out of the darkness, and a third assailant, a howling spirit, came flashing forward like a nightmare of hot knives. Traven’s spirit responded with a barrage of ice and sand.

  Ronan heard a shell whistle through the air seconds before it landed. The building exploded. White light crashed against his skull. He flew backwards, and pain hammered his body. Ronan tasted blood.

  His eyes stung, but he forced them open. He’d landed near the city gates. He rose to his feet. Another blast landed and rocked the walls. The tang of artillery smoke washed over him.

  Ronan stumbled forward. The male revenant leapt out of nowhere with a curved blade aimed at Ronan’s throat. He ducked just in time, and the attack sliced through the wall behind him.

  His opponent moved lightning quick. Adrenaline flooded through Ronan’s body. He tried to take aim, but the revenant kicked his rifle away. Ronan drew his kukri, sliced the hand-cannon in two and kicked the revenant in the abdomen to force its body back. The creature hissed and revealed fangs slathered with undead spittle. Ronan drew his katana so he held a blade in each hand.

  Explosions shook Wolftown. Shards of stone and glass rained down. Smoke from arcane flames clogged his lungs.

  The revenant came at him again. Ronan ducked beneath the assault. His katana sank deep into the creature’s throat and his kukri punched through its torso. Sharp steel raked across his chest, and Ronan growled in pain as he twisted his blades loose. The revenant’s stomach fell open, and its head rolled off its body.

  Another blast came down. The air was a swirl of smoke and noise. Someone screamed, and he followed the sound.

  Moone was dead, his body a ruin of blood and cuts. Ronan grabbed his gun and looked for Reza and Traven, who were both lost in the smoke. Artillery fell all around them.

  Fane. It has to be.

  Ronan covered his mouth and ran into a cloud of hex fumes and shattered particle drift. Whirling debris stung his eyes and face.

  Traven huddled near a low wall of broken stone. He was locked in arcane battle with a human witch wearing her spirit as a husk of obsidian armor that concealed her features. Reza, in the meantime, crouched next to Traven and fired at the female revenant, which used the broken debris of a small building for cover. Smoking bodies were everywhere, human, wolf and unnaturally dark-skinned vampires that leaked shadows.

  Ronan shot a burst at the revenant. Reza signaled him to move to a flanking position, so Ronan cut left and dove down next to a tattered tent. It was difficult to move quickly without slipping in viscera or tripping on wreckage. He and Reza coordinated their fire, and the revenant ducked behind a shattered well.

  Magic energies turned the air brittle. The witch’s armor cracked beneath Traven’s barrage of acid missiles and razor fire. Dead winds scoured the ground.

  Ronan’s gun ran dry. He tossed it aside and ran at the revenant while Reza reloaded.

  Stupid, he thought. It was too late.

  The revenant leapt at him. Ronan deflected a chained knife with his kukri, but the edged links caught his blade and whipped it through the air. He and the undead circled each other. Black leather armor riddled with cuts and scorch marks creaked against the revenant’s voluptuous body, and her heavy boots were set with razor studs. She spun her chained blades with deft precision.

  The revenant feinted to her left, but Ronan anticipated the move and ducked. She was quicker than he was, so when he tried to follow through with an upward strike she turned out of his way with ease, spun round and raked his back with a barbed chain. Pain lanced between his shoulder blades. He circled around and swung at her, and his sword came close enough to her face that she snarled and leapt back.

  A blast sounded behind him. Ronan ignored it.

  Reza shouted for him to duck, and then fired. Bullets tore through the revenant’s shoulder. Ronan dove forward while his opponent was distracted, drove his blade into her stomach and sank it to the hilt. She howled and lashed forward. Her strength was immense, and he struggled just to hold on. Fangs flashed near his face. He held her impaled on his sword. Dark blood welled around his knuckles. He drew the second kukri from his belt and hacked open her throat, and when she finally stopped thrashing he let her body slide to the ground.

  The artillery fell faster, a bombardment that tore through the settlement.

  Traven coiled whips of fire around the witch. She pulled back and threw out her arms. A blast of intense cold radiated from her body.

  Ronan was thrown backwards. The mortar blast echoed in his ears. Splinters tore into his back, and dust and debris clouded his eyes. Disoriented and dazed, he struggled to his feet once again.

  The witch’s spirit armor was gone. Ronan saw a mess of black hair and a strange steel arm as she stepped through the wall of icy flames.

  No. God dammit!

  She was dressed all in purple and black form-fitting armor with shoulder plates and tall steel-capped boots. She advanced on Traven, who lay in a pile of wreckage, coughing as he attempted to rise. Ronan gripped his katana and stepped forward.

  “Hey!”

  She turned. The scar on her cheek and the color of her hair threw him off, but he’d have recognized her anywhere.

  “Dani?”

  She watched him for a moment. Her expression changed, darkened.

  She doesn’t know me.

  She launched her spirit. Ronan dove forward and threw his kukri into her shoulder, and Traven erected a wall of arcane force just in time to save him from a hail of caustic blades. The warlock’s hair was pasted with blood and sweat, and one of his arms hung limp at his side, but his
eyes and good hand pulsed with light. Reza took aim from behind a shattered stone wall and fired at Danica again.

  “No!” Ronan shouted. “Don’t kill her!”

  Danica ripped the kukri from her shoulder. She looked confused as she dropped the blade to the ground and stumbled backwards.

  A dark shape appeared overhead. The bomb blasts had masked the Razorwing’s approach. It slipped out of the clouds with a dreadful howl and almost landed right on top of Ronan. Oil and black sweat rained down. The creature’s razored jaws sprang forward and narrowly missed his head. He slashed the creature’s face open with his katana, spilling black blood.

  Reza fired at the Razorwing. Traven attempted to tie the beast down with spiritual chains, but the warlock was fatigued, so the reptilian brute snapped the bonds with ease and took to the sky the moment Danica leapt onto its back.

  “Dani!” Ronan shouted. She looked down at him as her mount made the ascent, and for a moment – just a moment – he thought he saw a spark of recognition there, some indication she knew who he was. Beast and rider rose into the smoke-filled night.

  “We have to get out of here!” Traven yelled. Another bomb-blast ripped into the ground. “Fall back to the buggy!”

  Wood and stone exploded across their path. The blasts came rapidly now, an unceasing staccato bombardment. The air burned. They blindly pushed their way through clouds of gritty smoke.

  They ran through the Wolftown gates. Dark tanks and the enormous shadows of red-skinned Troj stormed out of the hills. The air sparked white with cold lightning and magic.

  “Fane,” Ronan said.

  Cunningham and Maur were still in the dune buggy, racing away from enemy vehicles and dodging blast craters. Gunfire ricocheted off the ground behind them.

  Ronan waited, tensed. His arm bled, and his body was riddled with cuts and bruises. His spine tingled. He expected a bomb to land on him at any moment.

  She’s alive. And that means Cross might be alive, too.

  Cunningham slowed the buggy just long enough for Ronan, Traven and Reza to jump inside.

  “Where’s Moone?” he asked.

  “Dead,” Traven said. “Get us out of here!”

  “No!” Ronan. His eyes searched the sky and saw the Razorwing heading towards the frozen lowlands west of Rimefang Loch. “Follow it!”

  “Are you nuts?” Reza shouted.

  “Cunningham, go!” Traven yelled. The buggy kicked forward and bounced along the ground.

  “Get to the far side of Wolftown!” Maur shouted. “At least there the buggy will be out of direct line of sight to the Fane artillery!”

  “We’re not following that witch,” Traven told Ronan. “We have to report back!”

  “That witch is a member of Cross’s team!” Ronan shouted back.

  “What?!” Maur shouted. “Wait…look!”

  Artillery detonated the sky. The Razorwing buckled and twisted. Blood and skin splattered into the night.

  The beast went down somewhere in the distant hills.

  “You follow it,” Ronan said to Cunningham. “Or so help me I’ll kill you and leave you here.”

  THIRTEEN

  BLACK

  She fell.

  A deafening barrage of cannon fire caught the Razorwing. The platform exploded into splinters, and Dragon was left floating in the flint-colored sky. She saw wind-gnarled rocks and slate teeth as she tumbled through the blood clouds. Cold wind ripped into her like knives.

  She let go of the Razorwing’s smoking corpse and plummeted. The ebon-scaled beast fell away like a wind-blown tarp. For a moment she almost seemed to fly, held aloft in a chill cross-breeze before she fell towards the cadaverous landscape. Her spirit exploded around her like a blossom of ink. The ground came up fast, but the air around her congealed to an obsidian shell.

  Even protected, the impact wracked her body. Blood welled in her mouth. Her right shoulder ached sharp where the metal of her arm fused to her skin.

  Dragon rose slowly, anchored with hurt. The armor cracked and fell away. Snow dust lifted in the ossein wind. Claw was still with her, gripped tight in her steel hand. Blood caked her face and chest and looked like tar in the moonlight.

  Wolftown burned in the distance beneath a continued barrage of explosive blasts. The smell of burned meat clung to the air.

  Dragon stood on a ridge at the foot of the Bone Hills. If she travelled west through the snow-colored plains and shattered forests she’d eventually wind up on the shores of the Nightblood River, which she could follow to Rimefang Loch. A grim tree line stood in the distance, right at the edge of a wind-blown storm of ice shards and frost. The cold lashed against her. Scuffed piles of vehicular detritus littered the landscape.

  There was no way to get back to Lorn, not without facing the Southern Claw or the forces out of Koth. But now she knew where the Witch’s Eye was going, even if she still couldn’t guess at its purpose. Her mission had been to learn all she could, but until she could communicate her findings back to Lynch or Lady Riven she had little choice but to act on the knowledge she’d acquired.

  She would stop the Eye herself.

  Vampiric whispers echoed through her mind. Their pull on her wasn’t strong, as she’d never been fully Turned, but they were still there. She wasn’t sure if the vampires could hear her thoughts or not. If they could, they already knew where she was going, and what she planned to do.

  Sometimes she still saw the face of the vampire who’d bitten her. In spite of herself, she wanted him destroyed.

  The air over Wolftown was filled with smoke and flame. Land tanks and armored Troj pushed towards the walls of the settlement. A lone dune buggy sped up the hill, making its way straight towards her. It used the smoke and chaos as cover.

  Dragon ran for the river. Her boots tore up brittle shale and grey slush. The going was hard and her legs were already tired and sore. Her spirit tried to give her stamina, but she contained him to her steel arm. She’d need him at full strength when her pursuers caught up with them.

  She wasn’t sure if the knowledge of the area’s geography was her own or if it belonged to the vampire collective consciousness, but it didn’t matter – she knew exactly where to go. The tree-line was a mile away, and the forest sloped downhill for another mile before it reached the Nightblood River. She could reach the trees in just a few minutes even without the aid of magic, as her body was in good shape, and felt used to running.

  You never ran. You hated it.

  She pushed the thought aside and moved as fast as she could. The wind threw charcoal sleet in her path. Her lungs were raw with cold. The storm intensified. Explosions boomed behind her like thunder.

  Her mind raced while she ran. Something about the swordsman troubled her. He’d recognized her, and she’d recognized him, but only enough to acknowledge the fact that his was a face from another life. She wanted to see him more clearly, to call back the memory, but it wouldn’t come. It teased her, played at the edge of her memory.

  He didn’t kill me. He could have, but he didn’t.

  Her shoulder burned from the blade wound even though her spirit had already sealed the injury and stemmed the flow of blood. The strike had been true – she knew without question he’d hit exactly what he’d aimed for.

  Why didn’t he kill me?

  The dune buggy raced towards her. Heavy wheels twisted and slid through black mud. She felt the stain of a female spirit, so Dragon turned and launched her own. Fire and ice collided in mid-air.

  A Fanian land-tank roared towards them on iron wheels lined with spikes and bladed ram plates. A top-mounted turret housed a recoilless rifle, and anti-personnel guns lined the hull. Troj ran behind the tank, their crimson-scaled flesh and black armor stark against the snow.

  Cannon-fire roared through the air. Dragon focused her magic. Dark light danced across her eyes.

  A Troj fired at the buggy with a 20mm rifle, but the warlock inside turned and batted away the blast with an arc of silver fire.
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  Smoking stone blades launched from Dragon’s fingertips and tore through the Troj’s armored torso. Intestines exploded from its chest like frayed ropes, and the creature tumbled to the ground.

  Why did I do that? I need to kill those people before they kill me.

  Do you?

  The voice froze her in her tracks. She felt warm breath on her skin, and saw an open room in a cool chamber at the edge of a desert. The smells of cinnamon, hyacinth and brandy were strong. The memory was overpowering, and for a moment she was there, sucked away from the snow and fire and blood, back in that chamber. A beautiful woman with dark hair lay under the sheets. Tattoos covered her arms and back. Her jade eyes sparkled in the light.

  Dragon was torn from the memory by the sound of the dune buggy’s crash. Explosive fuel fountained from the ripped steel, and bodies flew through the air. One of them landed near her feet, his head cracked open.

  The tank treads cut through the snow like gnashing teeth. Anti-personnel guns peppered the ground. Predatory fliers took shape in the air, gargoyle mercenaries armed with short-range harpoons. The wind kicked into a gale, and the raw edge of the storm intensified. The air was white and razor-hard.

  She watched. A man and a woman struggled to their feet and helped a Gol. All three of them were wounded and bleeding, and the man’s cloak was on fire until the woman tore it away. A fourth survivor, the warlock, was right behind them.

  “Traven!” the scarred man shouted.

  Ronan. His name is Ronan. I know him.

  “Go!” Traven shouted back. His hood barely concealed the fresh burns on his face. Dragon tasted the wounded warlock’s spirit as it desperately tried to shield him from flying shrapnel.