Her spirit turned the area to a blizzard. Snow howled out of the forest behind her. The frost bent around both her and the survivors from the crash, but the grinding storm hammered the Troj and forced their shots to go wild. The gargoyles swerved and crashed into rock spurs and granite bluffs buried under the snow.
The man with blades
Ronan I know him I know I do
brought the Gol
Maur
and the woman with him as he trudged through a snow drift that now rose to his knees. He watched Dragon warily as he approached, but something in his eyes wasn’t as hard as she would have expected.
The woman seemed to realize where they were going. She had brown-hair, tattooed arms and severe eyes. She raised her weapon and aimed it at Dragon, but Ronan put a hand on her gun and gently pushed it down.
They moved past Dragon and headed for the trees. She let them. She still wasn’t sure why, but she knew she wouldn’t hurt them.
The warlock, Traven, erected a shield of red and black ice, and Dragon could tell it took every reserve of his strength to hold it in place. She sent her spirit forward and fused him to Traven’s, and as they joined the air filled with a cracking sound, like lightning cutting a tree.
Traven was about to die. Dragon sensed as he poured his own life-force into his spirit. He didn’t let the spirit heal him, but instead healed her, and in that moment of vulnerability, that split second when his defenses were entirely down and he willingly merged what was left of his soul to the creature he’d loved all his life, Dragon understood how what she and her spirit shared was so wrong. Traven cared for and nourished his spirit, regarded her as a mate and a friend. She was closer to him than anyone else could ever be, and Dragon recognized that intimacy, understood it…and remembered it. She remembered what it felt like, remembered how she’d shared that love not only with her spirit, but with other people.
Traven’s soul burned away, but in the last moments of his life it flared bright like an exploding star.
The tank fired. A deafening explosion wracked the air. Razor shrapnel ripped Traven to shreds. His spirit absorbed the force of the blast and pulled it in like a great and fiery breath, held it, and spat it back.
Dragon helped the failing spirit in that scant second it had left before it perished along with Traven. Caustic energies fired by the hexed tank went screaming back towards the vehicle and raced straight down its barrel. The iron hull exploded. Dragon shielded her eyes from the blast. Metal, fuel and meat hailed down.
Her legs shook. The effort had taken more out of her than she’d expected. She prepared to call her spirit back and fuse him to her wounds, but to her surprise he moved to heal her cuts and burns all on his own. Vitality crept through her limbs, and soothing heat pulsed through her veins.
“Danica!” Ronan shouted from behind her. “Come on!”
Danica?
Fliers appeared over the ridge. Her attention had been entirely focused on Traven and destroying the tank, which had caused the cover granted by her arcane snowstorm to fade. Predatory gargoyles and one-man hoverships with chain guns skimmed close to the ground. The grind of engines filled the air.
Danica?
Do you?
She sent shards of smoking ice through gargoyle flesh and metal hulls. Grease and oil explosions tore across the sky. They kept firing at her even as her spirit tore them apart. Someone grabbed her from behind and threw her to the ground as a hover ship crashed into a row of rocks at the edge of the tree line.
Ronan was on top of her.
“Danica!” he yelled. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Her spirit gripped him with ethereal claws, but she pulled it back – not forcefully, not with the same brutal domination she’d used in the past, but more carefully. She asked him to release the man, and while her spirit was hesitant, it acquiesced.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Ronan!” the Gol shouted. “More are coming! Maur suggests running while there is still time!”
Ronan released her and stood up, a look of loss on his face. He was wounded and out of breath.
Her spirit had torn the enemy fliers from the sky. Chunks of smoking metal and pools of fire littered the ground. She heard the groan of tanks and the engines of mechanized assault wings in the distance, far too many for her weakened spirit to handle.
Ronan
I know you
held out his hand.
“Come on, Dani.” He didn’t look like he actually expected her to take it. The Gol and the woman watched with their weapons ready.
Dragon looked at him. She knew they’d been friends, allies, maybe even lovers. She couldn’t remember who he was. But she was certain she knew him.
That was enough.
She reached out with her flesh hand, and he hauled her to her feet.
“Don’t make me regret this,” she told him.
He nodded.
“I was about to say the same thing,” he said.
The Gol smiled. The sound of vehicles drew closer. Without another word they entered the forest and started down the hill.
They raced past scrub oak and ice-rived brush. Petrified trees with frost-wracked branches blocked sight of the sky. The air was jarringly cold, and the ground was thick with iron-hard pine needles and thick crusts of snow. They were close to the Nightblood River.
They heard the grind of machines beyond the forest. The four of them descended into a tree-clogged basin packed with stony soil. No one spoke. They felt the cold of the river even at a distance. The ground was covered with black frost and leaves that cracked like glass.
Dragon’s spirit breathed warmth into her body. She looked at her uneasy and largely silent traveling companions and had him do the same for them, as it was clear they were freezing. They’d dressed for winter, but it still wasn’t enough. She guessed they’d had no intention of being out there for so long.
Trees cracked and exploded in the distance behind them, but eventually the cannon-fire ceased. Dragon expected the Fanians to bombard the forest, but they didn’t.
After a time they seemed to lose their pursuers, so they stopped to rest. Even with her spirit warming them everyone still shivered. They were covered in cuts, burn stains and dried blood, and their armor and clothing was tattered and frayed. They had only a few weapons. It took her a moment to realize she’d lost one of the smaller Necroblades.
“Looking for this?” Ronan said. He pulled the black kukri from behind his back, flipped it over, and presented it to her hilt first. “You dropped it back there.” He watched her warily. “Danica.” The sound of that name made her cold inside. She took the weapon.
“I’m confused,” the other woman said, the tattooed soldier with darkness behind her eyes. Dragon could tell she’d seen a great deal of death and pain. “How do you know this woman?”
“That’s Danica Black,” the Gol said. “She used to be the co-leader of Cross’s team.”
Maur. His name is Maur.
“And now she works for the Ebon Cities,” the woman said bitingly. “And why is this okay?”
“Because she doesn’t know who she is,” Ronan said. His eyes never left Dragon’s. He pulled a length of black cloth from his pack and wrapped it around his scarred face. “Do you, Dani?”
“I’m Dragon,” she said. “And I’m still trying to decide why I should let you live.”
The woman raised her weapon and aimed it at her.
“Reza,” Ronan said after a moment of charged silence. “You saw what she can do. I don’t think you’re going to win this one.” Reza hesitated before angrily lowering her gun.
“What happened back there?” Ronan asked.
“The men of Fane tried to kill us,” Dragon said coldly.
“Yeah, we got that…” Ronan said.
“Why was Wolftown destroyed?” Maur asked.
“My guess is because it was in their way,” Dragon replied. “They’re marching on Ath, and Rimefang Loch.”
She smiled. Lynch hadn’t thought the Southern Claw knew about the Eye.
“A nest of Witchborn had taken root in Wolftown,” she said. “I was sent to destroy them, and gather information about the Eye.”
“Sent,” Ronan said. “By the vampires?”
She nodded. She almost remembered him.
Almost.
What are you doing? This is the enemy. Lorn is your charge, and Lynch is your master. Lady Riven gave you orders.
Whispers clawed at the back of her mind. She knew she would suffer for even speaking to these people.
Ronan stared at her steel arm.
“What did they do to you, Dani?” he said. His eyes met hers, and she stared back at him. She couldn’t answer, just like she couldn’t explain why she let him live, or why being there with him now felt so…right.
“So what now?” Reza said.
“Yes, Maur wants to know when he can start moving before his balls freeze,” the Gol said.
“I didn’t think Gol had balls,” Ronan said, and he stood up. He watched Dragon, as if waiting for her to transform.
“I don’t want to discuss Gol balls,” Reza said.
“Fair enough,” Ronan laughed.
I could kill you, Dragon thought. She tightened her hand around Claw’s hilt.
“We should keep moving,” he said. “Are you coming with us?”
Images of Lorn flashed through her mind. She saw baths of blood and battles in the cold, Lady Riven’s gaze and Lynch’s barely contained lust. She saw her existence as a slave. Every time she’d started to question her place, Lynch had had her mind altered.
She was just a weapon to them. A tool.
The whispers assaulted her thoughts. Her brain felt sluggish and slow.
Who am I? Not this. I’m more than this.
“You…should come with me,” she said. “I know where the Witch’s Eye is.”
They moved deeper into the forest. Night fell. They built a fire to keep warm, and even then Dragon still had to use her spirit to prevent them from freezing to death. They sat close to the flames, and the darkness surrounded them like a black sea.
Ronan stared out as if he could see something. The night was filled with noise, the calls of hawks and the sucking lamprey mouths of unseen predators, but nothing approached to threaten them.
Sleep took Reza in fits and bursts, and after a time Maur sat cross-legged and entered the meditative trance all Gol used as a substitute for sleep.
Ronan, however, stayed awake. He sat perfectly still for a long time, as did Dragon. The black chill gnawed at them. They listened to the wind and the groan of distant engines: the Fanians might have given up their search, but they were still close by.
Disciples of the Triangle were like machines. She wondered how he’d come to be where he was now. She didn’t envy his childhood.
But at least he knows who he is.
She didn’t notice the coming of dawn. Time skidded to a halt: one moment there stood a wall of utter darkness and the next she saw the edges of the trees surrounding the clearing. She was used to losing time, but it still bothered her. She wondered how long ago it was since she’d actually been the person Ronan and Maur both thought she was.
The others roused, and they moved stiff, like dried twigs. The fire smoked black, but she kept it lit. With the arrival of dawn she decided against using her spirit to keep them warm any longer. He seemed grateful for the rest, as she’d tasked him with the chore all through the night.
She hadn’t forced anything out of him. He’d given himself freely.
Ronan watched her, and now and again he looked to the tree line. His face shifted between sadness and anger.
Her spirit roamed. He was gone only moments before he raced back to warn them of an intruder. Another spirit was nearby, and whoever it was tied to didn’t bother concealing his presence. Ronan and Reza took up weapons and watched the trees.
Three people approached. Their shadows moved slow and deliberate, and they held their hands up as they slowly came into view.
“Son of a bitch,” Ronan said happily. He seemed to know them, or at least one of them.
A black man with graying hair and a stubbly beard allowed himself the smallest of smiles as he emerged from the forest, shotgun and machete in hand. He was accompanied by a pair of women, clearly mother and daughter, both dark-haired and covered with tattoos. Ronan and the warlock shook hands.
“It’s good to see you, Creasy,” he said. Creasy nodded.
“We’re all that’s left,” he said. He indicated the women who accompanied him. “Tanya. Her mother, Katya.” He paused again. Sadness blanched his face. “Everyone else is dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Ronan said. An awkward moment passed. They heard trees crack deeper in the forest, and the call of a distant bird. The river flowed to the south and west. “We’re headed to the Loch,” Ronan said. He looked at Dragon for confirmation, since she hadn’t actually told him where the Witch’s Eye was, and she nodded. “We’ll pass near Ath, if you want to come with us.”
“Shouldn’t we try to reconnect with Crylos?” Reza asked.
“We’ll try to intercept them,” Ronan said. “We should find them easily enough if we stay close to the river.” He looked at Creasy. “We were with a company of soldiers. We can get you and your ladies safe.”
Creasy considered him. He looked at Dragon warily. He knew her, as Ronan did, and she got the sense Creasy knew something else about her…maybe more than she did herself.
He reluctantly nodded. The warlock seemed afraid to be in her presence.
They gathered what little belongings they had and followed the river.
FOURTEEN
NOMADS
The Bone March was endless.
Black clouds crushed the horizon, and stale winds blasted the three refugees as they walked. The slave caravan had stopped a day’s ride outside of Dirge. Cross, Flint and Shiv, unfortunately, had to travel on foot, and they were dangerously low on food and water, and there was little to be found in that cold desert. The land was stark, like the surface of the moon.
Cross’s feet were sore within his crumbling leather boots. He wore a dead man’s coat over his tattered clothes, but it did little to shield him from the cold. Flint wore a thick white cloak that flapped in the scratching breeze, and they kept Shiv wrapped in a blanket, making it appear like she’d just stumbled out of bed.
They’d been walking for nearly a day. It felt like ten.
The world was utterly without moisture, and Cross felt sand in his teeth. His back and legs ached down to the muscles. Sweat glazed his skin, frozen there by the numbing cold.
They crossed open plains of ice and sharp rocks and passed twisted vegetation bent like writhing snakes. There was nothing on the horizon but drifts of cobalt dust and trees that resembled sharpened stakes of bone.
They’d managed to find a few weapons in the ruins of the slave caravan – the shotgun, a rifle with a damaged scope, and the ancient Colt .45 Cross had acquired back in the Carrion Rift – but they had very little ammo, and none of the mercenary’s armor had been salvageable. They’d found some hardtack and dehydrated soup mix, a couple of pots and pans, a spare blanket, and a half-full canteen. Everything else had been eviscerated by the malign crystalline entity.
“I hate this place,” Flint said. “It’s too dry, and too cold. I’ll take life on a ship any day.”
“I never took you for a sailor,” Cross said.
“Dad loves his boats,” Shiv said. She didn’t bother to suppress the moan beneath her words.
They’d been amiable enough companions. Cross was happy to have them with him, even if their presence made him more paranoid than ever. Shiv was barely twelve, and Flint was close to fifty. They were capable survivors – besides Flint’s experience as a Marine, both he and his daughter had spent plenty of time prospecting near Rhaine and working
odd jobs ever since Julei, Flint’s wife, had passed away from a staph infection after a lengthy battle with cancer. Flint didn’t like to talk about it, and Cross respected that. Some things didn’t need to be discussed.
He was surprised by how talkative Shiv was. She’d been almost silent in captivity, but now that they traveled across the wastelands she talked…and she talked a lot. She challenged her father’s often exaggerated statements of things he’d done, offered her opinions on any observations he made, asked detailed questions about how far they’d come or still had to go, and politely demanded every last shred of information from Cross regarding his experiences as both a soldier and a mercenary, most of which he really wanted to keep to himself.
Cross was thankful both Flint and Shiv were in decent physical condition, all things considered. Because of their dangerously scant water supply the three of them still traveled at a fairly conservative pace, even though Shiv pointed out that the longer it took them to get wherever it was they were going, the longer they’d have to wait to get fresh water.
“That’s a good point,” Cross said. The sun reappeared from behind a broken formation of cobalt clouds. Blades of blood light sliced across the fields of stone and sand.
“I know,” Shiv answered with a thin smile on her lips. Cross looked at Flint, who just shrugged.
“The brains she gets from me,” he said. “The tongue she gets from her mother.”
Cross laughed. He looked at the sky and the land ahead. It had been some years since he’d been in that part of the Bone March, but he recognized it all the same.
“We’re about three klicks south of Dirge,” he said.
“What’s a ‘klick’?” Shiv asked.
“1,000 meters. Not quite two-thirds of a mile.”
“So that would mean Dirge is...”
“Just under two miles away.” He pointed at a line of dark trees atop a jagged ridge to the south. “Just past there.”
“Dirge is an armistice town, right?” she asked. “They’ve surrendered to the vampires?”
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