Still they came.
Relentless, and without end.
The M2 was overrun. Half of Crylos’ men were brought down with bone and blade. Most of the rest engaged in close combat with an overwhelming horde.
The Razorwing dropped a vampire swordsman out of the sky like it was a white flesh missile. The vampire slashed through the Flak 38 crew in seconds, and the lone soldier who got away was snatched up by the Razorwing’s claws and torn in half.
Cross called his spirit, pulled her to within centimeters of his skin. He felt her, tasted her, sticky and burning, like sweet acid on his tongue. Rage filled him, power fueled by the same controlled and murderous force that made him win fight after fight back in Krul, power that boiled his blood and made his eyes smoke when he thought of Dillon, who would never again see his sister or her son.
That power curled inside of him and froze, an icy core, a glacial shield around his heart, growing, building, freezing. And there, nestled right beside it, in some far removed and distant aspect of his mind, was a shard of light and life, a powerful and ancient slice of arcane matter, a derelict fragment of an older creature from an older time. Cross saw it, felt it.
Used it.
He is on the mountain, looking on as the blaze of cold fire races toward him. The frost is so powerful it freezes his skin.
He watches Snow and Graves and Dillon and everyone else he ever cared about crystallize and shatter like glass figurines.
Behind him, beyond the pale doorway, are Ekko and Black. Their bodies are alight in coronas of white fire, and their eyes burn like vacant suns.
They are the inheritors of Lucan’s primal spirit. They are the keepers of the light that burned inside him, a light that has burned for centuries, and that will go on burning for centuries to come, regardless of what happens now.
But right now that light has a purpose to fulfill, and while it will not allow itself to be used for just any reason, it will grant them, those three, its new avatars, some small measure of its strength so that they can defeat their enemies.
It does this not out of compassion, but as a token of good faith: one service, for another.
Cross roared, and the sky flew apart.
Shards of light exploded out of his body. He didn’t need to see Black and Ekko to know they’d had been taken by the same nova glare, that their bodies were held in sunbeam prisons. Their consciousness melted together, fused into a common purpose.
There will be a price. It was no voice, but an understanding held between them. An acknowledgement.
There will be a price.
There always is.
Raw soul matter exploded out of Cross like he was the heart of a star. It expanded and curled along the ground, reached into every crack and crevice, into every fold of dead skin and raw socket, into every hollow bone and dangling bit of sinew. Necrotic energy recoiled before the agonized cry of primordial spirits, a collective of the damned that screamed out of Cross’ bleeding eyes and hands like they were rolling liquid flame.
The undead exploded. Pale animated bodies and jagged skeletal weapons, razor vapors and icy claws, maggot hearts and grave dust, soiled black fire and cursed souls: all of it immolated within the onslaught of primal spirit matter like paper put to the flame.
White detonations rang up and down the field as dead bodies erupted in blasts of cold fire. The explosions carried on through the small horde in a chain reaction. Angry white light leapt from one body to the next.
In the sky above, the vampires in the final warship and those mounted on the last Razorwing were also affected by the light. The dead flesh tore from their rotted bones and evaporated like melting snow.
The light caught the burning fuel in the Coffin and ignited it. The resulting explosion peeled into the sky with a deafening blast. The ground shook. Everything sucked in towards Cross like a vortex.
When it was done, every last Ebon Cities fighter was gone. Nothing was left of them but ash.
Cross stood in a daze. His eyes burned and his skin peeled from the cold. His arms and legs trembled, and after a moment his strength left him completely, and Kane caught him as he fell to his knees. His throat felt like a chimney.
The last vampire warship crashed to the ground just a few hundred yards away. Shrapnel and gouts of caustic flame filled the frozen wind with the smell of burnt metal.
And as abruptly as the battle had began, it was over. The icy world settled into near silence.
The last Bloodhawk landed a few minutes later, having lost three men. The Bloodhawk that carried Ankharra had been shot down, but her magic helped most of those onboard survive the crash.
All told, over forty of Crylos’ seventy-five men were dead.
They all stood in silence for a time. They watched bloody patches of fog fall and melt the icy ground beneath them. Smoke of different colors competed for control of the sky. Torn and exploded remains were everywhere, and soon they were covered in drifts of smoking ash. The air smelled like long-burned meat.
Ekko stumbled over to Cross and Kane. Black and Cole joined them. The side of Black’s face was bloody from where, Cross later learned, Harker’s head had exploded when a bone grenade went off inside the ship.
Cross stared off into the pale and frozen sky. The ghosts of centuries passed through him. He felt soiled, and very old. He had become a conduit for Death.
And I’ll have to do it again, before this night is done. That was what they really taught me in Krul, whether they knew it or not. How to kill…and kill again.
Quietly, the survivors of First and Second Platoon, Claw Company, gathered what resources and men they had left. Their task was not get finished.
They still had to find the Woman in the Ice.
TWENTY
ICE
The Southern Claw base camp became a makeshift medical bivouac. Thankfully, only a few of those who’d been injured were in serious condition. The death toll, however, was high, and already there were mutterings that it was all too much for them to take on, that they barely had enough men left to secure the area, let alone dedicate more to a thorough search of what promised to be a sizable underground complex.
Cross quelled their concerns as best he could.
“I don’t need many of your men.”
He, Black, Cole, Crylos and Ankharra stood away from the camp, at the top of a low rise that offered a good view of the frozen city. Thirty square blocks – nearly a quarter of the city – had been reduced to icy ruin in the battle. Dark steam and churning drifts of yellow-orange fog still clung to the area. Even at a distance, it was easy to smell the smolder of artillery and scorched bodies. Drifts of ash covered the ground like grey snow.
“How many?” Crylos asked.
“We have to consider the very real possibility that we’re still going to have to deal with the Black Circle, in one capacity or another,” Cross said.
“Well, correct me if I’m wrong,” Ankharra said, “but we have zero intel regarding the Circle’s numbers or capabilities.”
“That’s correct,” Cross said. “And we also have a 600-foot-tall walking shadow on our tail. We’ll need as much warning as possible when it gets here so that we can clear the area.”
“Is there any way to engage that thing?” Crylos asked.
“Not if you want to win,” Black answered.
Everyone paused at that.
“So what do you need?” Crylos asked.
Cross looked at the bivouac, and at the remaining soldiers of 1st and 2nd Platoon. The image of men falling out of the sky was still stuck in his mind.
“Spare me two men,” he said at last, “to escort us back to the Bone Tower. They can standby and back us up if we run into trouble.”
Crylos nodded. The last Bloodhawk had a damaged fuel pump and needed repairs, and it wouldn’t be ready for any sort of heavy activity for several hours, at least. They’d need it to get the remaining men out in a hurry. Claw Company could send reinforcements, but Cross made clear that he
didn’t want that. It would only provide more fuel for the Sleeper.
It’s coming, he thought. It wants to destroy us, and the Woman in the Ice. It knows what we can do to it.
Kane and Ekko were just outside of the main camp. They sat in a small and private tent carefully watched by a pair of soldiers who politely kept their weapons stowed.
There had been no way to conceal the fact that Ekko was Turning once the battle had finished, and Crylos had been understandably less-than-thrilled to discover that a near-vampire was now in his camp. The fact that she’d helped defeat the Ebon Cities undead helped her case, but Crylos’ biggest reservation was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the same that Cross had himself: what happened when she did Turn?
As far as Cross could guess, all three of them – he, Ekko and Black – were tied to Lucan’s power and the Woman in the Ice. What would have happened if one of them had died during the battle? What if Ekko became a vampire before their task was finished? Cross didn’t think that her transformation was likely, at least not yet…he still felt that the primordial energies they’d inherited from Lucan somehow prevented her Turning completely, at least for the moment.
But what happens when all of this is done? What happens when Lucan’s power is no longer needed? Will it fade away? Will she Turn then?
Cross walked into their small tent. Kane and Ekko sat quietly. He meditated in lotus position – his flexibility was impressive for a large man – with his eyes closed and his palms out. Ekko sat in the same pose, utterly still, her blank eyes like black pools. The air was cold from her presence. Her blonde hair looked stiff, as if from frost, and her lips had gone dark blue, a sharp contrast to the excess of her pale skin.
I’m scared, Cross. She spoke to him with telepathy so seldom it was easy for Cross to forget that she was even capable of doing so.
I know, he answered with his own thoughts. Me, too.
Will you do something for me?
She didn’t have to say what – he already knew. She didn’t want to Turn, and if it came down to it, she wanted to make sure that someone would do what was needed. He wasn’t sure that he could, but he knew he’d do his best if she made him promise.
She did.
Kane’s eyes opened.
“Is it time?” he asked.
Cross wanted to take him aside, to talk to him about Ekko.
What the hell would you say? he asked himself.
“Yeah. It’s time.”
On his way back to the bivouac, Cross saw Black and Cole. They stood just behind the M2, which needed some repairs. The two women stayed largely out of sight. He couldn’t hear anything they said, but it was clear they were having a disagreement, since Cole held up her hands in frustration and shook her head, but Black kept talking, perhaps imploring her lover to listen.
Cross wanted to step away before he was noticed, but Black looked up and saw him. He pointed at the city, nodded, and in the blink of an eye she regained her composure and nodded back.
He walked to the frozen city gates, a frosted archway lined with runes. Even with as cold as the air was, the gates were colder. Cross wondered who could have constructed something as wondrous as this city, and why. It was born of another world, clearly, but was every structure in that world like this, icy and beautiful, fragile and yet capable of withstanding the test of time? Or had it been something different once, and had it only been given this icy form after The Black? Was it like so many other things that Cross had seen: had it been re-invented after the cataclysm, made into something that bore only a passing resemblance to what it had once been?
Everything is wounded, he thought. Every place that I go, every person or creature that I meet. We’re all injuries that have been stitched back together, and now we’re nothing like what we’d once been.
The Black made everything a scar: healed, but imperfect. And as we heal, we change…and not always for the better.
They walked through the city of ice. Ash filled the air like charred snowflakes. The streets were uneven and covered with frost, and everything lay in utter silence. Frozen shadows and icy wind pressed against the seven of them as they crept along. The structures were crudely detailed, caricature renditions of normal buildings. At a glance, Karamanganji could have been an artist’s rendition of Thornn, or Ath. The frost glittered like a diamond glaze in the failing arctic light. It would be night soon; the temperature was already dropping.
Cross pulled his armored coat tight against his body, and his spirit folded around him and warmed him with her burning proximity. He knew that she had been cowed and maybe even hurt by Lucan’s primordial power. Cross held her close. He was ready to be done with this mission.
They walked on streets of glacial white, and they crossed avenues that had frozen like glittering waves. They walked through shadows made solid with cold.
The two soldiers, Tasker and Daye, were quiet lads who did as they were asked. Cross thought they looked far too young to be soldiers, but he also recalled seeing them there on the ground when the undead horde had made the charge. They’d had their baptism of fire, and they’d stared into the flame. There was no unseeing what had been seen. Even soldiers who survived something like that died in other ways: even survivors were casualties.
Black, Cole, Kane and Ekko kept their eyes alert and keen. Cross watched behind them, expecting the Sleeper’s massive shadow to appear at any moment.
The Bone Towers loomed in the distance. They were pale slivers, stark even in that environ. Thin arrow-slits and frosted windows dotted the strangely angled structures. Dark portals rested at their bases.
The Tower that they needed lay straight ahead. Its doorway looked like a cut in the side of the structure, and it seemed to stretch open wider as they approached.
Cross motioned for Tasker and Daye to wait outside. Kane took the point, and he led the way with the sawed-off Remington held ready. Danica illuminated the icy dark interior of the tower with a ball of heatless white flame. Flickering light reflected off of white walls and floor. Discarded digging implements – drills, chisels, hammers, picks – lay strewn like casualties. Electric lamps had been plugged into a portable generator, and they sat in a perimeter around both the tools and several chunks of ice that had been scattered in front of a sealed circular door. That door was also wrought of ice, but this ice was of a lighter shade than the rest, and it was thin and semi-translucent.
Footsteps in the frost led straight up to the ice door, and vanished into it.
“Okaaaay,” Kane said.
“I don’t get it,” Cole said as she walked past the tools.
“It looks like they broke through,” Black said. “But then…why is there still a sealed door here?” She stepped up to the ice and placed a hand on it, and immediately she pulled away as if she’d been burned. “It’s twice as cold as anything else in here,” she said. Her words turned to icy steam.
Cross watched the frozen barrier as if would provide him with the answer.
After a moment, it did.
Cross’ spirit hovered at the door. She probed, and then slipped her vaporous form into the tiny cracks in its face. She felt its thickness and its weight, tested its strength, tasted its age, felt magic in the thousands of crystal constituents that made up the whole.
“They did break through,” Cross said. “And they entered the tunnel. And then this…” he indicated the ice door, “formed up behind them, and sealed them in.”
Kane looked at Cross, then back at the door, and then back at Cross again.
“Okaaaay,” he said.
Can you feel that? Ekko thought to him. She’s here.
Cross did feel it: power. It was pure, primal and ancient, difficult to even acknowledge without being crushed by the sheer force of its presence. That power had gender, unlike Lucan’s spirit, which had seemed androgynous to Cross, a mass of lost souls in a sort of spectral mass, a mongrel construct of ghostly matter. This power that emanated up at them now, however, was unquestionably female. Cross coul
d almost taste her sex in the arcane currents, the geometric emanations, earth and ice.
Black felt it, too. She didn’t have to say anything – it was clear by the strange mix of fear and awe in her eyes.
“So what do we do?” Cole asked.
“You head back,” Cross said to her. “You too, Kane.”
“Um…no.”
Ekko put a hand on his arm, and nodded. Black and Cole exchanged looks.
Cross pulled his spirit tight around his body. He fueled her anger by thinking about Dillon, about Snow, and about Graves. His mind raced, and filled with pain. He thought about the children who’d been rounded up and butchered at Crucifix Point, and about Gage and Cala, about Zender the gentle Doj who’d been captured and tortured to death by Gorgoloth raiders, about the dead soldiers in Karamanganji who would never speak to their friends again, who would never look a lover in the eyes. He thought of every victim of the vampires, every ruined life, and every unanswered slaughter. Cross thought of every injustice and wrong he had ever witnessed over the course of his young life, and he poured them into his spirit. He twisted her, and focused all of the rage until she was as sharp as a raw blade.
“Like hell I’m going…” Cole argued with Black.
“I’m not leaving Ekko,” Kane said.
Cross rose his head. He was infused with the raw destructive power of a spirit who, in the space of a few moments, had experienced a lifetime of Cross’ most vivid and painful memories. Volatile magic radiated out of his eyes. He was like a sick and explosive star.
“The three of us have been touched by the power in this place,” he said. “You two haven’t. If you go down there, you’ll die, just like the Black Circle who went down there died.” He moved and stood directly in front of the ice door. The power of his raging spirit swelled inside of him, ready to burst. “The two of you need to leave. Now.”
Black Scars (Blood Skies, Book 2) Page 25