Chain of Shadows (Blood Skies, Book 6)

by Montano, Steven

  The spider looms over everything, a massive sack of pale and bloated flesh as large as the moon. Twists of web float down from its body like ladders. It floats over the desert and illuminates the sky with a ghastly shine. Constellations of eyes glare down at her like a nest of dark eggs.

  The old man is laughing. He looks at Danica and holds up the piece of wood so she can see that it’s a likeness of herself, clawed and chewed and missing an arm.

  The voice of the spider caves through her skull.

  I’m not finished with you, bitch.

  The spider falls from the sky and buries her.

  She woke to the sound of Ronan screaming.

  Chills shot through her body. He wasn’t awake but his eyes were wide open, like something from his dreams was attacking him. The fire had nearly gone out, and they were bathed in ember shadows. Danica saw movement from the corner of her eye.

  “Ronan!” she shouted.

  She’d dozed off and hadn’t realized it. The darkness of the vast desert pressed in on them. Danica puts her hand on Ronan and found he was ice cold. She focused her sight, gazed until her magic granted her view of what was invisible to human eyes. She gasped.

  Tendrils of spectral matter had hooked into Ronan’s flesh. The lines ran through a shimmering dark hole and tethered his body to some distant and shadowy realm.

  Without hesitation Danica sent her spirit forward as a jagged red blade and sliced through the bond. His screams cut short and his eyes snapped shut. The night was suddenly deathly quiet and bone cold.

  She heard voices in the wind. Danica pushed her spirit into the smoldering flames and sparked it back to life, bringing light back to the small camp and casting her shadow against the sloped stone.

  The blaze illuminated white faces staring at her from out of the darkness. It was the natives.

  There were at least a dozen of them, sitting perfectly still around the stone, their bows and blades in hand and their grim eyes locked on her and Ronan. Their flesh has been painted white by some sort of bone powder and chalky paste, and their hair was braided and bound with iron and bone. They were crouched and silent, and she got the impression they’d been waiting there for some time.

  She raised her sub-machine gun and aimed it at the nearest native when Ronan suddenly screamed again. The bloodcurdling sound sent chills up her spine. His eyes were open, locked on some phantom horror only he could see. There was fear in his eyes.

  Smoke poured up from the earth under Ronan’s body. Dark light pushed around him like a bloody stain. His voice was deep and guttural and filled with echo, like it issued from some cold and far off place. Danica felt glacial frost in the rancid and filthy smoke. She heard growls in the distance, a dissonant stain, the smell of carbon and melting flowers.

  The pale warriors closed in. Danica was about to fire when something snapped out of the shadows. Limbs flailed at Ronan, barbed appendages like spined and icy tongues. His body was wrapped in tentacles of dissolving light.

  Grisly smoke enveloped Ronan’s body. Something was sawing up, hewing the rock from under the ground. A doorway was being opened, and a cold presence waited on the other side. It wasn’t the Maloj – this felt different, somehow. Closer.

  Her spirit curled around her bloodsteel arm and she readied him to strike, but before she could act the pale warriors moved past her. They lashed out with crude wires and bolas of rope and bone. Danica wondered if she should stop them, but her instincts told her not to. They circled Ronan’s body and cast their lines around his legs and chest, then sprinkled blood and salt over him as they collectively growled an animalistic chant. It was tribal sorcery, primitive voodoo tactics.

  The air tensed. Danica glimpsed the low rust skyline of a time-eaten iron city through the rip, towers like blades and streets filled with shadows. She sensed fear in that metal forest, a place controlled by darkness and fear.

  The gap was closing, but the thorn-covered tentacles maintained their grip and squeezed Ronan until his skin turned blue.

  The natives pulled their own lines taut. Ronan’s body was held rigid, tethered wrist and ankle by the pale warriors, while the things from the city wrapped slithering limbs around his torso. The natives looked at her with eyes of smoke and mist, and she knew what she had to do.

  Danica slid Claw free and sliced through the tentacles. The blade’s edge filled the air with sharp heat. Black sinew snapped away and flaked into the false sky below. Cords of dark skin unfurled into ribbons and oozing plasma stained the ground.

  Ronan’s screams cut short. The tentacles recoiled and snapped back like elastic cords, and the gap melted across the ground like a sealing wound. The image of the city skyline wavered in heat image before it faded completely, sucked back into the earth. The blood light evaporated, and in moments the only evidence that remained of the intrusion was a single wisp of dark smoke.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  The natives hadn’t spoken to her. She’d let them go about their work, convinced they were there to help, even if she did keep a sharp eye on their activities and made sure that her spirit was alert and ready for battle, just in case.

  The natives painted Ronan’s face and chest with the same pale substance they used on themselves. Danica had tested the paste with her spirit, and though it had been difficult she’d deduced it was concocted from a blend of bone-meal, ground iron-rock and a natural anti-arcane unguent. She couldn’t for the life of her deduce how they’d come up with the mixture, but immediately her spirit noted the difference in Ronan. His heartbeat grew more regular, his breathing slowed, and when she used her spirit to gauge his physical status he seemed much closer to being normal and healthy than he had ever since the attack in the woods had rendered him unconscious.

  She received no answer to her question. They seemed incapable of speaking her language, or perhaps of speaking at all. She didn’t even hear them address one another. She was reminded of the Lith, except these people were much closer to humans in their appearance, if slightly taller and possessing those bizarre milk-colored eyes. Their lips and gums were dark, almost purple, like they were engorged with blood, and even beneath the pale paste their skin was still whitish-blue, like their bodies had been bleached in ice.

  The static sun rose. Shards of dull golden light sliced through the low-flying clouds over the distant city. A black chill gripped the desert, and the world was red and still.

  This still feels like a dream, she thought. Like a nightmare.

  After a time the natives started pulling off the rest of Ronan’s clothes, and when Danica stepped in to stop them a pair of the taller men moved to block her way. She stared them down, and they bowed their heads, indicating they were willing to let her put a halt to things if she wished, but their grave looks and continued insistence on pushing forward with their task made clear that what they did was for the best.

  Danica nodded. She knew she could affect them with her magic, even if the paste they wore made it so she couldn’t track them, and if they’d wanted harm done they would have done it by now.

  Soon Ronan was as pale as they were. Chalk and blue-white paste covered every inch of his skin. They pushed through the task with grim efficiency.

  Eventually they turned to her and held up jars of the ghostly paint, just as she knew they would. She nodded, and while at first she was nervous about being stripped naked in front of so many men she bit her lip and let them proceed. The morning chill sent ice across her flesh. Freezing fog pressed in around them and gelled against her skin. After the burning heat of the previous day’s travel she’d never imagined she’d feel this cold ever again.

  Hands applied the gelid paste to her naked body, but they avoided making contact with her bloodsteel arm. Her spirit all but screamed at her, eager to protect her from this intrusion, but she held him back. She winced as hands rubbed over the rawness of her scapula and shoulder wound and across the scars on her legs and belly. The pale liquid dried quickly, latched to her skin like a seco
nd layer.

  The more they applied the better she heard their mental voices. Like the Lith, theirs seemed to be a language spoken in the mind, but it could only be heard if one wore what they called the Ghost Skin.

  Strangers, the voice said. She didn’t see anyone looking in her direction, so she wasn’t sure which of them addressed her. Maybe it was all of them. Or none.

  Yes, she thought. We’re trapped here.

  You were brought. We tried to warn you before that you were in danger, that they were coming for you.

  That was you? she thought.

  Yes.

  They filled her hair with the white goop, and she felt it crinkle as the substance dried. Thumbs pushed the paste over her eyelids and down the small of her back, down along her feet and between her fingers and toes. She felt the layers of cold salve congeal against her, a liquid coolness she knew would stay applied even when the sun rose to its apex and burned down on them.

  Do you know why we were brought here? she asked.

  You brought something, the voices said. Something came with you, something that couldn’t come on its own. Something hidden from plain sight.

  She dressed. None of the others seemed to care or even notice that she’d been unclothed. Ronan had also been returned to his clothing, though he still lay unconscious on the ground. Soon the sun shone as bright as a hot iron coal. The stale wind kicked up bits of dust and ash.

  She saw the city in the distance, just an outline of sharp shadows.

  Can you tell me what’s happening? she asked.

  He brought something with him, the voices said, and she knew they meant Ronan. Something evil. Something they want.

  They? she asked.

  The Master of the City, and his enemies, the Skaravae.

  She looked out at the distant metropolis. They tried to take it, she thought, not sure if the others would hear her, but they did.

  Yes. But he couldn’t.

  Why? she asked.

  Because it’s already gone, they thought. What the Master sought is no longer here.

  Gone? she thought, and then the answer occurred to her. Laros.

  Whatever had happened to Laros back in the forest had also shifted the thing hiding in Ronan over to him. And then Laros was taken.

  Danica paced back and forth, her nerves alight with fear. Her mind raced.

  What was hidden? It had to be the Maloj. Nothing else made sense. Ronan had been alone with those monsters back on the island, trapped and locked in battle. He’d been acting strange ever since they’d rescued him, even if she’d refused to see it…but Creasy had noticed. That must have been why he’d wanted to keep such a sharp eye on him, she realized. Why he’d decided he had to go after Laros and Jade when they were taken by those shadow natives.

  Who is the Master? she asked.

  He is something evil. Your friends in the city are in danger. Everything is in danger.

  And the others? she asked. The ones who took Laros, these Skaravae…what can you tell me about them?

  They serve a different master, the natives thought. The Black Witch. She and the Master of the City battle one another for control of this doomed wastelands. Not everywhere in Nezzek’duul is like this. Most places have people and safety, much like your Southern Claw. But here in the northern wastes, in this region called the Chain of Shadows, everything has been tainted by the touch of death.

  Danica looked east, the direction Creasy had traveled, and then at the city to the south.

  What can I do? she asked.

  First we must heal your friend. Maybe then we can know what was inside him, and we can learn the truth.

  Danica felt a chill run over her skin. The natives were lighting fires in spite of the new day, pale flames that burned in short pits they’d dug around the perimeter of her crude camp.

  Won’t we be seen here? she asked.

  We are the Pale, the voice said. We are found only when we want to be found.

  What are you? she asked.

  Strangers. Like you. Surviving, because we must.

  They lay Ronan on a stack of pale stones and painted his skin with thick lines of frozen blood.

  How long have you been here? she asked.

  Too long.

  Danica watched as they knelt around his body. They were stark even against the desert landscape, and they moved with the fluid grace of ghosts. The white flames twisted in the bitter wind.

  We will heal him, they told her. And then we’ll share what we know. There is much to be done.

  FIFTEEN

  CHOICES

  Sky to sea to shore. Night surrounds him, while the ice wind prickles his flesh. The cold water soaks him through.

  He moves past beaches of bone and bodies, their stench staining the air like garbage. Grim totems stand on the shore, stacks of skulls bound together by razorwire and tar. The swordsman floats down channels of blood and filth. Engorged women feed on the corpses of their young and old men dance around charnel fires. They burn the remains of the people he’s killed, so many he can’t count them.

  He’s been here for a very long time.

  The blonde boy stands next to the waters. His stomach still bleeds and leaks snake-like coils of intestine where he took his own life rather than returning to the Crimson Triangle to admit his failure. His eyes burrow into Ronan as he floats by on a river turned greasy with cadavers.

  I let you live, Ronan wants to say, but he can’t speak in that place born of his sins.

  Soon the blonde boy is gone. Ronan drifts further down the channel. Chunks of iron rail and shards of spike and steel push up from the ground. The flow takes him between rows of corpse flesh on opposing shores. The bodies of his victims stand at attention and watch him float by as if ready to pass judgment. Their eyes are cold and dead and their flesh has rotted and gone sour. Bits of earth slime and worms dangle from their corroding fingertips. He sees women and men, adults and children. He sees beasts and vampires and marauders, Gorgoloth and Lith. He sees foreigners and Southern Claw, Troj and horses.

  I’ve killed just about everything, he realizes. It’s all I’ve ever been good at.

  Sickness claws at his stomach as he slips further down the river.

  He climbs a dark slope under a dark sky. He doesn’t remember how he got there.

  Iron mist curls off the ground. His boots crush piles of dust and bone. A dirty chill scales against his skin, and he smells fire smoke and rot. Clouds of acid paint the sky.

  He passes shattered mausoleums, standing redoubts of cracked granite painted with symbols of death and fear. Skeletons hang suspended by burn-black chains attached to iron poles and massive crosses.

  Ronan is clothed and armed. For a moment he feels he’s actually awake, but the dream haze is still there, the sluggishness that keeps his senses dulled. He’s locked in a world of laggard thoughts, this realm inside his mind.

  He hears the wolves. Low and throaty growls carry through the distance like approaching thunder. He smells their musk, hears the drip of saliva from their razor teeth. The air is made stale by their presence.

  They pulled him here, but they no longer hold any interest in him. They’ve found another, someone more valuable, but still they’ve left Ronan mired in the black universe of his own subconscious, a prisoner to his nightmares.

  Skulls and rocks roll down the hillside. Drifts of black dust cling to his body like a second layer of skin.

  Something waits at the top of the hill, a shanty of twisted rebar and broken steel. Gaps in the walls reveal fires within. The hut stands alone under bitter skies bejeweled with ember stars. Sharp stones covered with the semblance of leering faces stand perimeter around the structure.

  He steps inside.

  Wolves, feasting on the living. Caverns of pale night. Broken stalactites drip blood like rain.

  The creatures squat like troglodytes in the darkness of the caverns, sucking flesh from the bones of the recently fallen. Streams of blood form mazes on the floor. The subter
ranean realm is a landscape of bones, and the air is rank with musk.

  He hears sounds from deeper in the caves, the mewling of pups and the moans of the dying. The brutalized warren trails off into the shadows.

  This was where they began – the wolves, the things that would in the fullness of time become the Maloj. Once they were just simple-minded beasts with a taste for flesh, nothing at all like the world-ending marauders they’d ultimately become.

  The sound of their feeding echoes into the darkness. He’s a spectator there, not really a part of the scene. He passes through fogs of blood and floats over rocks turned slick with gore and saliva. He moves through batholitic stones, under waterfalls of piss and intestines.

  He phases up through the rock to the darkness on the surface, a land of arctic storms and intelligent rain. There is dire intellect to the natural environment, a predatory consciousness. Electrical blasts carry thaumaturgic mutterings. Tempests of dark thought coil within maelstroms of broken souls.

  The storms hammer the ceiling of the wolf’s den. Eventually they will break through, and the Maloj will be born.

  Another time, another place. He wakes from one reality to another.

  He walks through a broken city with bladed streets. The sky is dark with storms.

  Ronan stands alone, a stranger on a strange road. Ice wind scalds him with bone dust. Bone howitzers stand in the distance and pale dead litter the ground. He smells artillery as he passes scorched walls and shattered towers, the collapsed ramparts of a dead city.

  A battle took place here, only no one won.

  Beautiful, isn’t it? a voice says. A woman’s voice. She has dark skin and braided black hair and wears a tattered black and green dress and a necklace of shark’s teeth. Her eyes are green-gold pools, and her smile is utterly cold. The darkly gilded runes on her flesh glow like burning coals.

  What the hell is it? he asks.

  Part of a truth you can only guess at, she says. Even I know only some of it.

  And who are you? he demands.

  Edged tentacles shoot up from the ground in answer. Mirrored blades latch into his flesh and pull him down. Pain shoots through his limbs as hooked ganglia cinch tight around his body.