Chain of Shadows (Blood Skies, Book 6)

by Montano, Steven

  How many people have I killed? she wondered. How many have I sent to their deaths?

  Now it was time to hunt again, only this time what they hunted wasn’t human. And it was already hunting them.

  After a short rest they left the confines of the small building they’d taken shelter in and moved to the edge of the city. Shiv directed them. Danica still didn’t understand how she knew the things she did, how she spoke to the spirits and manipulated them, a witch without being a witch.

  Shiv was powerful beyond understanding. For years humans had thought they knew how things worked, thought they knew the rules, but in the past few weeks that had all started to come apart. Everything was changing.

  They had to get home. But first they had to kill the wolf. They couldn’t just leave it to terrorize Nezzek’duul, and they couldn’t wait for it to find them before they found it.

  Danica, Cross, Ronan, Flint, Shiv and Creasy left the city, keeping low in the shadows of the southern walls. There were just six of them left, six from the nearly forty who’d survived the crash. Ankharra, Crylos, Reza, that annoying bastard Wiley, all of those soldiers…all gone. And yet somehow the six of them were still alive.

  Maybe not for long.

  It was difficult to know what time of day it was. The dark cyclone made by the Black Witch’s ritual had lent the illusion of night, but now that she was gone the sky was cold and red, a bloody taint like iced meat. Raw wind scraped across the broken plains. The corpses of massive war beasts were strewn amidst shattered rickshaws and small fires.

  The Sundered had returned to the desert. There was no way to know how many had survived, but those few who were left seemed content that their duty was done now that the Black Witch was dead. The task of hunting the wolf fell to the foreign survivors.

  Cross kept Danica close. She knew how he felt about her, and she thought she knew how she felt about him, but she still wasn’t sure how to tell him, or what to do about it.

  “That way,” Shiv said. “It’s in the hills.”

  The lands west of Tenjin were riddled with broken ridges, deep clefts of shallow valleys and fields of salt and dust. The air smelled stale and dead, and every shadow seemed to stretch like a river of oil. Twisted trees bent in the cold wind.

  The region was vast and stark. It was hard to imagine it had ever been living. The hills stretched for miles before reaching the railway and the road they’d traveled on before.

  Danica pulled her armor coat tight. Cross knelt down by her side. They were nearly out of ammunition, and they had only scant firearms to begin with. Danica’s G36C was down to three full magazines, Cross was using the Model 36 revolver, and Creasy had his shotgun and an HK45, the former of which he gave to Flint since the warlock wasn’t sure if he had the strength to withstand the kick of the 12-gauge blasts. All but Shiv still bore some trace of the pale spirit unguent, but now that the Black Witch and her spirit armies were gone there wasn’t much need for it.

  Shadows blew past them like smoke. They were a hunting party of the lost.

  “It’s trying to reach the station,” Shiv said. “It’s looking for a way to get back to the ship.”

  “Why?” Ronan growled.

  “Does it matter?” Creasy said. “We have to kill it.”

  “Can we?” Flint asked. “I’ve seen those damn things. They’re nightmares. I thought I was going to die just looking at it.”

  “We have to,” Cross said. “We don’t have much choice. We can’t let it get to a populated area. Too many people have already died on account of that bastard.”

  Cross stood up. Danica could tell just by looking at him how tired he was, how worn. His face was slick with sweat and blood and his eyes looked hollow. Soulrazor/Avenger was slung over his shoulder; Danica felt its power, though she never had before. Claw was attenuated to the other blades, and it seemed to make Danica aware of their presence. Creasy still had Scar, and she sensed its raw and dark potential. He was the only one who’d touched it aside from the Black Witch, so it seemed only sensible he retain possession, at least for the time being.

  “I’m more concerned about what happens if the Maloj gets back to more of its own kind,” Ronan said. “At least two more came through that gate.”

  “Whatever it wants, we have to stop it,” Danica said.

  She looked at Creasy. Even though they’d done their best to heal him his injuries had been severe, and it would be several hours before he’d be able to move at more than half speed. His spirit could lighten his load, but the effort would prove draining.

  Creasy saw Danica watching him, and must have seen the doubt in her eyes. “I can hold my own,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.” He looked at Shiv. “How much of a head start does that thing have?”

  “Not much, I think,” she said. “But it moves fast.”

  Cross stared out across the plains, his eyes cold with resolve. Danica hadn’t seen him so determined in a long time. She knew he would never forgive himself for the lives lost on his watch.

  How can you love me? she wanted to ask him. How could you and I possibly be meant to last?

  Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were only built for the moment, for the short time they had together.

  And maybe that’s enough.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They cut across the desert and made for the distant hills. Danica regretted losing the airship and the aid of the Sundered – the flying vessel and those fast-moving cats would have come in handy hunting the wolf.

  According to Shiv the Maloj was injured, but even if that meant it was hobbled it still clearly had the advantage over them.

  They trekked across blood plains and passed jagged and tooth-like stones. The moon glowed like melting silver. Dark lizards slithered through mazes of weeds, and drifts of black sand rolled in the cold wind. Dried riverbeds ran like stains through the cracked faces of crumbling hills.

  Darkness bled across the sky. Danica and Cross lit the way with spirit and blade. The group leapt across shallow ravines, slid down slopes of broken shale and navigated through dry brush.

  The howls of distant beasts echoed across the wastes. Night bled into day, then back again. Shiv pushed them ahead with dark premonitions of the Maloj’s whereabouts.

  “It’s bigger than the ones we saw before,” she told them. She was referring to a battle she, her father and Cross had been in before they’d reached the Witch’s Eye, when a number of the wolf-beasts had attacked the Grey Watch to steal components Azradayne used to open the gate. “Those were scouts,” Shiv said, “and they weren’t fully formed. The Maloj weren’t really here until the gate opened. Those others were more like…whispers. Dreams.”

  “Those ‘dreams’ killed an entire camp of Doj warriors,” Cross said. “I don’t even want to think about what a real one is capable of.”

  Danica had the horrible feeling none of them was going to live through this, that they’d finally walked into something there was no coming back from.

  And even if we do make it, we still have to get home.

  The terrain was hard, their pace grueling. They didn’t dare rest. Not now.

  Danica’s spirit moved angrily around her. Creasy’s did the same, and the two had to keep their distance.

  Shiv, the Kindred, led on, following the voices in the wind.

  It was near dusk when they came within sight of Black Dust Station. Walls of ebon vapor rolled away from the abandoned worksite.

  The sky was purple and red and rapidly growing dark. Pale stars hung low in the gloomy heavens.

  Black wind pushed against the leaning structures. Danica heard a sawing noise in the distance. A single wide lane ran directly in front of the offices and sandbags that had been set to defend against the northern wastes. The train was still there, a sleeping steel juggernaut.

  “Stay together,” Cross whispered. “If we get separated the Maloj will take us out easy.”

  “It might do that anyway,” Ronan said. “These thing
s are fucking nasty.”

  “How did you survive?” Flint asked him.

  “They wanted me to,” Ronan said coldly. “Turned me into their delivery package.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Danica how personally Ronan had taken what the Maloj had done to him. For a moment she actually feared for the wolf-thing – she’d seen Ronan’s wrath, and it wasn’t something she’d wish on anything.

  Cross drew his blade, and Danica and Creasy followed suit. The weapons tensed and teased at the air much in the way spirits did, only the artifacts were far more difficult to understand. The presences buried in those swords were cold and distant, their purpose less defined. They were all taking it on faith that the intelligences in the blades wanted the Maloj destroyed, and Danica could only hope that they were right.

  Ronan unsheathed his katana, and Flint held the shotgun ready. They still had no idea if anything they did would even hurt the Maloj.

  For all we know we’re just making things easy for the bastard.

  The air was tense and nearly silent. Fear chilled along Danica’s spine and froze her breath in her chest.

  Shadows stretched long as the party moved towards the station. Her spirit gelled around her. She considered using him to shield everyone, like she’d done back in Raijin, but that effort had been so taxing he’d been nearly useless for combat afterward. Instead she sent him ahead to search for their prey.

  “It’s hiding from us,” Flint said. “Why would it do that?”

  “It’s afraid,” Shiv said. “I can feel it.”

  “But why?” Danica asked. “What can we actually do to it?”

  “It must be the blades,” Cross said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. They’re the most powerful weapons we have.”

  “Aside from Danica,” Ronan pointed out, his eyes on her bloodsteel appendage.

  “And Shiv,” Danica said.

  The two whose powers are held in prisons. Mine in this arm, Shiv’s in herself.

  They closed in on the station. The air tasted smelted and raw. Smoke parted before them as their boots crunched broken bricks. They heard growling, but it was impossible to tell what direction it came from. The empty doorways were filled with darkness.

  Danica’s spirit had nearly completed his sweep of the area when he suddenly stopped, forced to a halt like he’d slammed into an iron wall. By the time Danica could shout out a warning it was too late.

  The black form poured from between the buildings. Massive and broad, the wolf’s voided fangs dripped acid saliva. Razor claws flashed in the red moonlight.

  Flint was thrown to the ground, and the shotgun went off. Ronan and Creasy came at the beast and were both flung aside.

  Danica’s spirit barrage of smoking blades bounced off the Maloj’s hide. Cold talons took hold of her golem arm and flung her sideways. The world spun, and pain exploded through her ribs.

  She watched from the ground as Cross drove into the creature’s flank. The point of his blade slid into shadow flesh, and the wolf twisted and threw him through the air like a doll. Black smoke oozed from the wound.

  Danica’s strength poured from her body like sweat. She stood, wobbled, and fell. Everything was fading.

  The wolf towered over her, all edged fur and black fangs and cold eyes like the heart of a frozen sun. Those eyes weren’t watching her, but the person standing over her.

  The Maloj was staring at Shiv.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  PASSAGE

  Creasy struggled to his feet. The hulking mass of black vapors stood before Shiv. Enormous jaws drooled viscous black fluid.

  He couldn’t let the child die. Shiv was somehow the key to everything.

  The beast’s back was to him as he rose. Danica was down. Cross and Flint and Ronan had all been cast aside.

  It will fall to you.

  He saw Shiv’s face, and she reminded him of his spirit. He couldn’t say why, but that same strange sensation had been with him ever since she’d emerged from the eye of the frozen storm, ever since she’d undergone her physical transformation after killing the Black Witch. Somehow she and his spirit were of the same ilk, connected in some intangible way that only the universe itself could make sense of. Creasy certainly didn’t understand – Shiv was something special, something powerful, whereas he was just a man, old before his time.

  But this old man still has some fight left in him.

  Scar weighed heavy in his hands, but somehow it felt right. The twisted metal sang as he sliced into the Maloj’s back. Night-colored blood fell on his face and burned both he and his spirit. The wolf spun round, knocking him back. Cold pain exploded across Creasy’s chest as he fell.

  He saw Danica there on the ground, and fear lanced through his heart. She was convulsing. Darkness spread across her body like varicose veins of shadow.

  And the same thing was happening to him.

  Cross flew out of nowhere and sliced at the creature from the other side before the wolf’s smoking cold claws sent him down.

  They were hurting it. Multiple blade wounds in the Maloj’s iron fur seeped blood and shadow. The air warped and turned blacker.

  “No!” Shiv shouted. She came and stood over Cross. Creasy’s stomach lurched. There were spirits there with her, a cavalcade of undead might. It must have been the ghosts of those slain at Black Dust Station, phantoms of the wastelands whose powers she could draw upon. “You can’t kill them!” she shouted. “Go back where you came from!”

  Voices collapsed around them, heavy as ocean waves and thick as steel. They were unintelligible, dark and soiled whispers as ancient as the world itself. The glacial taint of past millennia weighed heavy in his lungs. Creasy was on his knees, searching for the strength to rise. He felt his spirit reel in pain.

  The Maloj loomed over Shiv. The ice-blue girl stood there, unafraid, staring straight up into the face of that dread creature, a shifting maelstrom of wolf-shaped darkness. Deep growls issued from its throat and clawed toes dug into the ground. It lumbered forward, and Shiv calmly spread her fingers like she was sowing seeds.

  Something moved behind Creasy. He turned, his muscles aching, and realized the Maloj had summoned allies: a trio of tainted spirits from the wastelands, murderwraiths with saber-shaped appendages and shadow-blood eyes. They fanned out and converged on Shiv, understanding that she was the real threat, the one who could destroy the darkness they felt compelled to serve.

  Creasy had thought his purpose was to destroy the Maloj, but he was wrong. That’s Shiv’s job. Mine is to protect her.

  His spirit wrapped tight around his body. He stood, blade in hand, and faced the coming terrors with fury in his heart.

  The murderwraiths were just the first. Creasy killed, and kept killing. Everyone was unconscious except for he and Shiv.

  Creasy battled zombies, phantasms and spirit warriors. He snapped through spectral flesh and hewed through undead bones. Grey blood covered his body. He felt detached from himself, no longer in control of his own movements. His arms and face were clawed and cut, but he barely felt any pain as he ducked and slashed through bitter skin and threw corpses to the ground.

  Claw seemed forged for this purpose. The sword directed Creasy. He came to predict the motions of the rampaging undead, sensed their attacks before even they did.

  Behind him, Shiv and the Maloj were locked in conflict. The beast struggled to reach the girl, but she held it off with waves of subjugated undead, spirits culled from the wastelands.

  The air was full with blood and screams. Creasy’s body was past the point of exhaustion. Fear and adrenaline and the drive to keep Shiv safe were all that kept him going.

  He knew this would be his last battle.

  Shiv screamed. The ground ruptured, like a monstrous fist had driven down. Creasy saw the Maloj break apart. Its form dissipated like oil in water as it vanished into the darkness.

  A blade hewed into his neck. Everything blurred. Halos formed around the stars. Creasy staggered and fell to his kn
ees. He tried to stand but found he couldn’t. He had to keep fighting, had to protect Shiv, but his legs no longer worked.

  Claw clattered to the ground. The Maloj’s eyes burned in the darkness. It lifted Shiv in the air before they both vanished in a whirlwind of collapsing smoke.

  I’ve failed.

  It was his last thought before he fell forward into the deepest sleep he’d ever known.

  He’s back on the ice. Winter stars hang frozen in the sky. White smoke curls off the surface of the black and frozen lake.

  She’s there, his eyeless crone spirit, her lanky white hair rimed with frost, her moose-hide glittering with frozen scales.

  He doesn’t want to face her.

  I’ve failed, he says.

  She turns around, reaches out with a jagged walking stick carved from tusk and whalebone, and smacks him on the side of the head.

  Of course you haven’t, she says.

  But Shiv is gone, he says. The Maloj has her.

  And that’s what has to happen, she says, in order for things to be set right. Now follow her. Follow, and fulfill our purpose.

  She reaches down and puts a hand on his face. Her skin is rough and course, but her touch fills him with warmth. It feels like coming home.

  I love you, Creasy, she says, and somehow he knows it’s the last thing he’ll ever hear her say.

  He moves, a shapeless flier.

  He soars over fields of broken rock and dry riverbeds, past smoking ruins and dust storms. His vision reaches for miles. He can’t feel his body, can’t feel anything except a sense of purpose.

  He knows he doesn’t have much time.

  The Kindred is trapped inside the shadow wolf’s hulking and vaporous form, held motionless like a fly in amber. The Maloj’s body ebbs away, slowly loses shape by the second. Its wounds are critical.