Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4)

by Steven Montano

  Everything turns end over end. He loses direction. Something hard smashes against his back, and knows it isn’t the floor. Blood swims in his vision. Black air engulfs him.

  He hears shouts. He’s no longer sure where anything is coming from.

  He hangs suspended from the iron ladder. The harness that connects him to his weapon is caught on steel rivets in the wall, and his boots are tangled in the ladder’s rungs. He can’t feel any pain.

  The world is upside-down. Dark steel drips with gore through an air filled with black shadows. He gazes up at the floor and down at the ceiling. He dangles halfway between the two ends of the tower. Blood flows down his arms and neck.

  He reaches up (down) and pulls the fangs from his neck. A jet of blood shoots out and soaks his face before it rains to the ground.

  Ronan climbs up (down) to get him. Sol fires up (down) into the horde of vampires. They are nightmares that scale the walls, nude and unarmored creatures with black hair and pale flesh covered with blood runes and shadow tattoos. They crawl down the steel, fast and relentless even as Sol’s gunfire cuts them apart and they plummet up and then down, past Kane’s swimming vision, to splash into mounds of blood flesh at the top (bottom) of the tower.

  He screams. His vision goes dark, a pulsing beat of black visions, pale dancers on a distant vampire shore, undead matrons around statues of shadow flesh, undead cities that move like great beasts across the landscape.

  His heart pounds, and then it slows. Impure blood flows through his veins and turns them black.

  Ronan reaches him on the ladder and fires into the vampires. He somehow untangles Kane with one hand and hoists him over his shoulder.

  Gravity is gone. He feels like he’s floating. His strength has left him. Everything fades in and out.

  He hopes they’ve succeeded. He has the sense they’re supposed to destroy this place, to stop the vampires from finding something, and they aren’t doing it for the Grey Clan, and certainly not for Burke, but for the people he cares about. The people he fears he will never see again.

  He falls into a nightmare-plagued slumber.

  Kane woke. He was back in the steel room. This time he wasn’t alone.

  He sat up and vomited blood. He felt something in his mind, some dank presence that saturated his skin. He looked down and saw that his veins were still black. His body was wracked with hurt. Blood flowed down his neck.

  “What…?” His voice hurt. Tubes had been inserted into his skin. A brown-haired woman in black Revenger’s armor knelt down beside him and drew his stained blood into a syringe. He saw crawling black insects in the glass.

  He wanted to throw up again, but Ronan grabbed his shoulders.

  “Hang on,” he said. “Just…hang on.”

  Kane looked around. The door was open, and just outside the room were industrial steel chambers filled with tables and chairs and medical equipment. He saw Grey Clan moving boxes of supplies, and he heard a clamor of activity.

  He saw Jade, Ronan, Maur, Sol and Burke, the bastard Burke, a Black Scar warden and a cold-hearted murderer. He was accompanied by more Revengers, as well as a contingent of Grey Clan.

  “All of you…” Kane started to say, but he coughed up another mouthful of blood. “All of you…can go to hell…”

  He fell back, and passed out again.

  TWELVE

  PREY

  The sky bleeds red and black. Clouds loom and twist like screaming faces. He presses ahead through the black wind.

  The City of Thorns is far behind him. He walks across a dust sea. A forest of brambles, thorns and rock waits in the distance, but first he has to traverse fields of clay and black water. Cracks in the ground remind him of scars. Dark ice and petrified wood crack beneath his boots.

  There is no faster route to take, and that knowledge claws at him. He has to hurry.

  Because he knows what the Shadow Lords are after.

  He carries on without rest. His shadow body grows weary. He fades in and out. His blade is all that keeps him stable.

  I’m turning less real. Soon, I’ll be just like them, like the natives.

  Will I remember who I am? Will I remember why it’s so important that I succeed?

  He can’t think about it for too long. He leans into wind filled with grit and debris and makes for the black forest in the distance.

  He steps into a graveyard of trees. Dark filigree and necrotic ash drift at the perimeter of the forest and form a wall of ice shadows. The wind blows around the woods as if forbidden to enter.

  The air is dark red. The trees are as pale as bones. Wind-felled trunks litter the forest floor like casualties. Tangled roots make the way treacherous. Witch’s hair hangs down from branches like petrified spider’s webs. Most of the trees are bare, as if some great fire ripped through the area without leaving any burns.

  He follows a path bordered by twisted brambles and smooth stone. Shadows cling to everything like moss. Trees root inside one another. They grow inverted or thrust back into the ground like swimmers. Rocks split and bleed darkness that gathers in thick pools. Leaves hang petrified in the air.

  He walks slowly, wary of upturned roots that pulsate and ooze a briny substance. His blade is ready, a dim shine in the forest corridor.

  He knows these are forbidden woods. Even the Shadow Lords don’t come here, for they fear the ruler of this place. The Eidolos warned him, but even it could put no name to the master of the woods.

  The narrow earthen path gradually gives way to dark and dust-covered stones that are flat and low and clustered together like teeth. Hoarfrost and petrified mushrooms push against his boots. The path widens into a creek bed, a low and elevated channel filled with shattered rock and derelict tree limbs. There’s no way to determine if the ground is moist or not. Everything is too black.

  Strange sounds call through the distant sky. He looks up and sees a storm of shadow just beyond the trees.

  Enormous toppled logs litter the ground in the forest, juggernauts of wood covered in dark growths and insects. Vines curl and unfold like languid snakes.

  The air is cold and still. He hears the wind beyond the trees, but he doesn’t feel it. He can’t hear much besides the alien birds and the crack of forest growth beneath his boots.

  He’s covered in shadow. He loses his grip. He feels his mind slipping. He doesn’t remember his name.

  The obelisk. Remember that.

  The obelisk. The source of human magic. Its likeness was drawn on the wall of the dark shrine, surrounded by another image of six cloaked men reaching for it.

  It was there, somehow. It had fallen through the Carrion Rift and wound up in the Whisperlands.

  I should have realized it before now. I should have seen it coming.

  The Shadow Lords are intruders in the Whisperlands. They rule by show of force, but to rule isn’t their goal. They don’t care at all what their presence does to the realm, or to those trapped inside it.

  They know the way out. That’s why the Eidolos has sent him to find them, to challenge them. They aren’t from this world. They are here for a purpose.

  They search for the obelisk.

  I can’t let them have it. I don’t know what they want with it, but if the stone falls into their hands then the Southern Claw will be lost.

  Remember the obelisk.

  And Snow. Remember Snow.

  He will not forget her. Not ever. She’d died so he could succeed, so that their mission hadn’t ended in vain. To fail now would be a desecration of her very memory.

  He walks deeper into the night woods. He feels eyes on him.

  The river bed opens to a wide beach on a black shore. Massive trees, some of them hundreds of feet long, lay toppled in a catastrophe of black wood. Roots dangle like melting blades. Stones shift into silt and sand beneath his feet. The ravine flows under the trees and empties into a laggard flow of ebon waters covered in steam. The far shore is barren, and beyond it stands the rest of the shadow-smothered forest.<
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  Something waits for him on the opposite shore.

  At first he can’t make it out, as the large figure blends into the darkness. A grey disturbance surrounds it like a sullen cloak, a twist in the atmosphere, like the being was cut from somewhere else. It shimmers like a heat haze. It is out of place, only temporarily present.

  It is derelict. A refugee, just like he is.

  Whatever it is, it watches, and it waits. It’s twice as large as he is.

  Tentacles made of oil writhe just beneath the surface of the water. He hears a ripping sound, like a great wound has opened. The tendrils leap up and smother the ghost silhouette with thick necrotic unguent. Even from across the shore he smells the stench of hog’s blood and animal waste, of decay and dead sap.

  Darkness creeps all over the master of the forest. It is a dread conflagration of nightmares that controls this wasteland of trees. It feeds on creatures who attempt to pass through its domain.

  He hears the lost voices of scattered ghosts. The entire forest is filled with the remains of the lost. The dark smell of condemned souls burns in the wind.

  This is the forest of a hunter.

  The beast is humanoid. Its thick arms end in curled claws. Forest topiary surrounds it like armor. Shattered antlers fuse to its head, and its torso is wrapped in a tapestry of bone blades. The spine of some slaughtered wilderness beast extends from the hunter’s arm and twists and sharpens to form a curved blade, a spear of shadow. The creature’s mass is blood and darkness held together by iron-hard sticks and forgotten bones.

  Its body billows and expands. Smoke pours from the gaps in its grisly armor. Behind it, gutted animal remains and hollow shells assemble into a host of beast soldiers.

  He readies himself to face the hunter. Power surges through Soulrazor/Avenger. Chill energies course into his veins. Shadows fleck away from his body like dried mud. The light from his weapon pushes the darkness away.

  The hunter’s assault is swift and brutal. The shadow creature is suddenly within arm’s reach. He doesn’t see it cross the water, doesn’t see it move at all until it’s on top of him.

  Blood grease limbs thrust at him with the bone spear and Soulrazor/Avenger barely deflects the attack in time. His body falls to the ground, battered and bruised. There’s blood on his face. Forest roots dig into his back. He rolls away from the next blow, which hits the earth and sends up clods of silt and stone.

  It’s difficult to find his footing on the rocky shore. He swipes at the hunter, rips away root flesh and rot, and the beast howls with a voice like a horde of dying animals. His ears twist and bleed at the sound.

  The bone blade knocks his weapon away. Pain shoots through his hands. The joined sword falls into the water. He chases after it.

  A blow takes him in the back. He flies through the air and lands on top of a massive log. A branch cuts straight into his leg. Pain sears through the impaled limb. His scream carries into the sky.

  The beast looms over him.

  He tears the branch away. It snaps like a bone, and the pain shoots up his leg and into his stomach. His vision blazes white. He falls. Up and down bleed together. Wood fragments spray onto his face as the shadow man strikes the tree where he’d been and nearly cleaves it in two.

  He falls into the water, a blood broth filled with gristle and rotted meat. He tumbles head over heels. Mold fluid seeps into his lungs. He struggles to the surface, spits out muck and grime, falls back down. He bobs, weightless, along the surface. The fast-moving river carries him away.

  The hunter beast is in the distance. Trails of smoke twist from its arms and into the sky. Flaming missiles bear down and scorch the skin of the river. He sees the waters burst and turn foamy where the small meteors strike.

  He swims as best he can. Bone fish and slithering dead things push against him and threaten to drag him under. He can barely see as he tumbles through dingy waters.

  He narrowly avoids jagged rocks. The waters become more violent. He feels himself going down. He sinks closer to the bottom of the river. Soon he’s lost in the shadows and stones.

  He’s on the shore. He doesn’t remember getting there.

  His clothes and skin are saturated, and his body is covered with forest debris. Pale leaves cling to him as he painfully pushes himself up from the rocky ground. His arms shake, and his back is stiff with pain. The wound in his leg peels open when he tries to move, and he almost screams again.

  He’s alone. The hunter beast chose not to pursue him.

  He limps along the rocky shore, looks into the forest next to the river and sees nothing but darkness.

  Dead leaves float through the air as he struggles forward. His leg starts to go numb.

  The sword kept him safe. Soulrazor/Avenger offers him some measure of safety. It knows he has purpose here, and it pushes him on even though his spirit has long since left. It will protect him again.

  But first he has to find it.

  He struggles through ankle-deep waters and pushes past standing stones and sediment drifts. Black fish lie dead on the river bank. He sees scat and bones, and smells rot.

  Someone waits for him.

  These natives are different from the others he’s encountered. They are paler, not as covered by shadow. They are more like him.

  They are garbed in primitive dress. Remains of clothing from the other world he barely remembers have been mixed with dark animal bones, furs and hides taken from shadow beasts.

  There are a score of these creatures. They watch him soundlessly. He waits with fear in his chest, and he wipes black substance from his eyes.

  They don’t say a word. They step closer, and though for a moment he feels he should resist he allows them to lay hands on him. Their touch is surprisingly warm, and solid.

  They’re real. More real than the rest of this place. Just like I used to be.

  They are human-like, but not human. Their skin is scaly, and they are larger than he is, stronger and more agile. They move with a sinuous grace he’s seldom encountered before, here, or anywhere. They move like a single sentient being, like they’re coordinated in their motions and thoughts. He fears they’re just extensions, another horde of puppets like the Eidolos’s false children, but something in their scaled expressions, their quizzical and almost concerned faces, tells him he has nothing to fear from them.

  They help him into the trees.

  Cross felt himself grow more solid the deeper they went into the forest. Before long they were away from the river, and they stepped into a large clearing where the ground was moist and dark but the grass was actually green.

  He heard voices, a mixture of human and other tongues he didn’t recognize. There were over two dozen people in the open camp, several of them standing guard along the outer perimeter, where the otherwise clean air turned vitriolic and dark. They’d camped in an island of solidity, a place secluded from the polluted fields of shadow. Tall torches had been set in the ground like spears and filled the clearing with flickering yellow light.

  The people were a mixture of human and green-grey humanoids with reptilian skin. Some of them had other lizard-like features as well: sharp and yellowed teeth, snake-like eyes, forked tongues, claws instead of hands. Once inside the shadow-safe zone their clothing was tattered workman outfits and light armor cast in earthen tones. Their weapons were archaic rifles, blades and spears. Every one of the creatures was dirty and looked bone tired, and Cross imagined they’d been there in the Whisperlands for a very long time. There were women among them.

  “Welcome to our humble camp,” said one of the men he’d been leaning on, a grey-haired and mostly human individual. “I’m Kyver.”

  “Eric,” Cross replied after a moment. He was disturbed at how long it took him to answer. His voice was dry and hoarse, and he was exhausted beyond all measure. “Not to be rude, but…could we do something about my leg?”

  “Sure,” Kyver said.

  They brought Cross to a bedroll near a shambled collection of tent
s. Everything looked very temporary, like they were ready to uproot at a moment’s notice.

  “What is this place?” he asked. Kyver and another human helped Cross set himself down on his back as gently as he could. He was woozy and weak. Blood soaked his leg, and in the torchlight he saw how bad his injury really was. Cracked skin glistened raw beneath his torn trousers. The slightest breeze made the wound sting.

  “This is Vala, our medic,” Kyver said. Vala was a tall black woman with severe eyes and tight skin. She wore a dingy tank-top and camouflage pants, and her arms had more tone and muscle than Cross could ever hope to have.

  “Lay still,” she said, her voice as commanding as her angular face.

  “You bet.” He did his best not to hiss as she applied saltwater salve to the wound. “Saltwater…is it a vampiric infection?”

  “No, but it’s similar,” she said. “You know how the shadows start to creep all over your body after you’ve been out there for too long?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If it gets too deep into your skin, you lose your mind,” she said.

  “We call it Shadowplague,” Kyver said. “For lack of a better term.” He smiled. Dead wind howled in the distance. “You probably have questions…”

  “Yeah…maybe not as many as you think, but…yes.” Cross propped himself up on his elbows as Vala tore away his pant leg.

  “Hold still,” she snapped.

  “Sorry.” He looked at Kyver. “Who are you? Grey Clan?”

  Kyver paused. Vala looked up at Cross like she intended to use the blade at her side to cut his throat.

  “There’s only one creature in the Whisperlands who could have possibly told you that,” Kyver smiled. “And unfortunately for you, the Eidolos is not a friend of ours.”

  “He…it…doesn’t see things that way,” Cross said. “Trust me, I have no reason to trust it either, but it told me how to get to the City of Thorns, and where to travel from there to reach the Black Citadel. It seems to think there’s a way out of the Whisperlands, and that maybe you could help me find it.”

  “You’ll get yourself killed listening to the advice of an Eidolos,” Vala said sharply. She looked at Kyver. “Should I stop treating his wounds?”