Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4)

by Steven Montano

“Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Marcus shouted.

  “We can’t leave!” Burke hissed. “Rake is inside now with Cross and the God-damned spy!”

  “Then get us in there!” Kane shouted. “Now!”

  Burke looked at Turner. The ship veered as gunfire rapped against the hull. One of the vampire warships had spotted them, and several more moved to intercept.

  “Do it,” Burke said, and he nodded at Raal, the human-like Grey Clan sorcerer. Mourne stood close by. Raal nodded to the pilot, and the ship lurched sideways.

  The world tilted. Kane’s insides twisted. Black explosions and tracer fire came so close the walls rattled. The engines groaned and fired as the ship dipped closer to the sodden earth.

  The Grey Clan skiffs turned to intercept the vampire warships.

  Kane felt voices slither through his mind.

  Kill black blood will eat the world you will kill lick gobble swim in our oceans black oceans beneath blood moon sickle cut the life from world’s veins twist bleed till nothing left nothing suck you dry the blood the blood is lost

  “Gah!”

  Kane’s head pounded so hard he felt like he’d caught a brick right between the eyes. He fell to his knees and tried to fight off the voices.

  “It’s the vampire collective consciousness,” Turner said. “We need to take him out.”

  “Whoa, what?!” Kane shouted. He looked at Turner. “You said I was fine!”

  Marcus pulled a 9mm Beretta from a shoulder-holster and aimed it at Kane’s face, but before he’d even released the safety Ronan had a kodachi to his throat.

  “You’ll be dead before he is,” the swordsman growled.

  “He’s being drawn into the vampire collective…” Turner yelled, but Kane barely heard her. Images flashed through his mind, painful stabbing visions that made his eyes wince and his heart go cold. An obelisk of black ice. A grim stone bust of an ancient bearded man. Razors that fell like rain. Cold light at the end of a dark shaft. Eyes like mirrors, staring out from rows of pale faces.

  I’m seeing what they see, he realized. I’m slipping closer to them.

  “Contact!” someone shouted, and moments later the ship buckled. Ballistics struck the hull. Glass and steel ripped apart. Cold wind scraped through the opened aircraft and sucked Grey Clan and Revengers into the sky.

  Cold sliced into his core. The suction of air pulled Kane off his feet. Everything went end over end. He saw Maur wrestle for the controls as the dead pilot fell forward in a shower of sparks. Ronan accidentally sliced Marcus’s throat as the ship lurched violently. Burke grabbed Turner and shielded her from the glass and steel that blasted through the bridge.

  Kane grabbed Jade and held onto the bench. The horizon flipped. Everything spun. For a moment they hung weightless, suspended in mid-air as the ship fell.

  Shit, was all he could think, and he knew it was a stupid thought, but it was all that went through his mind as the vessel drifted out of the sky. Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!

  The ground blasted against them. Iron and metal bent inwards. The ship landed upside down: they seemed to crash into the sky. The ceiling was the floor, and it buckled in. Kane twisted around and positioned himself to absorb the brunt of the impact for Jade.

  Even after they were still, he felt like they were upside-down, stuck to the roof of the world.

  Whispers growled through his mind. He ignored them by biting his own lip. He thought of Ekko, how she’d been mostly vampiric the last few hours of her life.

  She went through this, this exact thing you’re going through now. She made it. She fought for you till the very end. You can, too. You owe it to her.

  “Kane…” Jade groaned.

  “Get up,” he said. “We have to get out of here.” Kane rose, aware of the gaping cuts in his leg. Blood poured from his skin where a piece of shrapnel was embedded in his calf, but he didn’t feel it, and he decided that was for the best.

  Metal beams dangled from the floor overhead, and glass covered the ceiling beneath them. Sparks rained down from above. The roar of cannon fire and bomb blasts echoed through the air. The ship was rent and torn and oozed oil and fuel. He smelled fire and blood and heard groans of pain.

  Several Grey Clan had been injured or killed in the blast, torn apart by the impact or the explosions. Others lay maimed. Grey-green blood was everywhere.

  Sol was dead, impaled on a piece of steel.

  “Kane!” Ronan shouted. “Let’s go!”

  “Where’s Maur?!”

  “Maur is here!” the Gol coughed. Kane couldn’t see him through the haze of smoke, but he knew the voice.

  Burke was bloody and bruised, but both he and Turner had survived. Neither of them seemed all that concerned with the loss of Marcus.

  “Look!” he shouted.

  They saw undead through the shattered windows. The roiling blue fog advanced like a vehicle across the ground. The rhythmic advance of undead giants sounded like massive drums as they closed in on the ship.

  “Ronan, grab Maur!” Kane shouted. He looked at Jade. “I have to get to that city,” he told her. “Are you with us or not?”

  Jade looked around. She seemed at a loss.

  Another blast hit, a mortar shell that landed less than a hundred yards away. The walls rattled. Water and mud splashed down outside.

  “Jade?!” he yelled.

  “Yes!”

  She ran over to Sol and pulled off his pack.

  They ran along the inverted ceiling of the crashed vessel. Cables and wiring sparked and oozed hydraulic fluid. Kane, Ronan, Maur and Jade raced out of the shattered viewport. Raal, Mourne, Burke, Turner and a handful of Revengers and Grey Clan followed close on their heels as they leapt down onto the muddy field. They grabbed as many weapons as they could on the way, and Kane found himself with an M4A1. Ronan grabbed an MP5A2, and Maur had a SIG SG 552, a weapon nearly as large as he was if not for the removed stock and the fore-grip. Burke and the Revengers held HK G36Ks, and they fired into the mob of giants.

  The grey mist hung thick and low, and the marsh ooze was deep and slick. Kane sank up to his ankles in fluid that smelled of brine and puss. They sloshed their way towards the nearest walkway, which suddenly exploded beneath a mortar shell, leaving nothing but ruined splinters.

  They turned towards the ruins of Voth Ra’morg, which were still half-a-mile mile away. Thunderous blasts and the roar of engines screamed through the sky as the Grey Clan vessels exchanged fire with vampire warships. Razorwings and gargoyles soared overhead.

  Kane and the others had landed between the Ebon Cities’ waves of advancing troops: the Troj were ahead of them, engaged with the Scarecrows near the city, while the mob of undead giants was at their backs, still a good distance off but moving slow and steady.

  “We are so screwed,” he said.

  “Not yet,” Ronan said. His shemagh was off, but Ronan still wore a cloth wrap around his lower face. Even then, Kane could tell he was smiling evilly.

  They ran. They couldn’t waste any more time. The giants behind them weren’t very fast but they covered a lot of ground with their long strides, and they weren’t bothered by the marsh.

  Burke shouted orders, and Turner pulled out a sending stone. Dark shapes appeared in the ochre sky, gargoyle shock troops out of Black Scar. Another mortar blast from one of the land tanks slammed into the mud a few hundred feet away.

  Kane saw something shift to the north. He couldn’t be sure what it was, but he knew that it was big.

  The undead giants closed to within five hundred yards. The line of Troj was maybe three-hundred yards away, directly ahead of them and between them and the ruins. Between the team, Burke’s men and the Grey Clan, there were maybe twenty fighters on the ground.

  “This isn’t enough…” Kane said. His skin was cold, and panic welled in his chest. Whispers slithered through the back of his mind.

  Hell no. Stay away.

  “We have to go around them,” Ronan said. “If we
try to break through that Troj line they’ll tear us to pieces.”

  A war horn sounded through the blood-haze air like a hollow song. Several giants stepped forward and hefted the great iron spheres into the air. Flames trailed the balls and made them look like steel comets. They burst open near the downed Grey Clan vessel. Violent explosions rocked the ground. Heat and deafening booms swept over the marsh, and Kane smelled burning gas.

  “Shit!”

  “Go!” Burke shouted. “We’ll hold them!”

  A Grey Clan airship pulled their attention skyward. One of the clunky grey vessels roared by and left thick plumes of black and blue smoke in its wake. Bomb bay doors slid open, and metal tubes plummeted to the ground. Kane watched the bombs descend against the orange-black sky. He realized they were about to land right on top of the Troj.

  “Duck!” Turner shouted. Everyone went to their knees or fell prone in the mud.

  Acid flames rippled across the ground. Burning clouds rolled over the scaly humanoids. Guttural screams came from within the roiling fire as burning bodies writhed and twisted and fell.

  I hope they got the Scarecrows too, Kane thought as he helped Jade to her feet.

  “Now go!” Burke shouted.

  Kane hesitated, and looked at the Revenger. The man just shook his head.

  “Weird shit,” Kane said.

  “No doubt,” Burke replied.

  They readied their weapons, and ran.

  The dead giants behind them charged through the flames and ran even while immolated, massive meat candles that surged towards the craft. The downed ship was caught in a cage of fire.

  Kane pushed ahead. He tasted hex currents in the air as Jade sent her spirit forward to push mud and water out of their path, leaving a narrow trench of sodden clay.

  Blasts sounded everywhere. Kane’s head rattled from the growl of heavy vehicles and the fall of artillery fire. Mortar shells screamed down and into the giants. Gargoyles flew over the wall of flames, oblivious to the four mercenaries on the ground as they dove at the Ebon Cities zombies.

  Burke and the others held their ground with small arms fire and magic. Gargoyles snatched Grey Clan and hauled them into the air. Some of the reptilians plummeted painfully to the distant ground, while others grappled their aggressors and hacked into them with blades and claw-hammers.

  The group worked its way around the wall of dying flames. Troj writhed and moaned inside the crackling barrier.

  Kane saw Scarecrows through the smoke and fire. He fired at them, and Ronan and Maur joined suit. The Scarecrow’s armor was thick, but concentrated and repeated strikes brought them down.

  The band of mercenaries drew to within a short distance of Voth Ra’morg. It looked like they’d be able to slip in through some cracks in the northwestern wall, on the opposite side of the city from the Black Scars ground forces.

  Scarecrows and Revengers advanced on the front-line of zombie giants. Kane looked back and saw the Grey Clan ship being destroyed. Shells pounded the ground. Ships tore apart in the sky. Debris and shredded bodies fell like rain.

  They dodged around the flames and jumped into a shallow trench in the shadow of the city.

  Bullets pounded the ground around them. Blood rang through Kane’s ears. Adrenaline flooded his body. He fired, reloaded, fired again. Every time he looked up there seemed to be more Scarecrows. Gangly black bodies advanced on the trench. Kane fired at grinning skeletal faces with eyes like white holes.

  He tossed a grenade, and Jade’s spirit rained down shards of bladed ice. Undead bodies sputtered and collapsed, but more stepped forward to replace them.

  Something erupted out of the ground. Cannon fire was drowned out by a guttural and monstrous roar. Sickening slurps echoed into the sky. Kane smelled rot and earthen waste, something like bile and dirty rain.

  A massive worm exploded into view. Glistening black and yellow, the creature was the size of a tank. An enormous circle of buzz saw teeth squeezed Scarecrows in half as its body rose and twisted. It had no eyes, but seemed to sense prey just the same. Gooey white blood exploded from its body as shells struck its carapace, but the attacks only seemed to enrage the beast further. It rose high into the air, a quivering black tower of placid skin, then fell and smashed a trio of Scarecrows beneath its massive bulk.

  “Now’s our chance!” Kane shouted. “Run!”

  Jade’s spirit ploughed the road. Mud and water flew from their path. Shells struck down nearby, and Kane heard shouts from the other side of the ruins. Voth Ra’morg loomed over them as they made their way up the hill.

  A black clawed hand came out of nowhere and grabbed Kane by the shoulder. He was lifted from the ground and hung suspended by nail-like talons. Pain flashed across his body.

  The Scarecrow was covered in mud and filth, and its armor had been blasted apart. Thin bones pushed through the oil and leather skin. The eight-foot tall brute held Kane up and extended its claws to slash open his stomach.

  Ronan leapt between them. His katana deflected the Scarecrow’s claws, and in a blur he hacked the creature’s leg off at the knee. Grey sinew tore and the Scarecrow collapsed, dropping Kane to the ground and knocking the wind out of him. Maur and Jade blasted the Scarecrow to pieces with a barrage of bullets and cold fire.

  Kane cried in pain even as Jade’s spirit tried to heal him. It had trouble, like his body didn’t want to heal, but after a moment Kane’s rent skin stitched itself back together. The searing pain faded.

  “Hell of a day,” Ronan said.

  Kane looked at each of them.

  “Let’s finish this,” he said. “We have to find Dani.” He reloaded and turned towards the city. “We have to find Cross.”

  Because Cross and Dani and you guys – Ronan, Maur…even you, Jade – are the closest thing to a family I’m ever going to have. I lost Ekko. I don’t want to lose anyone else. Not while I’m alive to do something about it.

  Vampire warships sailed low in the sky and pummeled Black Scar tanks and Scarecrows with incendiary missiles. Clouds of burning steam rolled across the ground. The air was smelted and thick.

  Only one Grey Clan vessel remained. It floated low in the air and listed to port thanks to a damaged turbine. Gargoyles clung to the outside of the ship and tore at the hull with razor claws.

  The Ebon Cities army advanced. The Black Scars tank pummeled ranks of undead giants, war wights and kaithoren with hexed ballistic shot and razor bolts. Greasy corpses exploded in bursts of flaming skin. More Scarecrows and Revengers and Talons poured out of the tank’s cargo holds, a horde of dark armored bodies.

  Shapes floated out of the blood-black smoke: sleek and bladed warships, vampire fliers, Razorwings and gargoyles, Bloodclouds and Hexbats. The last rays of dying sunlight pierced through the grim barrier of clouds.

  The opposing ground forces would collide in moments.

  “Let’s go,” Kane said. “We have people to save.”

  TWENTY

  SKULLS

  The tops of crumbling buildings were just visible from outside the ruins. Kane, Ronan, Jade and Maur slipped through a gap in one of Voth Ra’morg’s pulverized stone walls.

  They moved down streets lined with short round buildings. Patches of frozen moss, black grass and grease ice covered the ground. Thick banks of mud blocked off most of the alleyways.

  The air in Voth Ra’morg was still. The cannon blasts and blade bombs and bursts of acid napalm all seemed a world away, even though the battle raged just on the other side of the walls.

  Cold sweat laced Kane’s skin, and his arms and legs ached. His dirty armor was dented and covered with mud, and his long hair was pasted against his scalp. His gums burned with hunger.

  It was becoming more and more difficult to keep the whispers out of his head. They promised blood and flesh, and though their voices sickened him he knew that if he accepted, if he just turned himself over to what they wanted, the pain would end.

  Too bad, he told himself. Nothing has ever been easy
for you. You don’t get to start now.

  He thought about Ekko.

  He wouldn’t let Danica die. For a time he’d actually wanted her dead. It had been stupid to blame her for what had happened to Ekko, because he knew that even if Black hadn’t smuggled them out of Black Scar they both would have eventually died in prison anyway. But knowing that still hadn’t stopped him from harboring deep resentment, and even though he’d tried to keep his anger to himself he knew that Danica had been all too aware of how he’d felt.

  He and Black had come together during their search for Cross, and they’d bonded in a way they never had before. There was no way he was going to let her or Cross go now.

  They quietly made their way across the ruined city, through drifts of grey smoke that smelled of ash and cinder. Wooden walkways creaked overhead, weighed down with hoarfrost and iced mold. The buildings were dark and smooth and seemed to suck in what little light remained.

  They heard voices up ahead, and Kane signaled everyone to stop. He nodded at Jade, and she sent her spirit to scout. The team had stepped into the shadows of leaning cylindrical towers clustered near the center of the city. The gaping holes in the towers revealed their twisted rebar innards.

  Kane smelled axle grease and vehicular fumes. He heard a churning engine just around the corner of the nearby building. Ronan and Maur stood ready, but Jade was locked in concentration, and almost seemed to be in pain.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  “My spirit is having trouble…” she said. “It’s like he can’t get any further…something’s blocking him.”

  An explosive blast ripped through the air. Metal flew out of the closest tower behind them. Noise rang through his ears, and ice dust fell across his eyes.

  “Contact!” Ronan yelled, and he leaned around the corner and fired.

  “You think?!” Kane shouted back.

  Gunfire cut the air apart. Maur and Jade dropped to the ground.

  Another explosive shell ripped into the tower behind them.

  “Jade, do something!” Kane yelled.

  “I can’t…it’s like my spirit isn’t there…God…”