Chain of Shadows (Blood Skies, Book 6) (37 page)

“They’ll help us,” Creasy said.  “They don’t say much, but they seem to think they’re meant to protect and do whatever they can to help the Kindred.  They think she and her minions are prophesied to destroy the Black Witch.”

“
Minions?” Ronan asked.

“
Us,” Creasy said.

Flint laughed.  Ronan didn’t seem so amused.

The soldiers amassed, readying their lizard mounts.  Darkness built inside the city, a column of shadow brume.  Ebon vapors twisted high as the strange phenomenon silently turned in place.  Whatever the Black Witch was doing to draw the Maloj out of Laros seemed to be working.  They had to hurry.

“
Do we have a plan?” Ronan asked.  “I hate to be the one to point this out, but we know fuck-all about what’s waiting for us in there.”

“
I thought we determined there were three dozen…” Danica started, but Cross shook his head.

“
No, Ronan is right.  We don’t know their positioning, or where they’re holding Laros.  And just walking towards the source of the darkness may not be the best tactic.  We need a plan of attack.”

“
I know something that might help,” Creasy said.  “When I first arrived, I snuck into the city and happened across a soothsayer’s.  She’d uncovered some of the truth behind who the Skaravae were and what they wanted.  Even though they’d killed her, her shop was pretty secure.”

“
Secure?” Cross said.  “You mean with arcane safeguards?” 

Creasy nodded.  “The Skaravae defiled it, but when I left it seemed like a lot of the protective wards were still in place.  We could probably hide in there.”

They decided it would be best to make a two-pronged attack.  Creasy, Ronan and a handful of Sundered would sneak into the city and head for the shop.  From there they’d gauge the situation and use Creasy’s spirit to send back any useful information they uncovered.  When the frontal assault began they’d try to reach Laros; if they weren’t able to determine where he was they'd use the distraction to do damage to the Black Witch’s forces from within.  Danica and Cross would stay with Flint, Shiv and the rest of the Sundered. 

It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than nothing.  Creasy had found jars of the Pale’s arcane war-paint on their remains, and he and Danica insisted on applying it to the rest of their small group in order to help protect from magical scrying.  They used the ship for privacy as they set the skin salve one person at a time. 

Cross pulled Danica aside while the last preparations were being made.  Flint was still being painted, and the Sundered started forming the smaller group that would accompany Creasy and Ronan into the city. 

Cross and Danica stood in the ship’s shadow.  All of his uncertainty seemed to have gone.  He was as resolute as Danica had ever seen him. 

“There’s a good chance we’re going to die,” he told her.  She tried to say something, but he cut her off.  “No, listen.  We might die and I can’t let that happen without letting you know, letting you
really
know that I love you, that I’ve always loved you, and that if we actually make it through this alive I want you to give me a chance, to give
us
a chance.  Because life’s too short to go through it wondering if we did the right thing.  It’s too short to miss opportunities like this, to miss out on the things that mean the most to us.  My sister died after she and I had grown apart, and I still wake up almost every single day wishing we’d spent more time together, wishing things had been different.  I don’t want that to happen again.”

“
Eric,” she said.  “I’m not your sister.”  She took a breath.  She knew it was going to hurt, but she had to say it.  “And I can’t do this.  I’ve lived most of my life pushing people away, because until a few years ago all anyone had ever tried to do was hurt me.”  He tried to say something, but she stopped him.  “No,
you
listen.  I opened myself up to Lara, I put everything I had into making that relationship work, my heart and my soul and my love, and in the end she hurt me, and it all wound up being for nothing.  Because people
die
, Eric.  And I can’t put myself in that position again…I can’t lay my heart on the line and put that much love into someone only to watch them go away on me.  I can’t live like that anymore.”  She took a breath.  “I’d rather spend my days not getting hurt.”  She took a step back.  “And that’s why I’m leaving the group when we get back.”

“
I don’t believe that’s what you want,” Cross said, and Danica saw the tears in his eyes and knew he was right, but it was too late to back down now.  She’d never seen him like this, so open with his soul.  He’d always been their rock, their foundation, the thing that kept them together.  He was telling her exactly how he felt, and part of her was afraid because she wasn’t sure if she could return his effort in kind.

“
What I
want
has nothing to do with it,” she said.  “It’s about what I need.  It’s about what
we
need.  And we need to stop going through life being hurt.  There’s so much Goddamn pain.”  She turned away as tears fell from her eyes.  “I love you, too, Eric, but I can’t do this.”

He grabbed hold of her and spun her around, and Danica nearly lashed out at him, nearly let her spirit defend her, but her spirit knew better, knew better than even she did, and instead it pulled Cross close, held him in a web of pulsing heat and pushed them together, thinking for her, doing what she wanted even if she was afraid to admit it.

The next she knew their lips met, dry and cracked from days spent living in desert heat.  It felt so right.  She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer, felt his chest push against hers, felt his sweat on her skin and his hands on her back and the desperate need in his embrace, and she knew he was right, knew her instincts were right, that no matter how badly she wanted to deny it, no matter how badly she wanted to avoid the pain that it was pointless, because life
was
pain, and life was loss, and life was taking chances and getting hurt.

Because in the end taking those risks were what made it all worthwhile, and that was why she kissed him, why she ran her fingers through his thick hair and held him close.

She stopped, looked at him, uncertain what she was doing, uncertain what to do or say next, but Cross held her and she held him back, careful not to hurt him with her monstrous arm.

“
What do we do now?” she asked.  She heard the fear in her voice, the desperation, and it was genuine.  For all of the horrors and fighting, all of the terror and combat and torture and fear, she’d never been as afraid as she was then, standing there with Eric in her arms.  She remembered Cole, remembered Kane, and she watched each of them die in her mind’s eye again and again, and her heart wrenched and twisted in her chest like someone had shoved a knife in it. 

Cross looked at her, and kissed her again.  She pulled away, then kissed him back.  Their lips melted together.  He held her in his arms, warm and familiar, his weathered face and hardened eyes the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.  He held her gently by her chin and tilted her head up.  She saw the damp sweat on his stubble, tasted it in the air.  He kissed her and she heard a sound from her own throat, a soft whimper, and hated herself, hated herself for loving him, hated him for loving her, hated them both for doing this, for allowing this, for making it so they suddenly had so much more to lose than they did before, so that they had something worth living for beyond the greater good, something they each wanted, something they were both willing to kill for. 

Danica held him tight, and though she was afraid she couldn’t remember ever feeling more alive.

TWENTY-ONE

SCAR

Creasy, Ronan and six of the Sundered made their way towards the column of gritty smoke at the center of the storm-shrouded city. 

Wind howled across the plains, kicking up dust and sand that clung to the insides of their mouths in spite of their face wraps.  The small group moved quickly and quietly towards the edge of the City That Sleeps, their bodies bent forward against the wind.  Creasy smelled hex, and the stain of unclean magic.  A sense of dread was buried deep in his chest, but he did his best to fight through it. 

This is what had to be done.

His spirit moved ahead of the group, fighting against the gusts and cleaving through the shell of malign energies.  The air tasted burned.  Creasy’s ears painfully popped as the pressure around them kept building.

His thoughts drifted, and Creasy had to struggle to hold on.  He knew it was an effect of walking through that twisted wind, of passing through the slimy voices of the lost – they tried to fill him and the others with regret, with doubt, with memories of pain.  The spirit clay they’d caked onto their bodies helped stave off the attack, but only barely, and he still found himself wracked with grief over Wolftown and filled with doubt as to whether he was doing the right thing.

The atmosphere was wrong.  There was no other way to describe it: things shifted incorrectly, light bent and twisted at unnatural angles, the ceiling of the sky seemed to both press down and stretch too far.  The shadows cleaved to one another as the squad drew close to the city gates.  It was the second time Creasy had approached the necropolis, only this time it was occupied.  This time they were waiting for him.

We never know when we’ll die. 
That was a truth he’d learned as a young boy, one of the most important of his life.  He didn’t
want
to die.  He didn’t want to leave Tanya or her mother Katya alone in this world, but that wasn’t up to him.  His time would come sooner or later, and Creasy had tried to live his life fully, so that whenever his death came he’d face it without regret.

His spirit was at the center of his thoughts.  She’d always protected him, always guided him, and the dream he’d had still rang clear in his mind.

You and I won’t meet again.  Not like this.  I’m sorry it has to be you.

Creasy had failed many people in his life – the people of Wolftown, his parents.  No more.  Any good he did now would help, any Skaravae he killed was one less for Cross and the others to deal with.  He knew Ronan felt the same way, that he had little regard for his own life and wanted to leave this world doing everything he could.  That was why Creasy had shared his dream with the swordsman, why they’d volunteered for an almost undoubtedly suicidal task.

It will fall to you.  To us.

Creasy pressed forward, driving through the wind, his heart full of fear but his mind set on the task ahead.

They came to the edge of the city, through the outer rim of the storm margin and under clearer skies.  They saw the whirlpool of darkness clearly now, a spiral of groaning shadow. 

The walls seemed steeper than before, taller.  Spines of red stone peppered the ground like quills.  White crystal and shattered rocks littered the roads, and their silvery glow carried the faint hint of residual thaumaturgy, some effect of the ritual the Witch used to call forth the Maloj. 

They wound their way through the streets, staying close to the walls.  They saw no sign of the Skaravae.  The city was dry and dead.

Darkness brushed against their eyes like an ebon mist.  Ronan was in the lead, the knowledge of their destination imprinted in his mind by Creasy’s spirit.  The warlock and the others followed the assassin as he silently moved into a narrow alley.  The Sundered were soundless, their faces grim.

The cyclone ahead grew and howled with the sound of a gale.  It was strange how the air around them remained so brittle and still even with that raging black twister at the center of the city, writhing in place like an angry serpent.  Empty windows and shadow-soaked doors seemed to gaze out like hollow eyes.  The ground was slick with dank red moisture that wasn’t quite water, and wasn’t quite blood. 

“I see the shop,” Ronan said.  He waited, signaled that everything was clear, and then slipped inside.  Creasy followed, the six Sundered right on his tail.

The stench inside assaulted them, much stronger than the last time Creasy had been there.  The witch’s body was gone, as were most of the contents of the small tower, doubtlessly ransacked after he’d been discovered during his last visit.  A quick scan with his spirit told him that several of the witch’s safeguards were still in place, and that in spite of the damage the Skaravae had done the building was still resistant to scrying.  Even a powerful mage would have trouble detecting the presence of living beings within. 

It will fall to you.

Creasy recalled the algorithms and scrawls the witch had left, which seemed to have been destroyed with most everything else in the shop.  He still hoped to find something, anything that might give them some advantage over the Skaravae. 

Ronan helped him search.  There was so much wreckage and debris it was an all but impossible task, and the five minutes they had wasn’t nearly enough time.  Their eyes adjusted to the gloom as they sifted through the remains of smashed tables and broken furniture.  Dust and clockwork mechanisms littered the floor. 

Creasy thumbed through burned scrolls and more of the witch’s maddened notebooks, somehow left undiscovered beneath the refuse in the corner.  Ronan found something hidden in the already ruined mattress of the witch’s bed, a roll of paper carefully bound with cord.  He’d removed his mask and looked at the unrolled paper, and then stoically handed it to Creasy.  His eyes were grim.