Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) (26 page)
Read Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) Online
Authors: Steven Montano
The reptile
landed
on an elevated steel
p
latform
surrounded by a low
barbed
fence
that had been
decorated
with human hair.
The likeness of a
black skull
had been painted
in the middle
of the platform
.
A number of leathery undead sentries
armed
with bladed rifles and hatchets
stood at attention
. The
Razorwing
folded in its wings and
flattened itself down.
An iron staircase
was
rolled up
to
the platform on the reptile’s back
.
Black and Cole were led down.
Danica had trouble finding her land legs – they’d been riding on the Razorwing’s back for hours, and the ground still seemed to shift and tilt beneath her even as she
stepped onto
the
flat surface. Her head spun
from
dizziness
and hunger
, and her eyes
watered
in
the smoke and haze. The light in the Netherwere was unnaturally dim and dank and
often
took Revengers years to adjust to.
They
stood
Cole
and Danica side-by-side in front of a steep iron staircase
leading
to the depths of the processing tower.
Both of t
heir arms were still bound behind their backs.
Black’s
spirit wailed in the background, like he was lost at sea.
Danica deduced that she had no chance of touching him so
long as
Raven was nearby and conscious
.
She looked behind her. Burke supervised
as
the undead quietly hauled Cross down the ladder.
He’d been wrapped
up like a mummified corpse
.
“Hey, bitch. Been a l
ong time.”
Danica turned and
looked at
the
man who’d
sp
o
ke
n. S
he’d
recognize the scratchy voice
anywhere.
Vorgas Rake was lean,
tall and unshaven, an imposing
man
with red-bl
onde
hair and a thin
goatee
surrounded
by
stubble. He dressed in black
,
and moved like a pan
ther. The former
pit-fighter
had
grown up as a street thug
,
but
during his travels he’
d become extremely well-connected
in the criminal underworld
.
Once he’d
graduated from hired
muscle
to mercenary
his influence and clout continued to grow
.
Eventually h
e
and his partners had formed T
he Revengers
,
and
they’d
transformed Black Scar
into what it
was now
.
T
hose partners were
long
gone
, and
Rake ran the show all by himself
now
.
“It
has
been a long time,” Danica answered
.
“
You d
ick.”
Rake
calmly
stepp
ed
up and punch
ed Danica in the stomach. He would
never hit her in the face – he’d always told her how pretty she was.
The blow knocked the wind out of her, and
for a moment
Danica thought her insides
might
come spilling out. She wobbled in place and
sank
to her knees.
Her breath
s
wouldn’t come, and her throat went raw as she tried to suck down air.
“You know you’re in deep shit, right?” Rake smiled.
Danica coughed.
“Just leave her alone,” Cole barked.
“Shut up, bitch,” growled a deep
and
monstrous voice. Geist stepped
onto the platform
. He was a mountain of a man, if indeed he
was
a man – six-foot-six and as broad as a barn, Geist was half-Doj and so badly scarred and burned he looked mostly dead.
A
cowl conceal
ed
most of his face
,
and a thick
cloak made of gre
y wool
was
wrapped around
his bulk of muscles and heavy Revenger’s armor. Geist wasn’t
terribly
intelligent
, but h
e reveled in the act of killing
and served Rake without question. A massive war axe and a
n AA12 auto-shotgun were sl
ung across his back.
“Should have known…” Danica coughed. “You two lovebirds…are never far apart.”
Geist stepped up and kicked Cole in the chest. She coughed and
fell back. The gigantic steel-toed boot had torn open her shirt.
“You f
ucker!” Black yelled
. S
he tried to get to her feet, but Raven secured her bonds and forced her back down
to her knees
.
H
er spirit
struggled in the
distan
ce
.
She sensed his frustration and rage at not being able to reach her.
“You’re t
rying to call your
spirit
,
aren’t you
?” Rake smiled. “You’ve guessed by now that isn’t going to happen, I hope.” H
is smile was
cold and toothy.
He
actually
would have
be
en
quite
attractive
if not for the fact
that
he was
such
a lying and manipulative sadist. “Do you know why?
” he asked her.
“
I’m sure you do.”
“I
’d
thought…it was Narcosm…” she coughed. The
Revengers had used the
arcane drug for years to subdue captured mages, but when the effects
hadn’t
w
o
r
n
off
and
Danica
had
realized she
could still
detect
her spir
it’s presence
,
she
’d kno
w
n
something else was going on. “But then I figured out that
this
ninja bitch behind me is a Fade.”
Rake smiled.
A
Fade was
a relatively new phenomenon,
something of an anti-mage
whose presence and
force of willpower
disrupt
ed
or suppress
ed
a mage’s arcane spirit
. Danica had never actually run into one
before
, but she’d heard the
stories
. They were extremely rare, and some believed they didn’t even exist.
If only that were true.
“She’s smart,” Raven said behind her.
T
o emphasize her
power
,
Raven exerted her will
,
and Danica
sensed as
her spirit slip
ped
even
further away. She felt hollow and weak.
H
er chest w
en
t
tight.
“Not
too
smart,” Rake said. Danica was still on her knees. She
looked
at Cole, who tried to get up. Behind her, the undead
carried Cross towards a
transport
lift
. “
I
f she was smart
she wouldn’t have stolen my ship, my prisoners and my men. And she would’ve had the good sense to
stay hidden
,
so I c
ould never find her.”
His smile was cold.
Danica smiled back.
“Who a
re the new guys?” she asked with a nod towards the leathery undead, the tall and emaciated sentries with oversized grinning skulls and skeletal frames. “Is the Ebon Cities giving you troops now, too?”
“The Ebon Cities…” Rake laughed. He knelt down, and looked her in the eye. “Oh, Dani, you’ve missed so much in the last couple of years. I
’ve
miss
ed
you. You know that, right?” His smile faded. “You were always one of my favorites. It really hurt when you left.” He stood up. “Th
ey’re called
Scarecrows
: s
pecial zombies with the martial skill
s
of a Vath but without the
out-of-control bloodlust.
They
used to be Revengers. The Grand
Vizier
of Koth sold us the secrets
of
how to make them.”
Danica tried not to let her shock show. Koth
was
a renegade necropolis
populated with outcast undead, exiled vampires and others not deemed worthy of rank by the Ebon Cities. The remote city of the dead had been relatively quiet the past few years, ever since Cross had destroyed their leader, the
vampire called The
Old One.
“Wh
y are you allies
with Koth?” she asked. “And w
hat do you want with Cross?”
“Koth is the new super power
,
Dani
,” Rake laughed. “The Southern Claw and the Ebon Cities have been so focused on destroying each other
that
you morons forgot
all
about Koth. And you forgot
all
about
us
.”
Raven pulled Black to her fee
t
and punched her in the kidneys. Pain flared
down
her back
and into her thighs
, and t
ears of pain ran down her face
.
Geist picked up Cole, and a pair of Scarecrows stepped up
and
aimed
their massive assault rifles
at
the women.
“Don’t worry about Cross,” Rake said. “He’s in good hands.” He stepped close
r
,
un
til
his and Danica’s
faces almost
touched. His eyes were like icy
glass. “You should worry more about what I’m going to do with
you
.”
ELEVEN
CITADEL
The
y
look into the
dread
sky
and
see a vampire fortress.
An
island of
jagged
rock
stands
atop
a
narrow
stone
tower
just a hundred
yards
away. This n
ew edifice is adjacent to the tower
of
stone
they woke on
, and it’s
practically a reflection save
for
one
impo
rtant difference
:
instead
of
being
to
pped by
a small steel building, the second
island
is dominated by
a citadel
made
of black rock and red
iron
.
It’
s a Bonespire.
It’s a small Bonespire, roughly the size of a manor, but a Bonespire nevertheless.
That’s terrific,
Kane says.
Look,
Ronan says
, and he points between the islands of stone.
The only way to get to
the other
mountain
is
to cross
a
narrow bridge made of crumbling earth. The bridge is only
four or five
feet
wide
but almost fifty
feet long
.
B
its of
stone
crumble and fa
ll into
the
air
.
Both
of
t
he thin towers are
at least a mile
high
. They stand
over
a
land
of red water
,
black earth
and
roiling
dark
smoke
.
A pile of equipment lies on the far side of the bridge:
swords, axes
,
armor vests
, and strange
gauntlets
attached to
short muzzle
d guns
and
long
ammunition belts
.
Great,
Kane says.
We’re in a fucking video game.
Do they expect us to attack the Bonespire?
Sol
asks.
Why not send our mage with us?
The idea might not be for us to
actually
survive,
Ronan says.
They’re probably
watching us. This
is all probably
for their
God damn
ed
amusement
.
Then
piss on them,
Kane says.
T
he best thing we can do is stay right here
.
As if in response
, the ground shifts. The
ir
mountain
cracks
ope
n
like melting ice
.
C
hunks of rock
fly
into the air
as the bridge between the
towers
starts
to
fall apart
. The rail-thin mountain crumble
s
beneath them
. The island shakes and tilts
under
their feet
.
A
ll three
of them
fall to their knees.
Kane
glances up, and notices that the other island remains stable.
Of freakin’ course
,
he says
.
Do you guys ever shut up?
Sol growls.
K
laxons
sound in the Bonespire. Dark fliers take to the air. Kane smells brimstone engines and arcane fuel. The
small keep
is five
-stor
ies
of smooth black rock dotted with
crimson battlements
, and it
stands just a
short distance from the stone bridge
. A single
door slid
es open
and releases
hulking Doj zombies with putrid grey flesh and hammers in place of hands. An undulating kaithoren
–
a mass of
billowing
tentacle flesh and uncertain mouths fill
ed with grinding canine teeth – follows the zombies.
The
three men
run
onto
the rock
bridge
, and it
falls to pieces
behind them
as they race for the other side
.
Kane waits for his feet to
fall on
open air. Vertigo
hazes
through his skull, and
he expects to be ripped into the void sky
at any moment
.
Everything spins.
T
he zombies
approach
the bridge
from the other end
. Their monstrous dead forms grow larger by the second.
The
mountain
falls
behind them with
the
dissonant roar
of crashing stone
.
The
y
barely make it
across
. Kane jumps off the crumbling bridge and lands hard on his chest
on the opposite ledge
.
Ronan
falls next to
him.
Sol
is the last one to make it, and he jumps
f
orward
and lands
on top of
both
Kane and Ronan
,
flatte
n
ing
them
b
eneath
his
weight
.
Get. O
ff,
Kane coughs
.
The Doj zombies
draw close
. Red sweat pours down Kane’s face as he
picks up
one of the gauntlets. Hard wind claws at his back.
P
anic grips his chest as he
glances
over the edge and
sees
the blood sky
below
.
Red
clouds and shards of derelict rock float like ice in glacial waters.
He
looks up. The nearest zombie is
practica
lly on top of the
m
. Its putrid skin
drips
vile grey fluid and worms.
M
assive neck muscles strain as
the zombie
raises
its rusted hammer fists
and clenches its rotted teeth.
He takes a breath.
For a moment,
Kane
is back in the arena.
He finds his focus.
H
e calmly
fixes
the gauntlet
to the back of his hand
and forearm
.
The
device
is made of bone and pale metal
and easily weighs
five
pounds
. T
he short-muzzled
firearm
consists of three short barrels
, and t
he ammo
belt
coils
up around
his
elbow
and extends
to the mid-point of his upper arm
.
Metal
clamps
snap shut
and pierce his skin
. T
hin needles
in the gauntlets
send electric jolt
s
through his body.
His
flesh
tingles, and he feels something shift in his synapses,
an
understanding of
which
muscles he
has to
use
in order
to
activate the weapon.
He
tightens the muscles in his arm
and fires.
Explosive
rounds
fly
from
the weapon
with
such force he’
s
nearly throw
n
from
his feet.
The rounds
rip into dead flesh and explode. Skin shreds
and
bursts open in chunks.
The first zombie falls
off the top of the mountain
. The grotesque corpse tumbles like a flank of flayed meat through the open sky.
Kane growls
and
shoots
again
. His arm and side ache from the force of the weapon, but he uses his legs and lower back to keep
his body
stable as he advances towards the citadel.
He
shoots
th
e next zombie
giant
in the head
. It falls backwards,
and its
hammer arms flail
wildly
before
the brute
rolls down the slop
e
and plummet
s
into
open air
.
The kaithoren is further back,
a bulk
of flailing shadow limbs and dripping razor beaks. Roiling tentacles launch bone shard projectiles.
Kane
fills the air
between them
with gunfire
and
shatters
the
organic missiles
before they can reach him
.
A tentacle
reaches for him
, but
he
blasts
it
apart.
The kaithoren roars through the air l
ike a wall of
kamikaze
slime.
Kane
throws himself
prone
.
Machine-gun fire sounds over
his
head.
S
hells clank to the earth behind him. Ronan and
Sol
wear
gun-gauntlets
and
flak vests. Their bullets tear into the kaithoren and drive it back
. P
utrid emerald slime sizzl
es
on
the
dark ground.
Kane lif
ts himself up
.
Ronan hands him a saber.
He
runs forward
with the weapon
and
slice
s
open the kaithoren’s suddenly exposed undead
heart
,
a mass of fibrous tissue the color of old meat
. It’
s
the only solid thing about the c
reature
,
an
unholy core that holds the rest of
the
abomination together.
Kane
strikes
at the stillborn mass and cleaves it in two. R
ed ichor
s
explode
outwards as the
kaithoren squeals
and
melts
to
the ground.
Streams of red-brown
ooze
stain his face and
stick
to his skin like
clumps of putrid mud. His nose is filled with the stench of
animal rot.
This sucks
.
Ronan hands him a flak vest, which
he
hastily
puts on. It’
s too big
at first, but a
fter
he buckles
the vest
in place
it
automatically resizes itself
.