Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) (29 page)

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 fl
oat 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 h
e has to find it.

He struggles through ankle-deep waters
and pushes past s
tanding 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 m
ore 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.  T
hey 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.

T
hey 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 si
ngle 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 clea
ring with flickering yellow light
.

The people were a mixture of human and green-gr
e
y humanoids with reptilian skin.  Some of them
had other lizard-like features
as well
:
sharp and yellowed teeth,
snake-like
eyes, forked tongues, claws in
stead
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
w
as
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 h
e 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 tents.  Everything looked very temporary, like they were ready to up
root 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 s
altwater salve to the wound.  “Saltwater…i
s 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 no
t 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
?”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Cross said as amiably as he could.

“You:
be quiet,” she said coldly.

“Hang on,” Kyver said.  “You know who we are…who are you?”

“My name is Eric Cross,” he said.  “I used to be a warlock and a member of the Southern Claw.  Now I’m a mercenary.  I’ve been trapped in the Whisperlands for…I don’t know how long.”

“None of us do,” Kyver laughed.  “That’s one of the many lovely side effects of this place.  No one ever know
s how long they’ve been here, e
ven if they came here on purpose.”

“Like the Shadow Lords,” Cross said.

“Yes, like the Shadow Lords,” Kyver nodded.  “Like
us
.”

Cross hesitated.

“Excuse me?”

Kyver and Vala exchanged glances. 

“You say that you saw the City of Thorns,” Vala said.  “It was founded by those who came before
us
.”

We search.

“I thought the people from the city were trying to escape,” he said.  “That they were looking for a way out of the Whisperlands.”

“That’s not exactly the case,” Kyver said.  “They
were
looking for something.  It just so happened that the people who know the way out
of the Whisperlands
are looking for it, too.”

Cross took a breath.  He was in no position to do anything here, especially without his blade.  A few more of the Grey Clan came close, the reptilians.

“‘Those who came before
us
’,”
Cross
quoted.  “
Tell me something...is there a way out of the Whisperlands that leads into a place called the Carrion Rift?
”

“
Y
ou know
the answer to that
,” Kyver said.  “
And you know what both we and the Shadow Lords seek.  It’s called t
he Obelisk of Dreams.”

Cross’
s
heart went cold.  He saw his sister, burning on the train.  No matter how deep he tried to bury that pain it was there.  There was no escaping it.

“I’ve never heard it called that,” he said quietly.  He looked at them, hesitated, and realized he had little left to lose.  “Why do you want it?”

“We don’t,” Kyver said.  “And we never have.  But we can’t let the Shadow Lords have it.”

Cross
studied
the man.  He appeared young, even with his speckled grey-green skin and fading white blonde hair.  His eyes were pale blue, almost like ice.  The shirt he wore had upturned collars and loose sleeves; he looked like he should have been in a
library
instead of out there in the shadow
y
wilderness.  The aspects of hi
s reptilian nature were subtle, just
faint
scales and glittering shards of
snake
skin on the backs of his hands and on his neck. 

“How do you know about it?”
Cross
asked.

“That’s…complicated.  We are not
from
your world….”

“No.  Way,” Cross said.

Vala
glared at him, but Kyver laughed.

“This is actually difficult to explain,” he said.  “The world we come from…originally…
well,
we
gave
you the obelisk.  We gave you magic.  Or our ancestors did, at any rate.”

Cross nodded, and listened.  He wasn’t sure why he should believe anything they said, except for one simple fact.

Why would he make this up?

“The ritual performed by you humans opened up a channel,” Kyver said.  “A gateway.  It allowed our dead to flow into your world, bu
t the nature of the ritual you in
voked ensured
that
those dead wouldn
’
t be free to roam
about
on their own.”

“Your people…your
dead
…a
re the spirits we use for magic?
” Cross said.  “Jesus.”

“
Don’t feel bad about it,” Kyver said.  “
It
’
s always been better this way
. 
Things
were
different
where we lived.  The dead
were harvested there.  They
were burned as
fuel
, consumed by those who used them
.  It’
s similar to what happens here, but…they didn’t
survive
.”

“You said ‘lived’,” Cross said.  “Your world…”

“Is still there. 
But w
e aren’t.”  Kyver shrugged.  “We knew that the connection was in danger.  It was in danger when you humans first had cause to seek it out.  After the Obelisk was buried in your Carrion Rift, we knew we had to act, so we crossed over.
”
  There was an unmistakable note of regret in his voice.