The Witch's Eye (36 page)

“How far?” the captain asked. 
His name was Rourke, and he was a big tattooed man with lanky grey hair and a face that looked like someone had carved him up with a meat cleaver. 

“The middle of the Loch,” Danica said.

“You’re out of your minds,” Rourke laughed.  “You couldn’t pay us enough to take you that far.”

As it turned out, they
could
, and when Ronan offered 500 Southern Claw coins and a promissory note issued by the war office for another 500, Rourke had little choice but to give in to the pressure of both his men and his own capricious nature. 

They weren
’t exactly pirates, Danica decided…but they were close.  They had twin .30-caliber machine guns mounted on the front of their motored fishing trawler, and their nets were equipped with sharp hooks and metal weights, indicating they were used to hauling in dangerously heavy fish.  Their gear was second generation, mismatched and jury-rigged.  The boat was constructed from iron sheets reinforced with eldritch plate, an arcane metal surprisingly easy to come by on the black market which made the ship resistant to damage and somewhat harder to detect via magical means.

The other
four men on the ship were tall and broad-shouldered, badly in need of shaves and baths and dressed in heavy overalls and thick grey caps.  Danica thought they seemed pleasant enough, all things considered, and they left her and Ronan alone and went about their business on the ship, hauling in lines and manning the harpoons.

The boat lurched
into choppy waters.  Danica watched the shore fade behind them.  Darts of golden sunlight sliced through the iron mist, and the coldness of the sea chilled her to the bone. 

Her
false arm was buried under her armor coat and a thick leather glove, but she still heard the arcane gears grind every time she moved.  Her spirit was in the metal, where he still felt comfortable even though she no longer confined him there.  He was stronger in the steel, and when she channeled him he was more powerful than ever.  Sometimes she had to make an effort to remember that, to be careful not to release too much power. 

Danica sat
and watched the waves.  Rourke steered the ship from the fore end.  The vessel was packed with fishing equipment and crates filled with salt, bait, chain mesh and hooked blades.  Everything smelled of fish and gasoline, and Danica was surprised Rourke and his men smoked as much as they did with so many open fuel canisters about.  She was even more surprised that she didn’t want to smoke, too. 

Danica thought about Kane
, and about Lara.  In all of the chaos she hadn’t had much time to think about everything that had happened.  She heard their voices, remembered Mike’s stupid jokes and Lara’s caring eyes.  She saw Kane on his knees, wracked with tears over Ekko’s body, and felt his arms around her when he’d comforted her on the train to Blacksand.  She felt Lara’s skin pressed against hers, felt her warm breath on the back of her neck, saw the fear in her eyes in that moment before she’d died.

Tears
ran down her face.  She clenched her teeth.  Danica had learned to live with loss.  It seemed to be all she knew.  But that didn’t mean it was ever easy. 

God damn it,
it’s not fair. 
She closed her eyes, but still saw them.  She thought of all they’d done, how they’d saved her.  All they’d sacrificed.

“I
’m sorry,” she whispered. 

They passed islands of dark stone. 
Danica saw black fish and low-flying carrion birds, beds of dissolving kelp and wreckage from old ships.  The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder and engine smoke.  Shadows loomed over the sea. 

Soon t
hey were well out of sight of the eastern shore.  Occasional bomb blasts sounded to the north and west from the battles raging in the middle of the Rimefang. 

We
’re driving straight towards the middle of the war
. 

“Are you okay?”

Ronan startled her.  He offered her a flask.

“I
’m fine,” she said.  She knew he could see the tear stains on her face.  She also knew he wouldn’t say anything about them.  She looked at the flask.  “What’s in it?” she asked.

“Crimson whiskey, straight from the bars of Dagger,” Ronan said.  “Or so Rourke claims.”

“You trust that stuff?”

“Booze is booze.”

Danica laughed, and took a drink.  The liquid burned down her throat.  She shuddered, and handed the flask back to Ronan. 

“Thank you.”

“Any idea how much further we have to go?” he asked.

“A ways yet,” she said
. 

More s
trange images played in her mind.  She saw a gate, an ovular black structure in the middle of a crater.  She saw smoking hills and burning trees, and a tall woman with grey-green skin and six muscular arms. 

She couldn
’t be sure if what she saw was really the future, but she felt a dread certainty that one way or another she was bound to meet the woman.  Their collision was unavoidable.

Danica stared off.  Her grip tightened on the railing.  Ronan pointed out that her metal grip was bending the steel, so she eased up. 

S
omething terrible was coming.  The events of her life had brought her to this place, this day, and a dangerous crossroads lay ahead. 

“Ronan?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Get Rourke.”

“You got it,” he said.

“Ronan?”
she said again. He stopped.  “Thanks for everything.”

He waited a moment,
and seemed as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t.  He went and fetched the captain without another word.

Dawn arrived unceremoniously, and soon the dark waters sparkled with red light. 

Danica offered to conjure an
arcane wind to help speed the vessel so they could reach their destination faster.  Rourke wasn’t pleased with the idea – he was afraid she might damage his boat, and using magic could draw the attention of Ebon Cities scouts in the area – but Danica insisted.  There was too much at stake.

“We
’ve wasted enough time,” she said.  “We need to move faster.”

“That
’s on
you
,” Rourke said calmly.  “I’m not going to endanger my men…”

“You endanger
everyone
by moving this slow,” she said. 

“If this is so damn important, why isn
’t the Southern Claw taking you there?” Rourke asked.  A pair of his men stood at his back, and the others watched her and Ronan with steely eyes. 

“
Do you have a radio?” she asked.  Rourke smirked.  “Yeah, I didn’t think so.  Neither do I.  I also don’t have time to screw around.  I’m calling up a wind,” she said.  “You can be ready or not.”

“I said
‘no’,” Rourke said. 

“I did you a courtesy by asking,” Danica said.

“And I’m doing you one by not throwing you overboard.”

“Try it,” Ronan said.  He was so matter-of-fact, so calm, even Danica feared him at that moment.  Often he smiled when
there was even a chance a fight might break out, but not this time.  His eyes locked on Rourke.

Rourke
stared back and chewed on his unlit cigarillo.  After a moment he laughed.

“You
two are way too serious,” he said.  “You need to lighten up.”

“Right,” Ronan smiled.  “We
’ll work on that.”

Danica sen
t her spirit out over the water.  His cold shape spread behind them in a fog of arctic steam.  The force of the new wind was subtle at first, but within minutes the boat was racing along nearly twice as fast as it had been going before.  Icy water sprayed inside the boat, and soon the floor was soaking wet.  Danica kept one hand on the railing and her false hand held open at her side so she could shape and control her spirit’s motions.

They
sped across the sea.  She knew it wouldn’t be long now, maybe half a day.  She didn’t know what waited for them on the isle, or how she’d destroy the Witch’s Eye, but one thing was certain.

There was no turning back.

TWENTY-ONE

VEIL

Dawn light pushed through the pale clouds.  The sound of the engine echoed through the cold mists as the craft cut across the Loch.

The Higgins
boat was far from comfortable.  Cross, Flint and Shiv huddled together beneath a thick brown blanket, which in spite of their hopes proved not to be waterproof.  They’d been given cloaks, ammunition, canteens filled with fresh water and MREs, which they ate as they sailed long into the morning.  Thick plumes of freezing water crashed over the walls and into the shallow vessel, and after only a few minutes everyone on board was soaking wet. 

There wasn
’t much to hold onto, and while the craft must have weighed a ton it still skipped across the sea like an inflatable raft.  Cross had bruises on his shoulders, but he didn’t fare as badly as Flint, who did everything he could to hang onto Shiv and keep her from flying all over the place, taking more than his share of bumps in the process.  Cross worried about keeping Musad calm, but as usual the camel seemed completely un-phased by what was going on. 

Wara and the other Doj spread themselves out between the fore and aft ends of the vehicle to keep their massive weight
evenly distributed.  Even the smallest of the Grey Watch stood three feet taller than Cross.  Their muscles were knotted and tight, and they all wore straps of leather and metal plate and yielded massive lances and pole-arms, curved axes and strange steam-powered pistols.  Only Wara wore a face-mask.  She stood at the aft end, just ahead of the massive pilot’s compartment, where another Doj drove the vessel.

“Where are we going?” Flint asked.

“We’re taking you back to your own,” Wara told them.  “We’re taking you to our friends in the Southern Claw.”

Cross
felt like a vise had been lifted from around his chest.  He’d been so afraid for Flint and Shiv, so convinced something terrible was going to happen to them. 

You
’re not out of the woods yet
, he told himself.

H
e was still worried about Shiv.  She was special – he’d suspected from the moment he’d met her that she was touched by magic, but it had been difficult for him to
know
, since he no longer had his own spirit to probe and determine the extent of her powers.  She might have been a witch whose spirit hadn’t manifested yet, or she might have been a Seer like Ekko, someone who could see other spirits and gaze into arcane weylines and hex grids without being able to actually manipulate them. 

But Shiv was neither. 
She was the Kindred.  And while Cross had no idea what that meant, if Wara was willing to transport them halfway across the Loch just because Shiv was with them, it had to be something significant.

Cross wasn
’t sure how much Shiv had been able to put together of what was happening.  As usual she remained stoic, quiet and unassuming.  Her large eyes looked up into the sky, and she held onto her father’s arm as he stood behind her and held her close.  The Grey Watch had given her a small cloak, and she kept the hood drawn to fend off the ocean spray.  She reminded Cross so much of Snow – her eyes, her expression, her quiet calm.  He felt a kinship with both her and her father.  They’d been through so much together. 

I
’m tired of losing people.  It’s time someone I cared about lived.

He saw Snow, burning on the train.  The vision haunted him, and always would.

His back ached, and his shoulders and elbows were stiff.  Cross kept his hands against the metal walls.  He checked to make sure Soulrazor/Avenger was secure.  Its edge was always keen, and required no sharpening.  The black and white metal had fused together like something organic, and traces of each blade had bled into the other like varicose veins, steel roots tangled in each other’s soil. 

He felt
the artifact’s presence.  It wasn’t like his spirit used to feel, nowhere near so tangible and tactile…more like a nagging thought, a sense of something half-remembered.  The joined blade had its own agenda, and would reveal it to him only when it wanted to.  It was the only weapon he had.  He’d felt vulnerable and powerless ever since he’d lost his magic, but Soulrazor/Avenger made him a threat again.  So far as anyone knew he was the only person who could yield it.

I feel like a fly who
’s come too close to the web
, he thought. 
I don’t like being in the dark with this damned sword.  Which side is in control, the White or the Black?  What does it want? 

He decided that
after he found Danica and dealt with the Witch’s Eye, after he figured out what was going on with Shiv and made sure she and her father were safe, he’d seek out the answers he needed.