Read Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) Online
Authors: Steven Montano
Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) (9 page)
His mind felt weighted down
. H
is limbs grew heavy. He
wanted
to sleep
so he could
erase the intense pain in his
skull
. His muscles ached and seemed to melt into the floor.
No. I’m stronger than this.
He didn’t
remember drawing
Avenger/Soulrazor
, but
it shook
in his hand. Its stark power
lifted him
to his feet
. It was a
hybrid
sword
,
a
fus
ion of
black and white shards
of
once larger weapons born of opposing powers, the extractions or physical manifestations of the White Mother and The Black. Every time Cross had though
t the
weapon’s
power spent
,
it reminded
him
that
it was never wise to doubt the might of divine forces.
Unlight shone from the blade. Throbbing pulses of white and echoes of black shadow pulled away from the meteor steel. The tower shook.
The shadows
warped, twisted
and raced back
to the far corners of
the room. The darkness moved with such force
Cross
was nearly thrown back, but the subtle shield
issued by
the pulsing blade kept him safe.
You wanted me to show you
my form
, the Eidolos’ mountain of voices called.
The
words were
less shaped than before, more erratic
, l
ike it had to learn how to
form
speech
all over again
.
The room returned to
the
same
pit of darkness
it had been when he’d entered
. The child puppets remained on the floor, no longer needed. Cross could only barely make out the vaguest outline of the Eidolos’
s
behemoth
presence
.
“Yes,” he said, not wishing to come to blows with the creature, even
though
his blade did
seem to
afford him
a
measure of protection. Even with the artifact held firmly in hand
,
his head still
throbbed
with pain
. “Yes I did.
Of course, y
ou could have
just
told
me what you were
..
.”
And y
ou could have accepted my word. I am a prisoner here, the same as you. But we can escape…provided you lend me your aid.
“You mean lend you my body,” Cross said. “
Because
you can’t leave this
tower
.”
Yes.
“The mages,” he said. “Tell me about them.”
What would you have me tell?
“Are they in control here?”
Yes and no. The Shadow Lords
are the most powerful beings in the Whisperlands, at least at the moment. But they are no more in control of this place than you or I.
“Are they the key to escaping?” Cross asked. He
edged back towards the doorway
and the
light
. He
still felt like he hung at the edge of consciousness
. Only the
chill touch of the
arcane blade kept him focused
and awake
.
They are. They have a way out.
“Who are they?” he asked.
Warlocks, led by a witch. They subjugate the denizens of this realm and craft them into armies. They take what they want.
“What is this place?” Cross asked. “
The Whisperlands…w
hat is it
,
really
?”
There is no knowing that
, the Eidolos replies.
You might call it hell. It is a place between worlds. Nothing is meant to exist here. It is refuse from The Black. We are shadow
s
. It is all we can
ever
be.
But some of us remember what we were before…
where
we were before. We can escape our bonds
, you and I
. We can be more.
Cross
’s
hands were numb with cold. He had no reason to trust this thing, this monstrous telepath. The Eidolos’ motives, their sense of reason, the very makeup of their utterly alien minds were well beyond his understanding.
But it still wanted
to survive
. That wa
s a basic enough drive that almost any creature possess
ed…which meant, Cross realized, that
it
was
probably on the level.
He hoped his weapon shielded his mind from its powers. He didn’t like the
notion
of not even being able to mull things over
without his thoughts being scanned
.
The Eidolos waited patiently. The tower
rattled
from the force of the ebon wind. Cross wondered about the
Shadow Lords
, about how long they’d been stranded there…or how long the Eidolos had been stranded there. No one knew much of anything about the Whisperlands, but
he’d learned that
time passed differently there, that a year on earth
might have been
ten in that shadow oubliette.
He wondered how long
he’d
been there.
And then something else occurred to him.
The mages ha
d
a way
out
,
the Eidolos said. That meant that
maybe, just maybe,
they c
ould
leave
whenever they want
ed to…and yet they we
re still
t
here.
What
are
they doing here?
He
’
d always assumed the m
ages were like he was: unwilling refugees
stranded in the
Whisperlands. He’d guessed
that
maybe they’d
banded together to make the most of their new home, a place they quickly found they could subjugate and control. But years,
maybe
decades of
madness had changed their minds, and
now they longed for an escape. It all made sense.
And yet
now he wondered if he was wrong.
W
hat if they
aren’t
trapped here?
What if
they
came
here
intentionally? What if they want
something the Whisperlands ha
s
?
If the Eidolos
read
his thoughts, it paid them no mind, nor did it make answer
to
his query. It just waited, and the tower pulsed to
the beat of
the creature’s
hollow heart.
“All right,” he said to the flesh pillar. “I’ll help you,
because
by doing so I’ll be helping myself.”
That is all that is asked
, it responded in his mind.
He took a breath.
“What do I have to do?”
FOUR
BATTLEFIELD
The sky folde
d in on itself. Kane saw smoke
,
and smelled fire. There was blood in his eyes.
He was alive.
The crash.
Shit.
He sat up
and grimaced.
Grinding hurt rang through his knee.
A steel plate had fallen on top of his right leg
.
He choked on the stench of burning fuel.
We always
crash. I’m sick of this crap.
Kane slowly pulled himself out from under the
metal
. He was relieved to see that his wounds were superficial, and he imagined he had Jade to thank for that, since she’d likely shielded them
with her magic
– there was
really
no other way
any of them could have survived the impact.
That’s s
omething else for
Vago
to hold over us.
Damn it.
He looked around.
Fire rapidly spread through the inside of the ship. Kane winced as he pulled himself to his feet – the damage to his knee was worse than he’d thought.
The starboard wall and much of the roof were bent in and twisted
.
Crackling thaumaturgic wires burned
grey-black smoke
. T
hick fluids sprayed
from
the
torn
wall
s
. Chunks of metal dangled from what was left of the ceiling
,
and sharp
debris
protruded from the floor where the ship had
landed on
something
buried
in the sand.
Kane
grabbed
Jade’s hand and pulled her
up
.
B
lood
covered
one side of her face, and she coughed violently
in
the thick smoke.
He looked around for the others.
That
second
tank is still out there
,
u
nless Ronan got
extremely
lucky with that last barrage. And one thing we haven’t been
lately
is
lucky
.
Sol
pulled himself out from under some collapsed roofing
.
He was bruised and covered in cuts and
engine oil, and a
piece of metal
the size of a boomerang stuck out of
his left arm
. Kane winced
when
Sol
nonchalantly
pull
the shrapnel out,
shook
away
the
blood, and
pick
ed
up his M78. The big man lumbered to his feet and
looked
through the holes in the hull
.
“
Sol
!” Kane shouted. The ringing in his ears was intense, and
his own words seemed to echo
from miles away. “Help your girl!”
He found his MP
1
4
A
and turned off the safety.
“The other
tank
is still out there, guys!” Kane shouted. “
Let’s get
the hell
out of here
!”
He
made his way
to the cockp
it. The fuselage had pushed up from the
ground
.
Maur was
alive but
badly bruised
. B
lood ran in
to
the Gol’s
eyes where his forehead had smacked hard against the dash. Still, he was conscious enough to complain as Kane tried to pull him
loose
from the heavy straps that kept him bound
to
the pilot’s seat.
Pain flooded through
Kane’s
body.
He
felt a numbing sensation at the edge of his mind, a field of
darkness
that threatened
to
block out
his vision. He fought it, shook himself, turned and followed Maur’s
frightened
gaze
as he looked out the cracked viewport
.
The second tank
left
trails of black smoke in its wake as necrotic engines
propelled
it
straight towards them
.
Thick
blasts
of sand
flowed around the vehicle in a dust tide
.
The tank grew larger by the second. It was so close it shook the airship’s ruined walls.
Kane looked in the sky above the tank and saw d
ark shapes
in the dust
. T
he tank had air support.
Terrific.
“
F
liers!” he shouted. He ripped his boot knife free and sliced
open
Maur
’s
harness
. T
he Gol
jumped
down, ripped a mini-Uzi away from a holster in the paneling, and raced towards the
port-side hatch
. “You’re welcome!” Kane shouted after him.
T
he top-mounted
20mm cannons
suddenly
hammered
to life, and the sound pounded at
Kane’s
skull
.
Ronan was still in the gunner’s
se
at
.
Sol
pulled Jade and Maur behind him as he kicked open
the
port
hatch. They’d landed at a
steep
angle on top of
a tall
sand dune
.
Sol
leap
t
out
and roll
ed
down
the slope
. Jade and Maur followed, and Kane
moved next
to the
open door
.
“
Are y
ou coming?!” he shouted, but Ronan couldn’
t hear him over the guns. “Hey
dumbass!” Kane
screamed as loud as he could. “LET’S
GO!”
Ronan
leapt down from
t
he gunner’s seat, grabbed his MP5A5
,
and
followed
.
Kane fell onto the sand and rolled
down
the dune
.
He felt his knee buckle again, and
he
tasted
cold sand.
They
were
in the middle of a pale wasteland.
T
he
Rakzeri ship
had crash-landed
onto
a
sharp
stone
half-buried under the sand
.
It’s
just our shit luck we’d hit the one random rock in the whole friggin’ desert
, Kane thought bitterly.
It’s like a collective skill.
The ruined
barrier was
less than a klick behind them to the east, and the
frozen desert sloped sharply
downwards
to the west
,
towards a
cluster
of fallen trees and dry riverbeds.
The shrill call o
f
a
tank shot cut the air apart
like a banshee’s wail.
“
M
ove
!
” Kane screamed. They ran
and fell
down the dunes.
The
shell
exploded in a blast of sand,
fire and sm
oke.
Dust roared across Kane’s vision and
stung
his eyes
. Shrapnel hailed down.
P
ain
lanced through
his
arm and b
lood flew onto his face.
Everything
went
silent.
All
Kane
heard
was
the beating of his own hammering heart. His hands found one of his blades there on the ground, and that was when he
realized
a ten-inch
needle
of steel had
bore
straight through his forearm.
Surprisingly, h
e felt no pain
.
That’s probably a bad thing.
Sol
was yelling
at
him
.
H
e couldn’t hear a word th
e big man
said.
Everyone lay scattered
on the ground, alive but dazed, contorted in awkward positions where they’d landed at the bottom of the
dune
. Smoke drifted over the
m
.
The flaming wreckage of the
Rakzeri ship
slid down
the sand
and
straight
towards them. It would crush them
all
in moments.
Sound
crashed
back into his ears like a
tidal wave
.
“
Kane, mo
ve your ass
!”
Sol
shouted.
The criminal hel
d Jade
’s
arm
in
one
hand
and
had
Maur over
his
shoulder.
Ronan ran at Kane and tackled him, knocking the wind
from
his lungs
. T
hey both roll
ed
out of the path of the flaming wreckage. He saw an inverted image of the burning ship
as it
slid and tumbl
ed
down the
dune
. Black fire plumed into the air.
Drifts of ash came down like snowflakes.
The f
liers approached
, and t
he tank
drew
within a few hundred
yards
. C
hains
dangled from the cannons and
tore the sand.
S
hadowy Razorwings soared in low and nearly touched the
ground
with their oily black bodies. Kane saw dark armored vampire riders with bladed hand-cannons and serrated swords.
Jade’s spirit was the first to strike. Undulating saws of purple
light
cut a
swath
across the sand
. The Razorwings
avoided the attack with ease
,
but
she bought
the team
enough time
to
split and
run in
different directions.
Her arcane
blades kicked up a dust storm that twisted violently
into
the air
. The storm expanded
until it enveloped the entire crash site
. Kane couldn’t see more than a few
yards out
, but
he knew
that meant he couldn’t be
seen
, either
. The sand somehow stayed out of his
eyes and
throat
, which meant Jade shielded
them
from
the storm’s
effects
.
Kane and Ronan lost sight of the others, but he knew Jade would be able to find them –
he felt her
telepathic presence
at the edge of his mind.
The
sound
of the tank
fa
ded as it
struggled through
the desert storm, and the fliers’ reptilian cries echoed in the distance as they
desperately
search
ed
for
the
ir prey
.
