Authors: Steven Montano
Soulrazor (31 page)
“
God,” Ash choked. “I…I can’t believe this…”
God,” Ash choked. “I…I can’t believe this…”
“
Don’t,” Black said sharply. “It never happened. And it never will.”
Don’t,” Black said sharply. “It never happened. And it never will.”
Still, it was difficult to navigate the city without being reminded of nights spent drinking and carousing with Cross and Kane, or nights with Cole, even though the two of them had never spent that much time in Thornn together, as they preferred the rough-and-tumble criminal port city of Kalakkaii.
They saw shreds of clothing and broken dolls, shattered walking sticks and carts of scorched produce, collapsed storefronts and broken wheels, fragments of newspaper and torn shoes.
The ghostly silence unnerved Danica, the utter lack of whispers or voices or heartbeats, where before there had been so many.
Ash was crying. Danica wanted to round on her, tell her to stop, but she wouldn’t. It didn’t matter if she cried for the city or for her brother. It wasn’t Black’s place to tell the older witch what she should be feeling.
“
Are you okay?” Maur asked from behind them.
Are you okay?” Maur asked from behind them.
Ash cleared her tears, and took a breath.
“
Yes.”
Yes.”
The witches coordinated their spirits and conducted an arcane reconnoiter of the remains of Thornn. The spirits floated in and out of structures, drifted through collapsed buildings and into shattered bomb-shelters, moved through homes whose inhabitants had all been turned to dust, and then drifted up into the dark clouds gathered over the city.
“
This way!” Black shouted, and she ran up what used to be Clock Street, towards its intersection with Halo Lane. The road was cracked down the center, like a seam had been split. Piles of shattered slate and broken bricks formed narrow paths.
This way!” Black shouted, and she ran up what used to be Clock Street, towards its intersection with Halo Lane. The road was cracked down the center, like a seam had been split. Piles of shattered slate and broken bricks formed narrow paths.
“
We have to hurry!” Ash said.
We have to hurry!” Ash said.
They were ambushed when they reached the intersection. Black’s spirit noted the presence of the war wights just seconds before they sprang out of the shadows, and she barely had time to lift her spirit and form a shield before the first claws came at her.
These were not normal war wights. Their flesh was blistered black and covered in thick white veins that oozed phosphorescent bile. Dark dust billowed out of their wide eyes and the pores in their cracked skin. It was as if they wore cloaks made of greasy soot.
Gunfire blazed hot and turned the air yellow and white. The wights threw themselves at the team with abandon. Kane gunned two of them down with his M4, while Ronan sliced one wight’s head clean away just moments before its claws would have found his throat. Maur blasted through another wight’s mid-section at point-blank range with the mini-uzi – his battle-cry was almost louder than the gunfire, and it took Danica by surprise – and Ash’s spirit pulled down another undead and sliced it in half.
Black’s spirit coiled around her katars and encased them in black ice. A wight leapt into the air and jumped against a shattered stone wall as it tried to disorient her and come at her from behind. Black turned and severed its claw at the wrist, then drove her second blade through its undead skull.
Once the wights were dispatched, the team moved on to the intersection at the top of the hill.
Those undead were summoned by the blade
, Danica realized.
They weren’t animated, but constructed, fabricated by the same energy that Jennar yields.
, Danica realized.
They weren’t animated, but constructed, fabricated by the same energy that Jennar yields.
At the top of the street, in a ruined courtyard in front of the smashed and ruined remains of the hospital fortress of Thornn, they found who they were looking for.
Cross was on his knees. He coughed up blood that splattered all over the ground.
Strangely, Jennar was on the ground, as well, and he clutched a stomach wound that gushed black blood.
Korva stood over them both with the black blade in her hands. Drops of cold matter fell from the tip of the sword. Its meteoric face glimmered in the fading light.
The former Revenger turned and looked at the team as they came over the rise. Her eyes shone darkly, and an aura of malice surrounded her. Her smile was wicked, and her curly blonde hair lifted in the black breeze.
“
You’re too late,” she laughed. “Not only will I end the war, but I will claim dominion over this world, and all worlds like it. I will no longer be an avatar, but the Goddess, reborn.”
You’re too late,” she laughed. “Not only will I end the war, but I will claim dominion over this world, and all worlds like it. I will no longer be an avatar, but the Goddess, reborn.”
“
What’s this crazy bitch talking about?” Kane muttered. He stepped up and shot at Korva without hesitation. Black followed his lead and released her spirit in a phalanx of white spears laced with tendrils of dripping fire.
What’s this crazy bitch talking about?” Kane muttered. He stepped up and shot at Korva without hesitation. Black followed his lead and released her spirit in a phalanx of white spears laced with tendrils of dripping fire.
Korva raised the blade, and shards of darkness tore away from the crystalline face like an undulating wave of vaporous spiders. Bullets melted like butter put to a flame, and Black rocked back on her heels as her spirit collided with something that felt like an iron wall. The shield was nearly translucent, a film of petrified blood.
“
Kill her!” Kane yelled, and he fired at Korva again and raced forward.
Kill her!” Kane yelled, and he fired at Korva again and raced forward.
The sword hissed. Night’s veins bled at its touch, and darkness oozed in its wake.
Ghastly forms took shape in the darkness. Creeping vines of shadow leaked out of Korva’s body and covered the ground. Her veins turned dark, like she’d been filled with oil. A column of shadow formed around her body like a brittle cyclone. Licks of dark lightning danced away and stretched out like the tentacles of some oblique sub-aquatic marauder.
Shadows melted into the semblance of leering spectral faces, long-limbed visages with grim melting mouths that dripped ectoplasmic drool.
Within moments, a dozen half-ghosts surrounded the team. They were vaguely humanoid shapes with elongated limbs and pugnacious canine jaws hobbled together with bits of detritus and wreckage used as makeshift weaponry, glass and stone and steel fused into hammers, wedges and knives.
Blades met blades and magic tore through wraith-flesh. Sharp stones slashed open skin and gun blasts ripped apart carapaces of street armor.
Ronan and Kane fearlessly stepped forward and hacked their way through undead enemies. Ash cast her spirit around their blades to form thin layers of heat energy, a hellish vorpal sheen that gave the weapons unequalled sharpness. The two warriors slashed at undead golems with swords of pulsing flame.
Black hacked through battling corpses. Her weapons reflexively deflected stone blades and asphalt fists. Strong and fast though they were, Korva’s constructs lacked any true fighting skill. The war wights and Vath of the Ebon Cities were animated with recollection of the martial skill they bore in life, but these shadow constructs were made from the raw soul-matter of lost lives, and they bore no memory of anything they’d once known.
Black rolled between the shadow golem’s predictable attacks with ease, and she jettisoned sorcerous energies behind her that tripped the bulky physical aspects of the constructs and forced them to discorporate. They broke into unstable shades long enough for her to swing backwards and rend them into shards of spectral matter.
Danica charged Korva. The avatar waited, possessed by the magnitude of arcane power stored within the sword, the same power held by The Sleeper, dank and dirty, a corruptive mass of shadow filth and life-draining vapor. The light in Korva’s eyes was unholy, like burning pits of phosphorous.
Their blades clashed, and Black was thrown backwards and through the air. The world spun. She landed in a heap against the side of the hill, and felt something snap in her leg. Pain shot up her thigh and into her stomach. She screamed as a pulse of necrotic power hit her like a controlled tornado.
Danica’s vision blurred. The sky grew dark. Shadows bled through the clouds like poison.
Cross leapt up and stabbed Korva in the back with Avenger. Her scream ripped open the air. It was no human cry, but something that sounded like a thousand bats, or the call of a dread lizard.
The air grew heavy. Danica felt time slow. The atmosphere throbbed, and the sky rippled and pulsed. Everything shook, as if from the force of a vast footfall.
The world hollowed, turned inside out, vibrated.
The pulse came again, closer this time, sooner than the last.
The countdown.
But that’s impossible,
she thought.
The explosion already happened.
she thought.
The explosion already happened.
No
, she realized.
It hasn’t happened yet, not in this timeline. But it
will
. That explosion…it must tear through to the past. But where does it originate from? The sword? Korva?
, she realized.
It hasn’t happened yet, not in this timeline. But it
will
. That explosion…it must tear through to the past. But where does it originate from? The sword? Korva?
Danica rose, and she nearly blacked out from the pain in her leg. Darkness swam around her vision.
Korva and Cross locked blades while the rest of the team battled the ghosts. Maur screamed when a stone sword caught him in the shoulder. Kane ripped through the spectral attacker with a howl. Ronan stood over Ash, who bled from both of her arms. The swordsman held a pair of undead warriors at bay.
Cross raised his blade. Korva’s defenses had dropped, just for a moment, but another pulse came. He fell back and clutched his chest. Waves of black and white heat rippled up and down his unstable body. He shimmered and faded before he regained control, and by then he was forced to deflect Korva’s renewed assault.
From Black’s perspective, Avenger seemed to be the equal of Korva’s black blade. They sparked against each other with deafening rings of power that exploded in bursts of ice and fire.
Cross was winded, and it seemed it was a struggle for him to even remain standing. Coal shadows clung and leaked from his body. He fought to keep something held within.
Cross
, Danica realized.
Cross is the bomb.
, Danica realized.
Cross is the bomb.
She saw something. Black pulled her spirit tight, and prepared him.
Korva turned to shove her blade into Cross’ exposed midsection, but he raised Avenger and countered with his own blow.
Danica’s spirit flew past Cross and slammed into Jennar, who’d come out of nowhere and aimed his
nightlance
squarely at Cross’ back. Black’s spirit was a jumble of crooked cold razors and jets of black steam that sliced Jennar open. Shadows exploded out of his body, a rapid mass of darkness that seethed with pain and fury.
nightlance
squarely at Cross’ back. Black’s spirit was a jumble of crooked cold razors and jets of black steam that sliced Jennar open. Shadows exploded out of his body, a rapid mass of darkness that seethed with pain and fury.
Kane leapt forward and crushed Jennar’s skull into a pulp with a clean swing of his blade.
Cross and Korva battled on. Every strike of their weapons made the air bleed with metal noise. Arcane ghosts circled them like a pack of spectral wolves. The air was thick with shadow grit and explosive waves of light. The ground beneath them smoldered and turned pale.
Maur was down, Kane and Ronan were injured and overwhelmed, but they all fought on. Danica couldn’t tell if Ash was dead or unconscious, so she
used
her spirit to lift the other witch’s body to safety
.
used
her spirit to lift the other witch’s body to safety
.
But a claw tore into Danica’s shoulder, and it pulled her back and into a mass of murderous shadows.
He feels the blast coming. The black matter of distant worlds races forward like an unstoppable engine. It burns inside and pounds against the shell of his flesh like a team of hammers.
He is a tunnel: a vortex. He senses the void buried in a hidden tunnel in his soul, a roiling black mass of destructive power. It burns like the flames of a thousand suns. In moments, it will find him, and everything will be lost.
He doesn't have much time.
He reels from another blow. Black metal scorches his skin and cleaves his spirit. He feels her pain and rage. The Soulweavers have tamed the disease inside her, but they could not eradicate it. As her sickness intensifies and the moment of his destruction draws near he feels his control slip. He is powerless to stop her, helpless, just a witness to the story of his own demise.
His team has come to save him. He'd hoped to resolve this without them, so they wouldn't be put at risk. He knew there was no way they’d let him march to his death on his own, even though he’d wanted them to.
I failed. Why should all of
you
have to die?
you
have to die?
Ash is dead, or nearly so. Danica is dying at the hands of more of those bastard wraiths, half-shadow constructs formed from Soulrazor. Her spirit roars with hurricane force. It shreds dark bodies and lashes out with lightning tendrils that boil the ground.
He ducks beneath Soulrazor, and readies himself. His spirit grabs hold of him, cakes to his torso like a shell of shadow iron.
His body lifts from the ground.
Korva ascends with him. Swirling ebon blades follow in her wake: she rises on a stairway of knives. A shape takes form in the air behind her. It is a vast and dripping darkness, a ghost tapestry like a water-corpse continent. It is the firmament of pure night.
He sees through the cracked stars and glimpses the edge of the void. There is darkness, deep and cold and without end.
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