Black Scars bs-2 Page 27

  They approach one another from opposite ends of the spectral sky. The Sleeper yields a blade every bit as black as Cross' is gleaming white.

  Pure flames dance in the air between them. Every step they take is a thunderous echo. The world shakes and rattles at their passage. Time blisters and peels away.

  The Sleeper is night condensed into humanoid form. Its skin is a rich ebon field. The blade in its hands cuts the air, and darkness bleeds out.

  All around them, everything stops. The universe holds its breath.

  Cross steps forward in his unbody, in his armor and weapons of light.

  He knows this blade. Avenger extends and shifts. It is fire and light and an edge that can cut through worlds.

  Their swords come together in battle.

  The weapons clash at the center of the sky. Metal and light explode. The ring of ancient steel cracks the heavens like a hundred storms.

  Very quickly, the battle turns to the Sleeper's favor. It is the stronger of the two. Its attacks come at him like an avalanche of dark blades. It is all he can do to deflect them.

  He can't launch an attack back of his own; he is too busy defending himself.

  Its eyes smoke with histories of destruction. He hears plaintive calls in every strike of its weapon: lost souls made to suffer their own end, again and again and again, with every blow landed by that blade.

  He falls. His phantom form feels pain. Terror seizes his bodiless heart.

  No.

  He springs to his feet. He sends a hail of strikes at the Sleeper, and one of his thrusts lands a cut that gushes forth a rain of shadows instead of blood, a black waterfall of soil and soot.

  His rapidly deteriorating mind goes back to the arena in Krul. He is taken back to the battles, to the merciless drive to win. He had a cause worth winning for: to keep his friend alive.

  But his friend is dead. He failed.

  Dillon is lost, just a body now. All of his simple hopes, his love for his sister and nephew, his sense of duty, his strange dice and his notebook, all gone. Dead and lost, because Cross couldn’t save him.

  Graves, and Ramsey, and Stone and Cristena. And Snow. Snow, burning, screaming on the train.

  He sees their faces in the clouds as he presses the attack. Their accusing looks give him strength. Steel resolve pumps through the avatar’s veins.

  With every motion his comfort in the unbody grows. Rage courses through him like fire. He recalls the taste of victory in the arena, the animalistic drive to destroy his enemies.

  He does so now. He smells weakness, sees an opening, and he takes advantage.

  Sparks fall onto the Reach like lighting rain. Steel grinds steel into smoldering splinters. Slowly, inch by inch, the light drowns out the shadow.

  The Sleeper is desperate. It lashes out with an off-balance strike that catches him off guard. Avenger is deflected aside, and the dark sword pushes forward, finds home.

  He screams as the shadow blade pierces his flesh. Something inside of the lunar armor screams out in pain. Everything begins to unravel. He is down on the ground. The Sleeper towers over him. Its midnight blade rises as it prepares to deliver the killing strike.

  He reaches deep inside, and finds that part of the avatar that is dying. It fades like a star. It must be released, and even as he ponders the notion he feels it surge forward, feels it call out with a martyr’s fury, a grim resolve. It leaps out of the avatar, and into Avenger.

  The white blade rises just as the black blade falls. Dark metal shatters like broken glass. Shadows curl off into shards of lost midnight. Umbra energies part and steam as Avenger continues up, straightens, hones in on its target. He can practically smell the Sleeper’s void heart, buried deep in folds of night armor.

  Avenger punches through shadow flesh and dark possibilities, slices away ebon mail and drills to the Sleeper's core. White metal pierces the black and ancient heart, and the Sleeper explodes. Shadow rains down. Dark geysers of energy scream into the heavens like bolts of hot grease.

  The Sleeper melts like ice in the sun. It's unmouth rounds into a bodiless scream. Its pale moon eyes shrink, dim, and fade. The clarion roar of a thousand cursed souls escapes into the vast sky. He sees worlds unfold in the shadows of their passing: places that once were, places that might have been.

  For a moment, he feels that he can reach out and grab those places, hold onto them, maybe keep them from fading.

  But before he even realizes it, the moment is lost, and he is left alone as the dust of time drifts over his body and washes him away.

  Cross woke back in the cave, on the safe side of the canyon. His body felt like he’d been trampled by horses. His chest was raw, and he belched up acrid smoke. Cross slowly sat up. Dull pain pushed against the inside of his skull.

  After a time, Cross stood up. Both of his arms trembled. Avenger lay at his feet, smoking and broken. Most of the upper edge of the blade had cracked off, and those shards melted like ice right before his eyes. The hilt had also snapped off at the bottom, leaving an overall shorter weapon, jagged, and steaming with frost. Cross gently picked it up.

  Dazed and dizzy, he looked around. He felt like he had just woken from a dream. The bodies of the Black Circle agents were still there, lifeless on the rock shelf next to the underground canyon.

  He looked across the rift. The cleft in the rock had sealed.

  He saw Black struggle to climb up the inside of the canyon wall by the light of her own arcane torch. Ekko was draped across her back, unmoving.

  Cross lost breath for a moment.

  “ Danica!”

  She looked up, exhaustion on her face. Her eyes looked red and weary. By her expression, he knew that Ekko was in trouble.

  He found a coil of rope on one of the fallen Black Circle agents and tossed an end down. Black secured it around Ekko's waist, and between her spirit's levitation abilities and Cross pulling the rope they managed to get both women back to the surface. They collapsed on the ground from exhaustion.

  Black had a cut on her arm that bled through a rip in both her armored coat and the shirt underneath.

  Ekko was listless, and quiet. Cross couldn't tell if she was about to Turn, or die. Her eyes wouldn’t stay open, and dark blood dribbled out of her nose and mouth.

  “ We have to get her topside,” Black said. “Quickly.”

  “ Where's Jennar?”

  Black let something slip out of her pack and onto the ground. Cross saw with some surprise that it was a gloved human hand. “The rest of him got away. He slipped out in the confusion. This entire place almost tore itself apart. I thought we were all going to die.” Black paused, and she looked at Cross. “It's gone, isn't it?”

  Cross nodded.

  “ It’s gone. For now, at least.”

  They carried Ekko back through the ice tunnels and up to the shattered portal as fast as they could. The way was treacherous thanks to the ice, and despite Ekko’s waif-like form, Cross and Black were so exhausted that even their spirits proved little help in getting their fallen companion topside.

  It didn’t matter. She was dead well before they made it.

  The icy chamber at the base of the Bone Tower was filled with gunsmoke and bodies. Kane, Cole and the soldiers had been attacked by more Black Circle grunts — a band of Gorgoloth armed with automatic weapons and rock hammers. Daye had been shot in the arm, but looked like he'd pull through.

  Black went to Cole and embraced her. Cole held her in return, but Cross noticed that she was the one to break away, and she quickly moved to help the others.

  Kane was covered in Gorgoloth blood. His visage was grim. He’d been watching the doorway when they appeared, his eyes set and sad. He seemed to know what he would see even before they’d emerged.

  Regardless, when he saw Ekko, the strength seemed to drain out of him. He fell to his knees and bent over her body, and he hovered there as if held by puppeteer’s strings. Tears welled up in his eyes. He pressed his head against hers, and spoke to her
quietly.

  Kane stroked her hair in his hands, and softly kissed her forehead.

  They left the lovers alone.

  Outside, the world was held in the grip of a frozen wasteland. The air was bitter, cold and raw. Cross shivered the moment he stepped into the street.

  He looked west, and saw no shadow there. They’d won.

  Then why doesn’t it feel like it? he wondered. Where’s that sense of victory you’re supposed to get when you win a major battle? Where’s the sense that’s it over, that everything is going to be all right?

  Cross felt none of that. He felt like he’d been thrust into the middle of something he hadn’t understood, and that he’d taken part in a battle that wasn’t really his.

  He thought about his childhood. He thought about his sister and his mother, of a life when everything made sense. He’d never really had a period of his life like that, and he knew it. But he felt better believing that he had.

  “ What’s that?” Black asked. He jumped at the sound of her voice. She stood just behind him, staring with him out at the frozen city. Her eyes were red, like she’d been crying.

  “ What’s what?”

  “ That sword.”

  Cross had forgotten it was even in his hand. It felt light, like a shard of plastic, and the magnetic draw it had held before was gone. It was just a blade now, incredibly thin, something like a piece of frosted sea glass carved into the shape of a predator’s tooth. It was made of magic, but it bore no magic of its own.

  “ Just something I’ll carry with me,” he said.

  They stood quietly in the cold wind.

  “ Lucan’s power,” Black said after a time. “It’s gone.” Cross just nodded. “So it’s over.”

  “ I guess so,” he said. He looked at her. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly.

  Black smiled. And then, unbidden, her tears flowed.

  “ Cole is leaving me,” she said quietly. “We’d just split up before…before Cradden took her. I was ready to let her go, but…I didn’t want anything to happen to her.” She wiped away her tears. “After all I’ve done for her…she’s still going to leave.” She straightened herself. “I’m…sorry, about Dillon…”

  Cross didn’t know what to say. He remembered the rage and the fury he’d harbored towards her. He remembered wanting to kill her — vowing to kill her — once it was all over. He remembered why.

  He’d always remember why.

  But he looked into her face, and he saw the truth of her pain. So he just nodded.

  “ I’m sorry, too,” he said.

  They both stood there for a while, waiting for something else to happen. When nothing did, they gathered themselves and went back inside to find Kane.

  Ekko was dead and gone. She did not Turn, as they’d feared she might. Lucan’s power had somehow prevented that as she’d passed: it granted her a peaceful death.

  Kane sat quietly for a long time, even after Cross and Black came and found him. He was hunched in the corner, watching Ekko’s body like he expected it to rise.

  “ So,” he eventually said in a cracked voice. “Did we win?”

  Cross and Black exchanged a look.

  “ Yeah,” Cross said.

  Kane looked at Black.

  “ Are you going to take me back to Black Scar?” he asked quietly.

  Danica looked at the floor. The air was still, and cold. Every motion echoed.

  “ No,” she said. “Even if I was going back, I wouldn’t take you.” She looked at him, and then at Cross. “I’m sorry,” she said. Cross was starting to get used to seeing her vulnerable. He didn’t like it.

  They waited quietly. The approach of the Bloodhawk outside rattled the air and shook the icy walls. Kane stood, and threw a blanket over Ekko’s body.

  “ So what now?” he asked.

  Cross looked at the wall. He swore that he’d seen a spider there, crawling across the ice.

  He’d already been entertaining the notion since he and Black had talked outside. Now, he knew he had to go through with it.

  “ Well,” he said. “I take it you two don’t have any plans?”

  “ Does learning to live with a price on your head count?” Black said grimly. She’d be marked for death for leaving the Revengers: they all knew that. Even if she hadn’t hijacked a prison airship, commandeered men without authorization and stolen prisoners, the Revengers didn’t take lightly to its former members running around outside of Black Scar when they knew so many of the prison’s secrets. They also weren’t bound to appreciate the strains that Black’s capture and the subsequent destruction of Krul would place on Revenger-Ebon Cities relations.

  “ I’m booked,” Kane said with a straight face. He’d been a laborer, a prisoner, or a gladiator all of his life. Being an escaped inmate from both Krul and Black Scar wasn’t bound to help him make many easy friends. Like Black, he had nothing left, and nowhere else to go.

  Cross looked at each of them in turn, and took a breath.

  “ Come with me.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  DAWN

  Somehow, the camel made it.

  They found it on their way out of the Reach, when they flew back towards Thornn in the repaired Bloodhawk. Cross hated to pull rank on Crylos, especially with as many men as 1 ^st and 2 ^nd Platoon has lost, but he needed to get back and speak with Elias Pike right away, and since Crylos had already indicated that he and his troops had been given over to Cross’ authority for the duration of the mission, the warlock decided to bring them out of harm’s way while he got to where he needed to go.

  And there was the damn camel, wandering across the wastelands. It looked none the worse for wear. It had somehow been shed of its pack — likely tundra nomads or scavengers had helped relieve it of its burden — and it didn’t look terribly happy when Cross ordered the Bloodhawk to set down, but for some reason it didn’t run, and it waited, chewing and snarling and standing there with its dual humps and its horrid teeth. It bore no markings, so there was no way that Cross could actually identify it, and yet he knew it was his. If nothing else, there couldn’t have been that many solitary Bactrian camels wandering around the Reach who’d stand still and nuzz at Cross while he landed, approached, and coaxed the creature into the ship’s hold.

  “ Really?” the deck officer asked as Cross brought it aboard.

  “ Absolutely,” Cross said with a smile. “He’s part of my team.”

  Thornn was as he remembered it, which was good considering it had been some months since he'd been there. It was difficult for Cross, sometimes, to go back. So many memories attached him to the city, memories of people he'd lost.

  Cross stared out of the Bloodhawk’s window as they approached Thornn. He saw the city's arcane wires and sandstone and its iced outer walls as the ship circled and made its descent. Pillars of blue-white flame burst forth from industrial chimneys and lit the dawn like funeral pyres. Thick concertina wire electrified with pale crimson energies surrounded the city like steel brambles. Obelisk towers made from black iron bore automated chain guns that rotated back and forth and ensured clear skies. Gargoyle sentries floated through the blood red air like enormous birds.

  Cross remembered the gargoyles of Krul, and before they'd even touched down he was shaking.

  The Bloodhawk landed on the platform atop the massive hospital headquarters of the Southern Claw military that were stationed in Thornn. The sky was filled with islands of menacing red clouds, and the air tasted of industrial smoke and the particular ice-dry odor of the Reach.

  Rotating lights caught Cross, Black and Kane in flashes of yellow and white as they stepped off of the ship. It was still dark enough that shadows wreathed their faces.

  Cross stepped to the edge of the building and looked out over the city. He peered into canyons of tall and dark buildings, a network connected with wires. He saw homunculi fly through the air with missives or messages, trying not to crash into birds or each other. He saw telescopes and
antennas, clotheslines and stargazers on balconies, all protected by armed gargoyle sentries who perched on strategically placed towers, motionless in their classic statue stances. He saw small armored dirigibles float over the space between the buildings, lightweight vessels manned by Gol aeronauts and equipped with silvered harpoons and bags of holy water. He saw the farms positioned along the northwestern section of the city, fields of green and orange and red shielded by reinforced arcane glass and patrolled by Doj sentries. He saw squat guard posts armed with mounted flame cannons and packed with sandbags filled with blessed soil. He looked down into the narrow city streets and saw the silhouettes of vendors and merchants and homeless as they stirred with the morning light.

  Once, that place had felt like home. He wasn’t sure what it felt like now.

  “ Hey!” Kane said from behind him. The cargo door stood open, and the deck sergeant stood there with their fourth team member. “What do we do with the camel?”

  “ So let me get this straight,” Pike said from the other side of the meeting room table. His voice was so gravely it sounded like he chewed on glass.

  He was a tall and lean man with a stony jaw and pale stubble that matched his stark white hair. Elias Pike, a Southern Claw officer in charge of special assignments and the closest thing that Cross had to a direct report, lit a cigarillo and stood up. He offered one to Cross, who refused. Pike knew well and good that Cross had quit a few years ago, but he always offered anyways, because he was of the opinion that all soldiers should smoke. He argued life was too short to worry about dying early. Pike's hair had gone white not because of age — he was thirty-four — but because he'd been mostly drained of blood and infected with vampirism in a field skirmish with Ebon Cities regulars a few years back, and it had only been the timely intervention of resident Thornn surgeon Phil Rikeman that had saved him. Rikeman, in turn, wore a metal brace on one leg that kept an unidentified magical disease that had permanently latched to his knee-bone from eating him alive.

  Cross had lived through something similar, but the disease he'd carried had ultimately detonated a pyroclast bomb that killed his sister, and if not for the unexplained sacrifice made by his old spirit, it would have left him dead, as well.