Vampire Down (Blood Skies, Book 7)

By Steven Montano

Who ever knew the end would come so soon?

In this final volume of the BLOOD SKIES series, Eric Cross and Danica Black find themselves facing impossible odds in the desolate ruins of the world they once knew. Hunted by the mercenary forces of the newly formed East Claw Coalition and desperate to find the elusive White Mother, the two refugees will be pushed to the limits of their abilities and sanity as they struggle to survive.

Meanwhile, in the near future, the undead hunter called Reaver searches for the lost city of Bloodhollow, the place where humankind will make its final stand, while the undead of New Koth and the rebellious White Children make their push to end the reign of the Ebon Kingdoms once and for all.

As timelines collide and the spider weaves her web, the battle for the fate of the riven world will come to its violent conclusion in the depths of a forgotten city, where unlikely heroes will emerge and hidden evils shall finally be revealed...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steven Montano
• Release date: Jun 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311677792

Steven Montano

I’m Steven Montano, an accountant who thinks he’s a writer, based mainly on the fact that I managed to get a few D&D adventures published roughly 2,000 years ago. I’ve been writing as a hobby for almost 20 years. I’m currently hard at work on the “Blood Skies” project, a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy fiction series. It has magic. And guns. And vampires. Really, what more could you want?

Book preview

PART ONE

PARADISE

The boy in the flames: caged by walls of scorching yellow light. He screams as they pull him naked from the wreckage. Killed, and then born again.

That was before. Now he’s something else, a creature formed from the remains of another, with only vague recollection of what he’d once been. The lich surgeons tore the ruined flesh from his bones and reforged his body with shadowed steel, replaced his soul with cold fire and his blood with necrotic fuel.

Now he is Reaver, Revenant First Class of the Ebon Kingdoms, New Fang Territories.

He is a hunter of the living.

Necrotic gases and dark organic fluids pump through his corpse. His bones are fused with metal, his muscles laced with small engines and virulent undead parasites which spark power to his limbs. His cold alien eyes aren’t the ones he was born with. Undead tendons stretch as he flexes arms scaled with bone spurs and jags of steel. A face-plate covers his mouth and nose and forms an iron cowl beneath his cobalt eyes, and the armor fused to his body smokes with soul-infused magic.

A bone sword is slung across his back and he carries a rifle etched with runes and loaded with explosive rounds. He marks kills on his breastplate with his victim’s blood.

Shadowclaws close up formation around him, elite killers Turned in the blood-crusted halls of New Krul, where vampire carcinogens allow them to retain their skills when they’re brought over to undeath. All of them were mercenaries, soldiers or killers whose particular skill sets are now useful to the Ebon Kingdoms.

Reaver smells their night-greased armor and tastes the caustic fog generated by their presence. They watch him with iron eyes as they crouch low on the blanched earth. Deep in the cold hills at his back waits a silent host of vampire foot soldiers and Razorwings concealed in the shadows of blasted ravines and edged shallows.

The sky tips, a myopic stain. The ground is crusted red and white with blood and salt. Black clouds the shape of tumors hang frosted in the gelid sky. Icy wind scours the dried lake below and whips raw crystal and rime into a dry and gritty fog.

Their target is there, hidden beneath the frost boils: a warlock’s redoubt, a shelter for refugees and weapons.

Reaver watches, and waits. He has vague recollection of a time when the fires of impatience burned in his soul. Flashes of memory come to him now and again, glimpses of blurred moments from his life. The necrotheurges will need to purge him – Reaver can’t allow the vestiges of his human identity to interfere with his duties.

He senses humans. They’ve lost most of their technology since the fall of the Southern Claw, their ships and tanks and transports. Even magic, humankind’s greatest weapon and the only way they’ve kept their existence from being scraped away, is now dangerous for them to use, as the theurges have devised a way to track arcane activity. With reduced resources for producing the thaumaturgic gauntlets necessary to channel spirits and few safe places to practice their magic, warlocks have grown more and more scarce.

It will only be a matter of time before the Ebon Kingdoms burns the humans out.

Reaver listens. His senses have been supernaturally enhanced by the New Krul theurges, heightened to the point where he can make out heartbeats from hundreds of yards away and see almost perfectly in the dark. Something shifts in the cold and bitter air, a movement deep below the surface. He senses warm blood and the stench of fear.

For nearly three days he and his soldiers have waited unmoving in the tundra’s frigid grip. The undead need no rest. They keep the Razorwings complacent through their unexplained bond so the creatures won’t stir and give away their position.

The ice shifts. Whorls of wraith-blown dust blow through the area. Cold anger burns in the wind, the touch of a probing spirit as it scouts for signs of trouble.

The warlock is there. For that brief moment as the mage searches for danger his defenses are down.

Reaver signals, and the attack begins.

A hail of mortar shells fall. Razorwings unfurl and twist into the air, their broad fan-wings glittering like charcoal stars. Spatters of blood and ice burst into clouds of frozen dust.

He hears cries of panic, smells piss and burning skin. Reaver holds a mailed fist high and extends his iron fingers, signaling a second strike. The scream of caustic missiles is deafening. Trails of blood smoke cut across the sky like a claw wound. The atmosphere turns leaden with the stench of fuel and fire.

This time the cries of panic are so loud Reaver doesn’t need his supernatural senses to hear them. Dozens of voices call out in the moments before the second volley hits, then are swiftly silenced.

The undead wait and watch for further signs of movement. The frozen plains are silent. Reaver looks around the white wastes, the shattered hills and shallow valleys, the ice dunes and glacial wells. Something about it is familiar, and gives him pause. He remembers a woman’s face, her body lifeless in his arms. He can’t be sure if that came before the transformation, or after.

He shrugs the thought away. He has to go to the necrotheurges, and soon. These memories only confuse him, make him less than he is. He focuses, allows the voice of the vampire collective to sweep through what’s left of his shattered mind.

Reaver leads the vampires to the ruins of the human’s safe house beneath the ice. A tunnel runs for about twenty yards, just deep enough for the warlock’s safeguards to make any thaumaturgic pattern sweeps ineffective. If not for the informant, Lord Drake never would have found out about the hideout.

The revenant commander comes to the scorched rim of what is now little more than a blood-stained pit. The first salvo broke through the frost shield, a ten-yard thick block of knotted ice; the second volley smashed straight down into the chamber below, blasting several dozen people apart and cracking the reinforced walls beneath a barrage of thermal pressure and plasma-leaden gas.

Blood and blast stains mar walls smoking with the stench of burned skin and scorched innards. The ground crisps beneath his cold iron boots as he leads his soldiers inside with his bone rifle held before him. Reaver’s false eyes pulse and flash with schematic read-outs; the text is comprised of strange vampire glyphs he understands without being able to read, shattered fragments of data. Spirit-imprinted recordings play through his mind, remnants of psychic patterns pulled from the residual ghosts which still cling to the area even though their hosts are dead. He sees re-created images, the past painted like a moving mural, a phantom play.

Reaver sees soldiers, warlocks and civilians, dozens of them, all occupying that same chamber he stands in now; they were there as recently as a few days ago. Many had moved on, but smatterings of their conversations still echo through the room, plans laid, places they’d go. Distant metallic chimes, subtle exhalations as the images and sounds are uploaded from the black iron fuses in his brain to the soul-driven theuric engines in New Krul.

They push deeper into the complex. The incendiaries have done considerable damage to the entrance chamber and the surrounding halls. Necrotic gases fill the icy tunnels, caustic green smoke which dissolves the frost-colored lead corridors and ice-rimed ceilings.

His Shadowclaws are right on him, fangs hidden beneath iron cowls, black and red armor emanating poison vapors and frost smoke. Rifles and sabers are out, pulsing with thaumaturgic light.

He hears motion, something stirring in the twisted dark. Reaver holds his fist up, signaling the stop. The motion isn’t necessary, something he does out of habit – they’re all mentally attenuated to one another, their thoughts and commands linked by the vampire whispers which constantly slice through their undead brains. Even when Reaver doesn’t hear them they’re there, a cold presence clawing at the edge of his thoughts.

The air is frozen. They move down cold and jagged passages lit only by the dull pulse of jade lamps sputtering with electric chemicals. The air is rancid due to the toxins released by the vampire volleys; if anything has escaped the actual blasts they’re unlikely to have survived the fallout.

The place is a maze. Networks of passages connect barracks and weapons storage rooms lined with maps and ancient drawings, arcane schematics scrawled on the walls in dark ink. Everything lies beneath a layer of frost. The men they killed upstairs were the only humans who’ve occupied this hideout for some time, as the other living quarters were evacuated at least seventy-two hours earlier.

Their intel is old. Lord Drake had hoped for a more successful strike, for a number of freshly poisoned bodies to be shipped back to the processing plants for reanimation and information extraction. The incinerated corpses upstairs wouldn’t do.

How had they known?

It might have been a matter of inconvenient timing: the humans could have moved people out of this bunker not because of any advanced warning but because they shift survivors often and always keep people on the move to avoid detection. Refugees who aren’t dug in with the Coalition or Meldoar have been forced to adopt a refugee existence, living in scattered underground camps or in hills and forests far removed from the ruins of their fallen cities, which are now garrisoned with undead sentries. In spite of their reduced power base the human resistance – the White Children – have proved quite capable of disrupting supply lines and staging small-scale strikes against isolated vampire patrols searching for humans, or the last of the dreaded Maloj.

Lord Drake desperately hopes to capture one of the resistance leaders. The informant told them that the most important one – the White Mother’s heir apparent – had been in that bunker, and recently. Lady Morganna has charged Drake to find her, and Drake has in turn landed that task squarely on Reaver’s shoulders. He intends to succeed.

Halo echoes reconstructed by the passage of spirits play out in his mind as his squad navigates the labyrinth of halls. The sensations are weaker so deep in the glacial complex.

The poison vapors thin and slowly dissipate. Intel in no way indicated the complex would run so deep. Reaver slows his pace, moves deliberate though the dripping dark. The air is thick with vehicular fumes and frost smoke. There’s no sound save for the creak of ice under their feet and the slithering whispers of the vampire collective.

They come upon a crossroads of corridors which lead to stout iron doors secured with bands of rimed metal. Hex diagrams scrawled on the wall indicate defensive patterns, thaumaturgic security measures set to dissuade intrusion.

Reaver reaches to his belt for a small disc-shaped stone riddled with sharp protrusions. Two clicks on the organic shell and the body comes to life with glittering blood light, shifting numeric patterns which click and whir like tiny saw blades. Arcane pressure builds up inside the device, a rising hum of energies.

He releases, and the weapon lands on the ground and shoots forward like it’s spring-wound. Scuttling claws scrape cold against the floor as the undead lockpick scurries forth, a beetle carapace surrounding a mass of smoking organic matter. Lights and key-codes pulse green and orange. Reaver moves back, and his Shadowclaws follow suit.

The lockpick reaches the first door and explodes in a rain of blinding sparks. Soul-infused energies collide with spirit-laced wards, hex traps which lance across the hall in a razor-web of spectral netting. The energies twist around each other, sizzling like meat put to the flame.

Reaver holds himself ready for the blast. A wave of ice-blue light flows out from the detonated lockpick, a spectral pulse of power that washes over him like a tide of rancid water.

For just a moment his necrotic systems shut down. He remains as he was, a revenant controlled by the Ebon Kingdoms, but his highly augmented body is powered by theurgic metals and black iron cybernetics, arcane materials tempered by soul magic and an internal lichflame engine fueled with wight’s-blood. His iron eyes seal shut, his muscles go rigid, his joints lock. For long and agonizing seconds he’s just a corpse.

His mind keeps working. He sees the woman again, blonde and pale, dying in his arms.

Reaver comes back. Gears shift and black blood pumps through his necrotized veins. His eyes snap open just in time to see the warded doors come unsealed, and the guardians emerge. A trio of iron-laced warriors, thaumaturgic constructs left to defend this nexus of frozen chambers. They’re mongrels of arcane engineering, patchwork automatons of clay and metal and stone, crude homunculi rendered enormous through desperate experimentation. Their faces are metal plates, their eyes glowing gemstones and rock. Armor covers innards of wire and steel. The golems emerge from doors leading off from the crossroads. Two are bronzed, one is made of dark iron; two have fists laced with spikes, the third has a multitude of arms retrofitted with whirring blades.

The Shadowclaws move fast, but not before the many-armed golem is on top of them. Metal saws through undead flesh, and pale blood splashes on the wall. Gunfire rings out. Reaver’s auditory senses protect themselves as metal seals over his ears to prevent damage to his vulnerable central brain cortex. He raises a jagged shield just in time to deflect a fist-strike from one of the golems. He and his vampires close back-to-back-to-back in defensive position. The roar of bone rifles echoes through the narrow hall and the air fills with smoke. Incendiary bullets and explosive needles lance into iron shells.

Reaver moves with supernatural speed and grace. Instinct drives him, training from some former life, maybe many former lives. He ducks and jabs, blade piercing a gap in the automaton’s armor and severing filtration cords and metal cables. Waves of plasma heat pulse into the golem’s innards and fuse the metal joints shut, rendering the arm useless.

Ice-white pyramid targeting matrices slide over his shadow-infused vision. Reaver reaches down and blasts the ground with incendiary needles which ricochet up and into the golem’s unprotected undercarriage. Riveting explosions shift its insides, dull collisions of malfunctioning gears which send smoke up through the widening cracks in the armor. By the time Reaver turns to assist his team his opponent is failing, the gears shutting down.

They make short work of the others. The air is thick with smoke and the stench of grease, and the halls are strewn with gory paste and machinery parts. He steps over automaton guts to investigate the newly opened chamber. Two are merely sentry stations, glorified closets housing networks of tubes and fuel pump hook-ups for the golems to recharge and rest until their safe-guards are triggered. The third chamber is larger, the remnants of some sort of warehouse or storage locker. A central pit in the mist-shrouded chamber leads to a deep network of grilled cages housing old engines and bilge pumps. Part of the room provides the life-support capabilities for the hideaway, a network of filters and arcane-powered drivers which supply air, heat and water, but not all of the machines are for sustenance – Reaver’s vampire tech sensors scroll messages noting resonant hex fields and thermal generators, heat signatures from spectral explosives.

The White Children had been building weapons, not hand-held armaments or personal thaumaturgic supplies but items with massive destructive potential: hex bombs, plasma spikes, arcane bangalores, ripper shells. It’s Fane technology, but primitive, stolen, for the White Children haven’t worked with the East Claw Coaltion since the early days after the fall of the Southern Claw.

Reaver walks through the room, skirting dangling chains and shelves packed with broken down weapons, assault rifles, grenades, arcane gauntlets stripped of their casings, components harvested to be used in other, more powerful tools.

Spectral images fold across his vision. One of the people killed above had been there in those deep and secret chambers, and information ripped from the fleeing spirit confirms what Lord Drake had guessed: she’d been there, the leader of the resistance. Reaver briefly sees her, pale blue skin and coal black hair, rune-addled arms and ice-solid eyes. Even in the reconstructed vision her body is wreathed with power and presence. She appears only for a moment, a fleeting vision who walks across the chamber accompanied by men-at-arms wearing patchwork armor and mismatched weapons. They mention a place, somewhere of import they’ve finally found.

A city. Bloodhollow.

He knows of it, a human outpost, one desperately sought by all sides of the war: the White Children, the Ebon Kingdoms, New Koth, the East Claw Coalition. It is a bastion of hope for the living and the key to power for the dead, some mythical destination of future or past significance. Weylines intersect there, temporal channels. Something did or will occur there.

He knows the vampires must reach it before the White Children.

The range of the ghost vision fades, but Reaver obtains coordinates. It is deep underground, at the edge of contested territory east of the Loch.

Reaver runs his gauntleted hand across layers of dust and frost barely a day old. She was there recently, which means she isn’t far ahead of him.

Memories nag at the edge of his mind. He sees her again – the woman, dying in the dark. He weeps over her. He ignores it: remnant memories from his human life will only distract him.

A schematic flashes across his vision, commands accompanied by the harsh whispers of the vampire nations.

NEW DIRECTIVE, they say. PROCEED TO BLOODHOLLOW.

"And what of the woman?" Reaver says, his voice hoarse, burdened by damaged and rotting vocal cords that have never been properly reconstructed, even if reanimation all but halted the process of deterioration.

APPREHEND, the voices command. Reaver glimpses the source of the whispers, a mist-wreathed chamber of blood and blades, silver darkness and iron moonlight. Eyes in the dark peer into him, look through him. He feels his lost soul twisted in a clawed and iron-tight grip. RENDEZVOUS WITH HARPY AT STATION ONE-ONE SIX, BASILISK CLAW, the voices command. OBTAIN REINFORCEMENTS. PROCEED TO BLOODHOLLOW.

And then the voices are gone, and Reaver and his team take their leave.

He can’t get the image of the dying girl out of his mind.

ONE

AFTER

Year 25 A.B. (After the Black)

Cross woke with a start. He bolted upright, and it took him a moment to find his bearings, for the familiarity of his surroundings to sink in. His heart pounded hard in his chest and his throat was raw.

The tent flapped in the dry cold wind, and a chill ran up his skin. He could feel the desolate emptiness of their surroundings, the barren and lifeless wastelands beyond their camp there at the edge of The Reach.

Danica stirred next to him. Her hair was tussled across her face, pasted there with sleep sweat. It was still strange to Cross that he couldn’t sense her spirit, wound as it was within the bloodsteel arm which clicked and whirred as she shifted beneath the green army blanket they shared. His hand was on her bare stomach, feeling her warmth. Exhaustion swept through him, but it was a good exhaustion, not the endless weariness that came from running, fighting, never finding rest.

Their first time making love a few nights ago had been like that – desperate, driven, both of them possessed of a furious lust. They might not have said it, but for all either of them knew they’d be dead soon, and they’d been pushing each other away for far too long. Cross had been shaking the entire time, but he’d never felt so alive. He’d lasted much longer than he’d had any right to, and later they lay there on the bedroll, with the scratchy and uncomfortable fabric clinging to them and their hair tangled together and the smell of sex all around them. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, didn’t dare, in case she wasn’t there when he woke up.

And yet he dreamed of those he’d failed.

Cross shook his head, trying to drive away thoughts of those he’d lost. Nothing could be gained by going there. Madness waited all around them, in every square yard of the bleak wastes they found themselves trapped in, and to worry about his past failings would be a sure way to drive himself completely insane. The dead were gone, and they weren’t coming back, and that was all there was to it. He had to let them go.

Easier said than done.

Cross snuck away from the blankets and pulled on his trousers and shirt, then found an armored jacket while he quickly put on his boots. Creasy’s shotgun was there on the ground, so Cross checked to make sure it was loaded, strapped the scabbard holding Soulrazor/Avenger to his back, and slipped outside.

The first thing that struck him was how dry the landscape was, grey ice covered with sheets of salt and rocky bluffs so sharp they might have been clusters of blades. He was thirsty, his lips cracked and his tongue heavy in his mouth. It was morning – no longer dawn, but with the perpetual grey gloom it was difficult to tell much else aside from whether it was day or night, and sometimes even that was difficult. The horizon was flushed with light, and day-burning stars rotated like dancers. The wind was dry, cold and steady, a gnawing chill that in under a minute had him wondering if he shouldn’t just set himself on fire. At least he’d be warm.

The landscape was familiar – he’d been here before, even if it had changed in ways the eye couldn’t easily detect. Scaled rock formations rose from buckled limestone hills like crooked fingers, and the atmosphere was thick with the taste of minerals. Calcified rock fragments cracked under every step like old bones. Distant peaks rose above the flowing mists to the southwest near the soiled shores of Rimefang Loch, and to the east were rolling hills and snow-bound buttes, the edge of the tundra.

To the west stood Thornn, or what was left of it. It had been taken by the Ebon Cities, turned into a hollow shell. He and Danica had been sent back from the distant lands of Nezzek’duul in Creasy’s last act of sacrifice only to find the world they’d known torn asunder. They had no way to know for sure if the damage extended beyond Thornn, but based on the visions they’d experienced they had no reason to believe otherwise.

More importantly, Cross sensed the extent of the devastation in his soul. He believed beyond any doubt that the Southern Claw was gone, and denying that truth wouldn’t change anything.

Just like wishing Snow was still alive. The world is changed, she’s gone, Flint and Kane and Creasy are dead, and that’s it. Some things just can’t be changed.

They’d camped in a shallow crevice on the side of the hill, nestled just out of sight from the ground below. Cross was fairly certain he’d camped in that same spot with Dillon in what seemed a different lifetime, back before he’d even formed the team, before the swords. He’d learned a lot from the quiet man, how to read the landscape and which berries to avoid, what animals were easy prey and how to walk without making so much noise they brought every predator within a league down on top of them. There was much he didn’t remember, and just spending a few weeks with a ranger, even one as accomplished as Dillon, certainly wasn’t enough to qualify Cross to do much more than lend aid to Danica, who’d grown up outdoors and probably could have been Dillon’s trainer had she so desired, but it was better than nothing.

Cross moved to the second tent, which was connected to the first by a flap he and Danica had jury-rigged by tearing away the center and sewing back the fabric; they could drop the screen between the two tents at a moment’s notice. Fear of being discovered by their unconscious companions while they had sex was hardly a consideration compared to ensuring Shiv and Ronan’s safety, even if they were both well beyond reach, at least for the moment. He poked his head inside, half expecting (and hoping) for Ronan to spring out at him with his katana brandished, but the man was as unconscious now as he had been for days, lying wrapped in a blanket, his scarred face exposed and his thick black hair rustling in the slight breeze. Shiv looked even less alive, but that had much to do with the new hue of her skin – diamond blue, frosted when she’d impossibly aged from using the wastelands spirits in Nezzek’duul to destroy the Eidolos, the Black Witch, and finally one of the Maloj, those fierce wolf sorcerers who ultimately seemed to be responsible for The Black. She was a teenager now, or at least looked like one, and in addition to her skin becoming ice-like her hair had darkened, her eyes had become less human, and her entire aura had somehow shifted, suffused with the great power she’d been burdened with. The Kindred, they called her; originally there had been more, but according to Ankharra Shiv was the only one who’d survived.

She’s the only reason any of us made it.

She could manipulate other spirits and channel the power of lost souls in a way even the Ebon Cities necrotheurges and liches hadn’t been able to. If she fell into the wrong hands it would be disastrous, or at least it would be if there was still something left to lose.

For all we know we’re the last four people on earth.

They’d been hiking for three days to put distance between themselves and Thornn, and they’d seen plenty of evidence of the slaughter. The signs of vampire warships and passage were everywhere – blasted vehicles, scorched earth, soil that had been degraded and transformed with Ebon Cities technology to be more pliable to the necrotic soil they used to both regenerate and grow new soldiers, those lesser undead they utilized as grunts in the campaign to wipe out the human race.

We were only gone for a few days, he thought. They couldn’t have done this much damage in such a short span of time. The Southern Claw was too strong, too well equipped to have been taken so quickly.

He zipped up Shiv and Ronan’s tent and knelt down, looking back across the icy plains to the east. His shoulder stung from a wound he’d taken in their last battle in Nezzek’duul, and though Danica had healed him a cold tingle still rattled through his chest and made the muscles around his heart ache. Their combat with the Maloj had been terrible, and he knew he’d never forget that beast. He still smelled its rankness, still saw its cunning lupine eyes.

The Maloj had somehow brought about this destruction, probably with Azradayne’s aid – the spider, the dimensional schemer who’d altered his fate for years to set events in motion that would get her what she wanted, though her ultimate goal was still so opaque Cross could hardly guess at it. She’d made it so Danica acquired that bloodsteel arm, had arranged for the Maloj to break through on the island in Rimefang Loch, had likely been responsible for the Skyhawk being waylaid in Nezzek’duul...but why? What did she have to gain by bringing the wolves to Earth, unless its destruction was a goal in and of itself? There was no telling, nor was there any way for him to know how she or the Maloj could have made it so after decades of holding their own the Southern Claw would suddenly collapse.

Well, we won’t figure it out sitting around here.

Although he didn’t much feel like it, Cross returned to the tent to take stock of their meager supplies, all they’d been able to scrounge from felled Southern Claw vessels and the few storehouses they’d come across. Most of them had been picked clean by scavengers, survivors or Ebon Cities regulars not wishing to leave equipment behind for other humans to find.

Danica stirred beneath the covers. He wanted to give her a chance to rest. They’d be on the move again soon enough.

Fresh water was becoming a problem. Their canteens were only partway full, and the last few drinks Cross had taken smelled of chalk. Food was also scarce, some hard cheese and a few MREs he doubted would last them a day. They had to find equipment, but they’d both decided that going into Thornn was an unnecessary risk, especially with Ronan and Shiv in their current condition. They couldn’t tell what was wrong with them – both were clearly alive, but neither responded to magical healing. Cross and Danica had constructed a pair of crude sleds to haul the sleeping bodies along behind them, but the effort was slow-moving unless Danica expended spirit energy, which they both knew wasn’t a good idea. Artifact swords or no, Danica’s magic was the only real weapon they had if they ran across any Ebon Cities patrols, and even then they weren’t likely to stand a chance.

What the hell are we going to do?

Danica sat up. He saw the same confusion on her face he felt himself every day he’d woke in this strange and horrible parody of their home, as well as the same moment of disappointment when she realized the terrible reality she’d gone to sleep in hadn’t magically vanished upon her waking. Even then, her eyes settled on him, deep green and penetrating, eyes that sent a chill of excitement down his spine. She was beautiful (even though he knew she’d disagree), and he took in the sight of her thick red hair, so messy all around her face, and her sultry growl as she stretched and yawned. Even with as horrible as the world was, he was with her, and nothing could take away those past few days they’d shared. Even if either or both of them died today, they’d had yesterday, and nothing could take that away.

Hey, she said. Stare much?

He laughed.

I’ve been known to, he said. How’d you sleep?

Very well, thank you, she purred, and she pulled the blanket up to keep from getting cold. He felt her spirit fill the air, a warm presence which circled and tasted the atmosphere like a hound sniffing for signs of danger. There was a time when it had been a threatening presence to him, back when he’d still had a spirit of his own (Margrave, not his real spirit, and the memory of that violation still pained him), and again after they’d reunited, when Danica had been abducted by the Revengers and gained her false appendage, an item meant to make it so she could be used to control the Obelisk of Dreams, the source and focal point of all human magic.

That had never been the real purpose of the arm, of course. Azradayne had wanted it grafted so Danica would inadvertently destroy the Witch’s Eye and open the gate to the Maloj’s undefined realm of madness and terror. It still made him uneasy – Danica seemed to have control over the device and what it could do, but she’d admitted there had been occasion when she’d nearly overextended the control it granted over her arcane spirit and damaged him without meaning to.

You okay? she asked. Something in his gaze must have given away his dark frame of mind, but considering the circumstances it seemed an odd question to ask, and she seemed to realize that. Sorry. Dumb question.

No it’s not, he said, and he put down the supplies he had in hand and moved over to her, sat close so their faces almost touched.

God, she’s beautiful. She would have smacked him if he’d said it – they were both covered with sweat and grime and bloodstains from their ordeal in Nezzek’duul. Shifting over from the extreme heat of the southern desert to the bitter chill of the Reach had taken them by surprise, but luckily they’d managed to find enough coats, cloaks and blankets to keep warm, at least until they located some better shelter, if there was better shelter to be found.

He felt tears of fear in his eyes, tried to blink them away. She watched him, and read him without him having to say anything, just as she always had. Her eyes took him in, and she nodded.

It’s all right, she said. We’re still here.

Yes we are, he said. He put a hand to her face, so smooth even beneath his rough and leathery touch. She closed her eyes, let his palm slide against her cheek. Her warmth flowed into him. All he wanted to do was stay there, holding her, his skin on hers, her face close to his, her warmness, her love, love he’d not even realized he’d needed until he’d finally found it. He was more afraid of losing her than ever.

So what next? she asked a while later.

They’d stowed most of their gear except for the tents. What Cross wouldn’t have done for a camel then – they were dragging everything behind them on makeshift sleds they’d constructed from birch wood and twine, and even with Danica’s spirit lending them aid the going was slow. They’d scrapped everything that wasn’t mandatory to survival but they still had a great deal of weight to pull, and no clear destination. One of Thornn’s major disadvantages was its isolated status, which was why it had been the brunt of so many of the Ebon Cities’ attacks. It would take a week to reach Ath by