Black Scars Read online

  “Is this everyone?” Cross asked as they moved away from the wreckage and into the trees. The dead forest was thin and open, and after a short distance they finally found ground that was devoid of debris. Sharp stones covered the frozen soil of the forest floor. There was only a small amount of snow on the ground in the forest itself, but Cross looked through the tree line to the east and saw fields of white. The air was bitter and cold, and even though they put some distance between themselves and the Dreadnaught’s wreckage the smell of burnt wood and fuel still hung thick all around them.

  “This is all,” she said with a shake of her head. Soot and ash covered parts of her smooth face and hair. “All of the survivors of the Dreadnaught’s trip across the Reach. All six of us.” She smiled bitterly. “Shit.”

  Black paced about, kicking stones with her tall boots. Cross tried not to think about how much she looked like Warfield.

  Okay, stop it.

  Her spirit was there, tense and watchful. Cross’ own lapped at it, teased it with challenge.

  Dillon and Vos erected a crude camp, where they gave the prisoners – Lucan, Kane and Ekko – some water.

  “This has been a really nice trip, Vos,” Kane nodded as he was handed the canteen. “Can we go to the beach, too?”

  “Only if we get to see your girlfriend in a bikini,” Vos smiled.

  “I thought you were my girlfriend,” Kane replied.

  “Where are you bound for?” Cross asked Black, ignoring the sparring contest as best he could.

  The vampire hovered just a few feet away. It watched them malevolently, unmoving, utterly silent save for the crackle of arcane flames that surrounded it. Cross saw the reflection of pale fire in its glassy eyes.

  “None of your business. Now let me ask you something, Cross,” Black said. She was a full head shorter than he, but her presence lent to her height. She had a slight accent, something inner-city. Her people had probably descended from New Yorkers, from the time Before The Black. “What are you doing out here?”

  “None of your business,” Cross said after a moment. He leaned against a tree and folded his arms. “Well, that was productive.”

  “At least we know where we stand,” Black smiled.

  “True,” Cross said. “But it’s going to be difficult to help each other if we don’t share some information.”

  “Help?” Black laughed. “Who said anything about needing your help?”

  Before Cross could answer, a howl echoed from somewhere in the distance. It was followed in short order by another, and then a third, and then there was a choir of howls, a dirge that rattled the trees. That sound cut like cold blades through the air.

  “Oh, God, what the hell is that?” Kane moaned.

  “Wolves!” Vos said, but Dillon shook his head.

  The voices behind the howls were deep and broken. The creatures that made them were inhuman, and a legion.

  Not wolves, Cross realized. Gorgoloth.

  THREE

  BURN

  They quickly made their way back to the Dreadnaught. Though the air was caustic, the smoke from the burning fuel provided them with some cover. The dead forest was mostly barren, and while there were plenty of trees to be found, they were all naked and needle thin.

  The Dreadnaught’s wreckage had spread over a quarter-mile area. The aft end was the only piece of the ship that was still even relatively intact. Everything else had pulled apart into splinters. Wood, metal and machinery parts lay like industrial snowdrops on the soiled forest floor.

  Dillon and Vos took position in opposite ends of the aft wreckage. Each man stood just inside of the now-sideways staircases that led below-deck. Black, in the meantime, took Cross and the prisoners behind what looked like part of a wrecked turbine engine that had fallen about a hundred feet away from the aft section. Between the four of them, they covered most of the clearing.

  Wreckage and felled trees littered the ground. The skeletal forest was all that stood between them and the advancing Gorgoloth. Mist froze in the air near the tree line and blocked any clear line of sight. Ethereal light lit the air like soft fire. The air was gray and cold. White mist and dark smoke obscured the pale sky.

  By the time they’d taken up position, the Gorgoloth’s battle cries had drawn noticeably closer, as the volume of those cries had tripled in their intensity. The brutes possessed a talent for placing their calls from distances and directions that made it all but impossible for an enemy to determine their numbers.

  Black pushed Kane to his knees, then waited for the other prisoners to follow suit. Ekko hesitated before she knelt down. Lucan didn’t move, but it didn’t seem to be out of protest. The glazed look in his eyes and the manner in which he rocked on his heels told Cross that Lucan wasn’t entirely aware of what was happening.

  “Lucan,” Kane said from his knees. “Come on, buddy, snap to.”

  “Now,” Black said, insistent, but she didn’t shout. “On your knees.”

  “Yes,” Lucan said with a tired nod. “Of course.”

  The vampire growled quietly. It hovered in the air a few feet behind them. The dark flames of its prison crackled and hummed with magical force.

  “Is that thing secure?” Cross asked.

  “Yes,” Black said impatiently. “Feel free to not ask again.”

  “Careful, big guy,” Kane said to Cross from his kneeling position. “You don’t want to get on Warden Danica’s bad side…not that she has a good side…”

  Perhaps to prove Kane’s point, Black used her boot and pushed him forward and onto his face. Ekko shot Black a baleful look. Cross wondered if the deep scar on Ekko’s neck was the reason he’d not heard her speak.

  Black produced an old-fashioned lever-action Winchester rifle; it was made of black metal and decorated with an elaborate grip carved into the likeness of a dragon’s tail. Apart from the stock design, it was like a weapon straight out of the Old West.

  The broken turbine machinery was about four feet tall and twice that in width, so it provided good cover for the six of them. The device still smoked and crackled now and again, and the low hum and stink of broken magic made the area around it dank and thick.

  “Is this thing going to blow up?” Kane asked.

  “Yes,” Cross answered. He was relieved when Black smiled at that.

  The air tasted raw with cold. Cross watched his breath steam in front of his face. He only barely saw Dillon or Vos in the nearby ship.

  They waited. The sky turned the color of salt. Cross held his spirit ready and alert, but he didn’t want to send her out, at least not yet. He sensed Black’s spirit close by, and he didn’t want to leave himself exposed in case she tried something underhanded.

  The ground rumbled slightly, as if from thunder.

  It won’t be long.

  His spirit slid down his arms and onto his gauntleted fingers, which promptly went numb from the cold. Needles of pain tingled up and down his skin. His spirit was so excited it literally hurt him.

  Black’s male spirit was ambient and powerful and aggressive, made of tumultuous energy that was packed up tight like a bag of gunpowder.

  Cross drew his HK45, which he checked and rechecked far too many times. The prisoners waited. Lucan and Ekko did so quietly, while Kane whistled loudly until Black finally threatened to shoot him if he didn’t stop.

  “Black,” Cross said. It was hard to sound casual when he knew that a horde of ebon-skinned cannibals were coming right at them. “Where did you say you were headed?”

  “I didn’t,” Black answered through gritted teeth. She didn’t look at him.

  “That’s right,” Cross said. “Is that because you don’t want me to know that you’re not supposed to be here?”

  At that, Black shot him a sideways glance. It was all the confirmation he needed to know that he’d guessed correctly.

  “You’d be better off minding your own business,” she said. She had her rifle ready and aimed at the tree line to the east.


  “It’s a little late for that,” he said.

  “It’s too late for anything,” Lucan said. His voice took them by surprise. Cross looked at him. Lucan’s eyes were closed and his head was bent forward, as if in prayer. “An end is near.”

  “Thanks, man,” Kane said next to him. “Now I feel better.”

  “What do you care, anyway?” Black asked Cross, ignoring the prisoners.

  “Maybe I’m just curious,” Cross shrugged. “We may be dead in a minute.”

  “What, do you want a kiss, too?” Black said dryly.

  “I do,” Kane said.

  “Shut up,” Black answered. “So why do you really want to know?” she asked Cross. “If you have something to say, then I’d prefer that you just say it.”

  “Yeah, you seem like the forward type,” Cross smiled.

  He looked at the clearing. There were a few hundred yards of open space between them and the trees. Drawing a horde of charging Gorgoloth into the clearing was the only chance they had to funnel the brutes and control their movement to trap them in a cross-fire. In retrospect, staying deeper in the trees would have made it easier to avoid getting surrounded, but it would have been more difficult to set up any sort of defensible position.

  I don’t want to die here, Cross thought. Somewhere else. Not in the Reach.

  The mist thinned. Dark shapes took form in the distance, a mass of bobbing shadows.

  Cross didn’t need to see the white spider. It was a guide, somehow, the world’s way of telling him where to go, only he’d seen it less and less those past months. He knew it was there, somewhere, out on a tree or crossing the path. They were supposed to be there, finding that crash.

  Follow and you will find.

  “Dillon and I are on a mission,” he said. “We’re looking for something.”

  “Pray tell.”

  “The Woman in the Ice,” he said.

  Cross noted Lucan’s reaction: he stiffened like a board, and his eyes fluttered open for a moment, as if waking from a dream, and then closed again.

  Black flinched at mention of the Woman.

  “You’re heard of her,” Cross said.

  “Maybe,” Black said with a nod.

  Thunder approached the tree line. The Gorgoloth would break into the clearing in a few moments. Cross’ spirit coiled up so hard she weighed down his limbs. He breathed in deep, pulled her into his lungs, and held her there.

  “I know you’re not supposed to be here,” he said. “You have a skeleton crew and only a handful of prisoners. Whatever you’re doing here, it’s not as a Revenger.” He had to raise his voice to be heard. “If we live through this…you and I have things to talk about.”

  The sound of the approaching force grew louder by the second. Inky silhouettes bled into view through the dying fog. A second later, and the Gorgoloth were there.

  A raucous battle howl rose at the edge of the trees, so powerful that the forest shook. Ebon-skinned nightmares charged out of the fog. They had stark white manes and ravenous blades, black flesh and white armor. They were harlequin marauders.

  The Gorgoloth had oversized mouths that bore simian teeth. Clawed hands held weapons made from obsidian and shaved stone. Their armor was made of snow serpent scales, white bear skins and blood wolf hides. There were over a hundred of them, easily. Each stood almost seven feet tall, and they had knotted dark muscles and lupine feet.

  The Gorgoloth horde charged forth, heedless of any danger.

  A hundred Gorgoloth, Cross mused, is not all that many. At least it wasn’t when compared to the droves they usually traveled in, but that didn’t matter. Against rifles and two mages, they might as well have been a thousand. The Gorgoloth found ways to prevail through their overwhelming numbers, their fearlessness, and their sheer brutality.

  The air grew thin as Black sent her spirit forward into the mob. A rain of hot razors fell onto the clearing. They seared through ebon flesh and burned the dead trees to the sound of howls and the stomach-churning stench of burnt skin.

  The charge faltered perhaps for a moment. They roared ahead, undeterred.

  A cyclone of dark fire leapt from Cross’ hands. It was small enough at first that he hurled it like a projectile, and as it flew through the air it exploded into a violent pyrotechnic twister the size of a truck. The black funnel was a whirlwind of ebon flames and blades that slashed through every Gorgoloth in its path. Blood and scorched flesh sprayed like steaming clumps of mud.

  Automatic gunfire erupted from inside of the ship’s wreckage. The first line of Gorgoloth were struck down by bullets and tumbled to the ground. White blood splattered like greasy milk. Cross sensed Black’s spirit pull back as she fired into the Gorgoloth with her Winchester; the rattle and rapport of the rifle was much louder than Cross expected, and Black fired with expert precision, pumping the lever so quickly after each shot that her arm became a blur.

  Gorgoloth fell in piles, tripped on one another, and crushed into the bodies of their brothers as they charged forward. Flesh and blood exploded. The air was a roar of battle cries and guttural yells.

  The Gorgoloth cleared half the distance from the tree line, and they showed little sign of slowing. More shadows threatened from the surrounding fog.

  Cross brought his spirit back. She billowed into the form of an edged shadow and sliced her way through barbaric ranks like a murder of ravenous crows. Ribbons of black flesh splashed onto earth made wet with blood. She returned as a cloud of vapor that soared into his lungs and burned them. She was exhausted, and Cross felt like he’d been running for hours.

  Still the Gorgoloth came.

  Cross fired his HK into the onrushing mob. They were closing fast. Sharp and heavy throwing stones as large as baseballs soared at the humans, only to crack and scatter in the air as Black’s spirit barely formed a shield around them in time.

  He sensed the fatigue in both of their spirits. They needed time to recover. Just precious moments would help. He hoped that by releasing them one and then the other the spirits would each have chance enough to rest, but it wasn’t enough.

  The Gorgoloth pulled to within thirty yards. Cross saw fury in their blank eyes and fanged visages. Dillon and Vos fired furiously into the small horde. Cross watched with horror as the ebon brutes reached the hull of the ship and swung stone axes and dark blades and broke into the vessel. Wood splintered and collapsed, and the two gunmen backed deeper into the wreckage and disappeared from sight.

  “Cover me!” Black shouted.

  “What?!”

  Cross didn’t have time to argue. Black ducked away and moved behind the prisoners. She started undoing Lucan’s bonds.

  What, is she going to offer the poor guy up as a snack?

  He had only heartbeats before Gorgoloth were upon them. A rushing waves of bodies and weapons. The air thundered and the ground rattled, and Cross’ heart dropped to his feet. He didn’t feel himself move, but suddenly he was right there in front of them. His HK flashed four shots, and two Gorgoloth fell as the chamber clicked empty. His spirit turned into a fan of liquid fire that shot out in a gushing stream. Gorgoloth collapsed with their faces and hands melting. Cross crouched down and ripped the shotgun from the holster on his back.

  He felt how weak his spirit was. She wouldn’t be able to keep it up.

  He fired a blast from the shotgun. The force threw him back since he was off balance, but the shot tore off a Gorgoloth’s arm and sent the brute sideways.

  Still they came, a wall of black warriors. They trampled their own dead. They had no fear.

  Cross did. His body was cold with it. There was no way out, and no way to deal with so many.

  He felt a presence behind him. It was massive and powerful, a looming force of immense and primal magic. The monstrous spirit erupted out of nowhere.

  Arcane power pushed at Cross from behind and nearly froze him in place. Its touch was so chilled he felt his movements slowed. Pinpricks of shadow pierced his skin and crept into his muscles. E
verything darkened. The sky turned midnight, and the mist became as thick as iron.

  Cross fired his shotgun again. The blast seemed distant. A Gorgoloth’s face tore away in slow motion. Time froze. They trudged through air like dark ice.

  He looked at the prisoners.

  Lucan floated a full foot above the ground. Black stood behind him. Her hands were wreathed in arcane power, and all of her attention was focused on the floating prisoner. The energy she held paled compared to Lucan’s.

  Everything paled compared to Lucan.

  He was a catastrophe of light, a storm of cold electricity that twisted and danced across the surface of the hard ground like drops of arctic rain. His eyes and his heart glowed hot white. The air sucked toward him, as if he were some sort of void, an inescapable hole. Space bubbled. Cross felt something inside of him weaken, and his energy drained away like water from a punctured sack.

  Lucan’s spirit was an enormous and screaming entity, a collective force of hundreds bound into an unstable mass. It was a clay thing, an idiot specter. It filled the space between the living and the dead like a churning miasma. Pain and rage and hatred and fear leaked from that collective like wisps of deadly steam.

  Bolts of lightning leapt past Cross. He tasted an ionic chill. The bolts flashed into the horde of rushing Gorgoloth. The brute’s bodies polarized: their black skin turned white as ash, while their hair and eyes burned black.

  The air growled. Cross smelled burning blood. He pulled his spirit back and buried her as deep inside of himself as he possibly could. She resisted. She was caught up in the violent rush, the thrill of power. Cross bent her will. Even when her resistance caused a backlash of pain that rippled through his gut, he held firm.

  Lucan held his hands up to his face. They drew close together, as if magnetic. The electricity danced and found the Gorgoloth, pierced through their chests, held each monster impaled on slivers of violent energy.