Chain of Shadows (Blood Skies, Book 6) (3 page)

Danica and Cross stood next to Ankharra.  Grail and Wara were nearby, watching, and waiting. 

How many times can you do this?
Cross asked himself. 
Defy death? 
He hoped Ronan was okay.  The swordsman had always been something of an enigma to him, but now more than ever he had no desire to see any more of his team die. 
We’ve lost enough.

“
There,” Ankharra said at last.  “He’s on a lower section of the island, a short valley running off from the southeastern edge of the beach.”  She cupped her hands, and nodded for Black and Cross to put their own hands up to the light. 

It was a strange sensation, and not one Cross had experienced in a long time – sharing a vision, seeing through the eyes of someone else’s spirit.  A shiver ran down his spine.  His eyes seemed to shoot out of his body and into the ball of green flame

and Ronan is there, bleeding and badly hurt.  His armor has been torn, and his chest and arms are covered with smoking claw marks.  Dark blood turns rancid and black and drips like oil to the ground.  He stumbles across broken rocks and through ankle-deep water filled with ice floes, holding onto a broken sword and wearing bladed knuckles with half the points snapped off.  His face-wrap is caked to his skin with blood.

He seems barely alive, and he only makes it a few steps before falling to his knees.  He’s lost so much blood, suffered so many wounds.  Muscle and meat glisten in the silver light.  Freezing mist curls around him. 

Ronan’s head is lowered as he kneels there, exhausted, but he looks up when the growls come.  His chest heaves, and his fingers clench the hilt of the long-knife 

Shadows appear at the edge of sight, large and wolf-like.  They bleed into one another, a wall of teeth and claws.

They’re coming…

Cross pulled himself away from the vision.  His heart was pounding, and for a moment he was so disoriented he almost fell over.  Wara put a hand and helped support him, and Grail did the same for Danica.

“Those were the creatures that came through the gate,” he said.  “I think they’re Maloj!”  Just the sight of them had flooded his body with fear.  He felt like a child again, hiding in the ruins of bombed out towns, helping keep the younger kids safe when Razorwing riders searched for survivors to take back to their tomb-like camps to be tortured and devoured.  That had been a long time ago, but the memory was surprisingly raw and fresh, and Cross felt that old fear returning. 

“
Maloj?” Wara said, disbelieving.  “The Maloj are gone.  They may not have truly ever been here.”

“
Regardless,” Danica said, “our friend is alive, and he’s in trouble.”

“
There’s an airstrike on the way,” Ankharra said.  “And I have a ship full of wounded.”  She looked from Danica to Cross.  “I’m sorry.  There’s only so much I can do.”

“
That’s right,” Cross said, growing angry.  “You can drop us off.  Because I’m not leaving him behind.”

Ankharra watched him for a moment, considering, then nodded and lifted a comm mike to her ear.

“Hold it,” she said.  “Slow down, and circle back to the southeastern end of the island.  Look for a downed Ebon Cities transport boat.”  She looked at Cross and Black.  “We’ll drop you down, and pull back to a safe distance.  If those shadow things start exploding all over the place…”

“
Ankharra,” Wara said.  “You can’t do that.  Cross needs to stay here.”  The giantess stepped closer.  At nearly nine-feet tall she towered over him.  Cross had a feeling she could have put him down without breaking a sweat, and she and her trio of Grey Watch soldiers were the main reason the space inside the Bloodhawk felt so cramped.  She looked at Cross.  “You’re staying put.” 

“
Only if you restrain me,” he said, feeling only half as brave as he sounded.  “Why do I need to stay here?”  He watched Wara, and then looked at Ankharra.  “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

The two women exchanged glances before Wara grunted: “I’m coming with you.”

“Fabulous,” he said. 
More mysteries
, he thought.
  I don’t have time for this. 

He and Danica gathered their gear.  He found Shiv and Flint, huddled in a corner and holding on for dear life.  He quickly brought them up to speed and assured them he’d be back. 

“I know,” Shiv said.  “You always come back.  And you always will.”

I wish I had her confidence
, he thought.

“
Take care,” Flint said.  “You want help?”

“
Just keep each other safe,” he said.  “That’s the best thing you can do for me right now.”  He hugged Shiv, shook Flint’s hand, and turned back towards the hangar door, hoping against hope they could reach Ronan in time.

TWO

MASKS

Danica stood ready.  The Necroblade called Claw was fastened to her back, two HK45s were strapped to holsters at her sides, and a pair of katars were sheathed on her hip and at the back of her waist.  Her steel arm pulsed with arcane energy, an anchor for her battered spirit.  She’d almost gotten used to not feeling anything there.  Almost.

Not feeling anything would come in handy right about now.

She steeled herself.  It felt like it had been ages since she’d had any sort of rest.  So much of what had happened in the past week still seemed muddled and hazy, like she’d dreamt it.  She wished that were true, that she was still asleep in her room in the mansion back in Thornn, waking that same morning Cross had left…only this time he
wouldn’t
leave, he’d still be there, everyone would still be there, and everything would be fine. 

She’d woke to that moment more than once.  It didn’t matter where they really were or what was really happening, because sometimes when she woke she still felt herself back in that room, on that same morning, hoping against hope that this time everything would be okay, that Kane and Ash and Grissom would still be alive and they’d have a chance to do it all again.  Everything would be the way it once was.

That’s just a dream
, she thought. 

The rear door peeled open like a lolling metal tongue.  Icy wind slammed in at her and Cross as they stood with their arms raised to grip the iron bar over the hatch.  They were less than a hundred feet from the ground, and the smoking remains of the Ebon Cities transport ship she and Ronan had been flown in on lay below.  Husks of vampire corpses and flayed zombie meat covered the ground in grey clumps, and splatters of deep red and black ichor painted a stone surface so pale it could have been snow.  Fire smoke drifted over the crashing waves. 

The Bloodhawk hovered in place.  A pair of Southern Claw soldiers affixed cables and hooks to the metal pole for rappelling down. 

She looked at Cross.  He nodded, and nervously looked away.  Danica had the notion she’d kissed him, but if she had she barely recalled.  It was like something from a dream.

Everything feels like a dream to me right now
, she thought.  She still wasn’t sure why nearly drowning had seemed to wake her from the sluggish haze of obedience which the theurges of Lorn had placed her in, but it had. 

Her heart raced with worry.  Ronan and Cross and Kane had all gone to Hell and back for her.  The reward for saving Danica Black seemed to be death.

Please let him be okay. 

The waves crashed below.  After a few more moments of hovering the ship came over the drop point, and she could see straight down into the depths of the narrow canyon where Ronan had apparently fallen, which sloped under the downed ship and dipped into a fast-moving ravine filled with clear water.  Thick falls poured into the canyon from both sides, and splays of sharp rock lined the walls like porcupine’s quills.  The sound of the rushing water was almost deafening, the only thing she could hear aside from the roar of turbine engines. 

The ship lurched unsteadily.  She was dressed in the same dark leather armor they’d given her back in Lorn, but with a new armor jacket and fresh boots.  Her black-red hair was shorter than she’d ever remembered wearing it before, but it was still just long enough for her to pull it back into a short pony-tail. 

Cross wore standard red and grey Southern Claw-issue leather body armor with metal shoulder plates and thick gloves.  It was odd seeing him without any sort of arcane implement, hard to believe he’d really lost his spirit forever and was no longer a warlock. 

He was older, weathered.  It was strange seeing him up on his feet with the grizzled beard and sandy skin, the way he’d appeared when they’d found him at Shadowmere Keep.  He’d been in a coma, and they didn’t think he’d ever wake up.  His hair hung down almost to his shoulders, as wild and as unkempt as the rest of him, and the bizarre hybrid blade was sheathed across his back.  He wore an HK45 and carried a standard-issue M4A.

He looked at her again.  Older or no his eyes burned with the same radiance they’d always possessed.  She’d missed looking into them.

Stop.  Now isn’t the time.

“
Are you up for this?” she asked him.

“
I suppose,” he said.  “I
have
been wandering the wastelands for a while, getting in some practice with the Lith.”

She smiled, looked back into the ship and nodded at the girl and her father.  “Looks like you made some friends.”

“Yeah,” Cross said.  His eyes lingered on her arm.  The steel appendage shone in the morning light.  “A lot of things have changed.”

She nodded, and looked down.  “Yeah.”

The ship lowered.

“
Twenty seconds!” an officer yelled out. 

Wara had donned a fresh armor vest and replaced her sword with a sizable war axe and an AA-12 auto shotgun that looked relatively normal-sized in her hands.  Her thick black and grey hair rippled in the breeze.  Next to her a Lith bowman – Grail, Cross had called him – had also suited up to go with them.  His pale skin was wrapped in blue-black leather armor and a featureless golden face-mask, and though he carried no firearm he yielded a black bow and a quiver full of razor-tipped arrows, as well as a number of curved knives sheathed across his back.

“You could use a shave,” she told Cross with a laugh. 

“
I think the beard makes me look dignified,” he said back.

“
No.  Just old.”

The ship dropped straight down until they were only about thirty feet over the ravine.  As the ship lowered its exhaust scattered the deep fog and silver smoke at the bottom of the canyon and revealed twisted ruins, a cluster of shattered black rock and smelted stone. 

“Put us down there!” Cross shouted. 

Ankharra motioned for the pilot to keep descending.  The ship blasted away mist and water.  Soon the narrow and jagged walls of the canyon prevented the Bloodhawk from going any lower.

“That’s it!” the pilot yelled.

“
Good enough,” Cross said.  Ankharra handed him a sending stone, which he tucked into his pocket.  “Thanks.”

“
Don’t be long,” she said.  “You don’t have much time.”

Danica took a breath.  She tried not to think about the fact that they were once again leaping into the jaws of death, or that one of the few living people she’d ever cared about was about to risk his life to save one of the others. 

Images of Kane’s death flashed through her mind.  She shuddered.  She wouldn’t lose someone like that again.

“
Go!” the pilot yelled.

Danica and Cross slid down the lines.  Gelid wind rushed up at them as they fell through twisting clouds of ice mist and grey smoke.  Adrenaline coursed through Danica’s veins.  Her spirit burned through the fog and shielded them from the biting wind.

The ground seemed to rush up at them, and her spirit made sure they didn’t injure themselves when they touched down on the canyon floor.  The ground was pale and uneven, and the narrow space was bound in by jagged quartz and loose shale.  The flow under their feet was dark and thick, but the river had once been deeper, as evinced by the water lines on the rime-covered walls.  Standing stones embedded with trace outlines of crimson runes dotted the riverbed like teeth. 

The ropes went taut as Wara and Grail started their descent.

Danica looked up the rope.  “So who are these guys?” she asked.  Both she and Cross had weapons drawn as they watched for signs of trouble.  “These Grey Watch clowns?”

“
You’re never heard of them?” Cross asked.  His breath frosted in the air.  Danica’s spirit glazed her flesh with warmth, and she opened her metal palm to extend some of that heat to Eric.  “Thank you,” he said.

“
I’ve heard of them,” she said.  “They seek out magical threats to the Southern Claw.  The question is what they’re doing
here
.”

Cross looked at her grimly.  “They were looking for you,” he said.  “To stop you from destroying the Witch’s Eye.”

“I had to,” she said.  “It would have kept making Witchborn.”