While common sense dictated they should remove themselves from Dirge as quickly as possible, Stone pointed out that they still needed basic supplies and ammunition, as there would be little to be found in the way of civilization once they left Dirge and entered the Bone March.
“If only you could’ve been a bit more…subtle…when you decided to ‘help’ me,” Cristena pushed. She’d grown noticeably colder towards Cross since she’d agreed to go with them.
She’s still not happy about her decision, and she’s going to blame me for everything from this point on. Terrific.
The market was a busy place. It was located inside of a series of hollowed-out buildings made of cracked sandstone and supported by steel girders that had turned red from rust and age. Vast tarps made of red and gray cloth were hung over the roofs of the open buildings, forming a makeshift tent that linked the ruined structures together. Thick and unused chimneys filled with refuse and bat colonies doubled as additional support for the fading structures. The vendors, traders and smugglers who populated the market set up their wares in tents, on open tables, or on rugs spread out on the ground. The market was filled with dusty haze, like the inside of a barn or a saw mill.
Cross had the uneasy feeling they were being watched while they shopped. Stone more or less handled the negotiations, with Cristena’s occasional help. Cross and Graves had to step up from time to time to provide their assessment of equipment for sale, much of which was in less than passable condition.
The local militia, who were as interested in satiating the vampire authority as they were with actually maintaining peace, were notoriously crafty at rooting out insurgents and malcontents, and Cross knew that under close scrutiny they’d ultimately be detected for who they really were. The fact that an active search had likely been initiated for them didn’t calm his nerves any, but thus far they’d noted no major alarm had been raised, which was surprising considering how much damage they’d done at the White Spider.
They got less than the desired trade value for Winter’s equipment, but it was still enough for them to acquire a healthy amount of fresh ammunition, some rations, and spare blankets and coats for the cold northern weather. They also purchased a durable camel that could carry everything they’d purchased. The pack brutes were accustomed to survival in the inhospitable Bone March, so the camel would greatly reduce the wear and tear on the horses they planned to acquire next. Cross thought that the brown-furred camel was about the ugliest thing he’d ever seen.
After they wandered the bazaar for a time, Cross knew for certain they were being followed.
He’d been more than willing to sign his suspicions off as paranoia until the third time he saw the same pale woman watching them in the bazaar. She had alabaster skin but was otherwise difficult to get a good look at, as if the air bent around her and the shadows crowded her space. She dressed in an oversized black and blue cloak that smothered what appeared to be a tiny frame.
Cross first saw her in the crowd when they’d purchased fresh blankets from a diminutive Gol trader. He saw her again when they haggled over the price of dried rations with a local dealer whose half-Doj bodyguard stood nearby, intimidating shoppers with his six muscle-bound arms. Cross saw her for the third time when he perused what passed for an alchemy dealer, a battered and overcrowded table packed with chemical vials, Bunsen burners and a very small supply of basic powders and salts. With all of the banned substances in Dirge there wasn’t much to be had from the alchemist, and everything of any value was buried in piles of discarded clockwork components and spare automaton parts. Cross tried his best to look interested at the wares while he watched the pale woman.
“Graves,” he said, not looking up from the copper wiring he inspected. The speckled merchant who ran the table had finally left Cross alone.
“I see her,” Graves said quietly beside him. “She’s not being very careful.”
“Which means?”
“We’re meant to see her,” Graves said. “She could be a diversion.”
“I don’t suppose it could mean that she actually is trying to hide from us, and we’re just that good.”
“Um…no,” Graves said.
Stone and Cristena had gone off in search of map paper and compasses, which had a propensity to randomly break down in the magic-soaked wastes of the Bone March. They regrouped in short order, and Graves told them about their tail.
“Damn,” Cristena said. “She’s Raza.”
“Huh?” Stone said. “Never heard of them.”
“They’re new to Dirge. Monks who’ve sold their services to the Ebon Cities in exchange for immortality. They’re like constables. And they’re onto us.”
“Monks?” Graves laughed. “Who cares about monks? What are they going to do, serve us champagne, drown us in porridge and ‘vow of silence’ us to death?”
“Monks with martial arts training, magic, and guns,” Cristena said shortly.
“Oh, okay,” Graves said with a nod. “Monks.”
“Monks that aren’t very subtle,” Cross added. They pooled their purchased goods together and made for the weapons dealer carts, the last intended stop on their trip through the market bazaar. Cross thought they had more than enough guns and blades, but Graves insisted that wasn’t possible.
“The Raza are unsubtle by design,” Cristena explained as they walked. The market was busy, but at least people weren’t shoulder-to-shoulder. “Do you guys really need to shop for more weapons? It might be best if we left quickly, before the Raza decides we’re worth more than just a casual look.”
Cross added his agreement, but Stone and Graves reminded him that Kray was gone, and they lacked anyone with good experience with the mini-gun (Stone and Graves both knew how to use it, but neither of them had logged enough hours with the weapon to carry it and shoot it effectively). That plus the fact that Cross was without magic meant they were short a heavy hitter. It couldn’t hurt, Graves argued, to make a quick perusal of the armaments, even if they were being followed.
The weapons racks of the bazaar were spare – the sale of magic artillery was illegal inside the city limits, so the selection was limited to jury-rigged arms and old blades, many of which, Cross thought, weren’t worth even the modest prices being asked. There were a few grenades (which they purchased) and some arming wire for explosives, but it wasn’t until they neared the exit that they finally found what they were looking for.
“The grenade launcher is the M203 model,” the merchant explained. He was a tall and skeletally thin man with a thick moustache and a long black coat that made him look like a villain out of an old Western. “The machine gun is an M16A2. Both are well maintained, and I have ammo for sale.”
“How much?” Graves asked.
The thick-stocked rifle of the machine-gun was attached to a short tube-like launcher underneath, an intimidating looking weapon with its own trigger and a barrel the size of a baseball.
“And I’m sure you don’t think using that thing would be overkill,” Cross asked Graves.
“Are you kidding?” Graves laughed. “That thing is my dream girl.”
In spite of Cross and Cristena’s misgivings, they used most of their remaining credits to purchase the weapon and all of the available ammo, and even then they could only afford it all by exchanging half of the remaining ammunition for the mini-gun. (Cross was of the opinion that they should have just traded the mini-gun itself, but he was again outvoted.)
They finished up their business and made for the camel. Cristena ushered them to hurry. Based on Cristena’s mood, Cross grew more and more afraid of the Raza by the second.
It was midmorning when they’d finished packing the camel out on the crowded lane where they’d left it – Cross thought they’d actually made efficient use of their time, all things considered – and the sky had turned a shade of blood red. Thick and sulfurous clouds amassed in the sky like an angry flock. Long shadows fell over the streets, lending a dusk-like appearance to the mid-day air.
Homunculi flew through the air delivering messages or missives for their masters, and mules towed heavy carts loaded with copper and iron ore to the factories to be broken down. Cross looked up and regarded the bodies impaled on the spikes of the central black tower.
The camel, ugly beast though it was, was highly cooperative, and it didn’t balk at all as loads of blankets, food and the weighty mini-gun were all strapped to the cargo boxes affixed tightly to the grotesque creature’s back. Cross, unfortunately, was handed the duty of handling the brute, by weight of the weak argument that warlocks had a natural sense of animal husbandry. Cross told the others what he thought of that theory.
It took him a few attempts at tugging on the reins and espousing a number of encouraging thoughts to the camel before the beast would be coaxed into following him.
“I can teach you how to ride it,” Cristena told him as they started out of town. They’d managed to acquire horses with the aid of Cristena’s more trustworthy contacts there in the market. Cross was given a bay that seemed relatively unconcerned by his presence on her back, and her lack of spunk and fallen arches gave him the impression that she was far from a young creature.
They rode nonchalantly towards the north gate. Dirge’s streets widened at that end of town, and the number of inns, factories and other business noticeably dropped, replaced instead by shorter residential buildings and the remnants of old parks, greenhouses and statues, all of which stood in a general state of disrepair. Thunder growled on the horizon, a false precursor to rain.
“So how long did you pit-fight there at the White Spider?” Graves asked Cristena as they rode. Cross knew Graves’ flirting when he saw it.
“Not long,” she answered. “I get around.”
“Do you, now?” Graves smiled. Cristena gave him a look that could’ve melted a vampire. It took quite a bit of control on Cross’ part not to laugh.
“Are we going to have any issues getting out of Dirge?” Stone asked.
“No,” Cristena answered. “They shouldn’t even notice us so long as we keep our heads down.”
They approached the gates. A crowd had assembled around a street brawl, and the squad had to take some time to navigate around the throng of people. The lower tip of the iron portcullis hung down over the open portal like a row of onyx teeth.
They had to pass through the center of a four-way intersection to get to the gate itself, which stood next to a small wooden guardhouse. The crowd was a hundred yards behind them by the time they reached the crossroads. Most of the buildings near the gatehouse looked deserted, and the entire area was surprisingly dark. There were no gate guards, at least not there on the ground. Cross saw sentries on the parapets.
“I think there may be a problem…” he started, but Cristena cut him off.
“Damn it!”
Two pale women, their blue-black hoods thrown back, stood in the center of each of the streets to the left and right of the gate. A third identical woman appeared out of nowhere and stood just outside the city, blocking their way at the far end of the neck, the walled road that led out of the city and to the portcullis. They could have been triplets, and any one of them could have been the woman Cross and Graves had spied earlier in the market. They had bizarre runic markings on their skin, serpents and spirals that twisted around their heads, necks and chests. Their eyes were blank and pale blue, like pools. The air felt suddenly static, and Cross heard a popping like distant firecrackers.
It was the sound of a witch’s war magic being readied, a sound Cross would know in his sleep.
Cross dug his heels into the flanks of his horse, who took off with such speed and force his rider was almost thrown clear. Gunshots rained into the dirt around them. Cross led the horse through the neck and out of the open gateway, half expecting the iron portcullis to drop down and perforate them mid-step.
The portcullis didn’t move. Neither did the Raza sister who stood in his path just outside of the neck. If Cross had been an accomplished rider, he would have steered his horse in a wide berth around her…but he wasn’t an accomplished rider, and he didn’t intend to stop, so he kicked the horse again, lowered his head and held on for dear life.
Cross smelled her magic before it came, a meaty smell that was thick and bloody and laced with fire. Red light flashed around the small woman as she whipped her hand backwards. A spiral of black and red glass cut through the air. The horse reared, and Cross was thrown from the saddle.
The world spun as he collapsed on his back. The wind was knocked from his lungs, and for a moment everything went black. Cross’ back and neck felt like cracked wood. Sharp pain throbbed in a solid line from the bottom of his skull to the base of his spine. He managed to open his eyes. The horse and its severed head lay on the ground next to him.
The Raza monk stood glowering at him. A halo of cold fire hung over her head, and it sapped away Cross’ strength just to look at it. He was dumbfounded, trapped in place when he tried to rise.
Gunfire erupted close by, and whispers swirled through his brain. A cold dead wind enveloped him in its spectral chill. Cross’ chest seized up with frost. He felt a touch like cold water against his skin, and it saturated him to the bone.
The Raza pointed a jagged fingernail at him, and a beam of impossibly ebon light drove into his core. The blackness grew there, and it rushed like soiled water through his veins. He saw a void, a black and vacant hole that unfolded out of the air like grisly paper. Cross fell into an unending liquid pit. He dissolved down an endless whirlpool of darkness.
He sees the mountain, and the girls. He feels the presence of the black unicorns. He sees men on a field caked thick with blood, marching for a place they can never reach to fight an enemy they cannot defeat.
She falls into the sky, like the leaves, adrift in the silver rain, falling and falling without end, forever trapped, unable even to die.
A sharp pistol shot sounded directly over Cross’ head. He ducked from the blast and threw his hands over his ears. The vision of falling into the midnight vortex and the slaying glade were violently snatched away.
The monk’s head snapped back in an explosion of blood and bone. Graves stood with a smoking Sig Sauer in his hand. Stone was behind him, firing the M16 at an onrushing mob of Dirgian pike-guards, while Cristena conjured a wave of liquid wraiths that spiraled out of her clenched fists like an exploding cyclone.
She shielded me, Cross realized. Cristena saved my life. My God, she’s got some serious power.
Impressive as it was, Cristena’s shield rapidly started to deteriorate as it repelled a hail of bullets. Cross felt the pulsations of her power buckle with each shot, just as he felt the shield shift and rattle in place like a piece of glass buffeted by heavy winds. He felt her exhaustion, felt the waves of power exuded by her spirit.
How did I feel that? What the hell is happening?
Moments later, the sensation was gone. Cross’ stomach felt like it had been filled with sewage.
Graves fired into the mob of onrushing soldiers as he re-mounted his horse. Graves and Cristena had made it through the neck and were just outside the open portcullis, but still beneath the protective stone outcropping of the barbican towers, which, lucky for them, made it difficult for the sentries on the city walls to get a clear shot at them. Cross didn’t see the other Razas, but he remembered the flame cannons mounted up top with the gunners.
We are so screwed.
Cristena sent an arc of electric blue energy into the portcullis. The gate rumbled in place and groaned against its own tracks. Stone just managed to get his horse and the camel out of the neck before the thick iron slammed into the ground with a reverberating crash and a cloud of dust.
The squad was outside of the city.
“What about the monks?” Cross asked. Graves hauled him up to ride behind him. Cross’ ribs stung like fire.
A klaxon sounded inside the city. Shouts and battle cries filled the air as more of Dirge’s finest answered the call.
“S
tone killed one, and Cristena got the other,” Graves said. “She’s a badass, man. She looked like you out there.”
Cross hoped he’d live to resent his replacement later.
A rifle shot struck the ground in front of them. There was open country ahead, a steep descent into rolling red hills, dusty plains, rock-filled ravines and thin forests. Beyond the trees was the Bone March.
“The riflemen will kill us the second we make a break for it,” Graves said. “Being under the barbican is the only thing keeping us alive, and it won’t take those soldiers long to make it out here.”
“Ride forward, then,” Cross told him. He reached into his coat pocket. “Slowly.”
“What?”
“Do it.”
Graves did, even while Stone and Cristena both shouted for them to stop. The horse moved out from under the barbican, one step at a time, until they were out into the open, just far enough for Cross to look up and see the edge of the roof directly over their heads.
Cross threw the grenades up and onto the top of the barbican, one and then the other, and he let the pins fall into the dirt.
“Whoa!” Graves shouted. He turned the horse round and raced back under cover.
The blast was deafening, like a fall of thunder. Chunks of metal and dust cascaded onto the ground. Fire and bodies fell amidst a wreckage of machinery parts, broken wood and chunks of shattered stone. Seizing the moment, the squad urged their horses forward, hoping the riflemen positioned further down the wall wouldn’t be able to get a clear shot through the haze and smoke.
At least we got rid of the flame cannons, Cross thought with some satisfaction.
He glanced back through the smoke and saw streams of fire spread rapidly along the tops of the walls as the liquid fuel reserved for the cannons exploded. Black smoke billowed into the air.
The horses thundered down the hill. Cross was nearly thrown from the back of Graves’ horse when they came to the first steep descent off of the level ground there in front of the city. They raced down steep slopes that led all of the way out to the plains. Cross hung on for dear life, his hands locked in a death grip around Graves’ waist.
Blood Skies Page 15
