Chain of Shadows (Blood Skies, Book 6) (9 page)

He stands at the precipice of that oozing black, a pillar of darkness which fills the sky.  He feels drawn to the wall of dead fluid, pulled like he’s falling towards a vertical night.  Clawed hands stretch against the other side of the prison’s rippling surface. 

He doesn’t resist.  A razor caress of pain tickles at the edge of his mind.  Smoking ebon claws skim across his naked flesh.  He feels rank animal breath on the back of his neck.  Eyes like coals stare into him. 

A weapon weighs heavy in his hand.  He turns and sees a shining beacon behind him, a glare of white light.  He hears his own voice screaming in the distance.

All around him is the black void, a sea of grisly ink. 

It’s their bodies
, he realizes. 
They are the night.  They are oblivion.

The weapon grows heavier.  He can barely move his arms.  Talons take hold and peel his skin away.  His feet smoke against the cold earth as he stumbles, intoxicated with power.

He tries to speak, but only a growl comes out.  He moves across a bone-colored landscape, a crumbling bastion of solid matter in the oily sea.  The light shrinks, and he gives chase. 

He can’t let it escape.

The first blast jarred Ronan awake.  He thought it was part of his dream, a dream he instantly forgot upon waking.  All he could recall was that it had been something about wolves, and the night.

The second blast rocked the Skyhawk even harder.  The vehicle shook so violently Ronan banged his head against the wall. 

“
Fuck!” he shouted.  “Ow!”

“
What the hell was that?!” Stark yelled.  Panicked voices echoed through the dark, and the dull roar of the failing engines cut through the walls.

The ship had proved to be too crowded for anyone to have quarters to themselves.  Creasy, Ronan, Grail, Stark and Reza shared a single room, a large and narrow chamber with uncomfortable cots bolted into the walls, weapons racks up above, and small storage lockers next to the doors at either end.  The green metal was stark and cold, and Ronan thought the living space had all the homey charm of a set of steak knives. 

Stark was on his feet, holding on to one of the weapons racks and looking up at the ceiling as if some hidden power of x-ray vision would reveal the answer to his question.  Reza had been busy loading magazines and Creasy, like Ronan, had decided to get some sleep.
 
Grail was seated on the floor of the cabin, his face-mask on and his bow across his lap while he meditated or prayed or did whatever it was the Lith did. 

Ronan blinked, and sat up.  Though the cots had safety belts so sleepers could strap themselves down in case of emergency he hadn’t bothered to use them.  Ronan didn’t like being locked into anything, even if it was for his own good.  His neck was stiff, his eyes were blurry and his tongue was dry with the taste of something rotten. 

Another blast shook the vessel, and Ronan was thrown from the cot.  He reached out and grabbed the wall and only barely avoided falling on his face.  They heard metal ripping in the distance as something tore away from the ship.

“
That can’t be good…” Reza said.

“
I’m heading for the Bridge!” Stark yelled.  He checked his weapon and dashed out the door.  Ronan heard klaxons in the distance, and the sound of explosions.  The ship buckled. 

Grail rose to his feet.  Creasy unstrapped himself and looked around.  “What the hell is going on?” the warlock asked Reza.

“We’re taking enemy fire,” she said.  “It’s the only thing that makes sense.  We wouldn’t be shaking like this if…”

Another blast came, loud and heavy.  The ship lurched and sank.

“We’re losing altitude,” Ronan said.  “Parachutes?”

“
Escape pods,” Reza said.

“
You go with her,” he told Creasy. 

“
Where are you going?” Creasy asked.

“
To make sure two of my only friends are all right.”  Ronan grabbed his pack.

Creasy did the same.  “No offense, but I’m coming with you,” he said.  “I’d rather we all stay together.”

They took what equipment they could fit in their packs and rushed into the hall.  Blaring sirens and flashing red and white lights made the air spin.  Blasts of steam erupted from the walls.  Soldiers and crewmen were everywhere, confused and frightened.  The blare of the alarms was deafening. 

“
Which way?” Ronan asked.

“
To
what
?” Reza asked.

“
Cross and Black.”

“
Just down the main hall, to the right,” she said, and she pointed down a steep corridor. 

The halls were tightly angled and steep.  The central wide corridor was lined with stairs and side passages leading off to other decks and compartments.  The place was a maze, but Ronan knew if you stuck to the main hall you could run from fore to aft and pass the Engine Room, Navigation, Armory and Bridge, each area sealed with thaumaturgically reinforced steel doors.  The various cabins were scattered throughout the port and starboard sections, along with the Mess, the Science Lab, Medical and the cargo holds.  The ship was big enough to carry an entire battalion, plus all of their equipment.

Creasy and Grail were at his back as Ronan followed Reza through the crowd.  The signal to battle-stations had been sounded.  Soldiers pulled on shirts and armor jackets and crewmen in flight suits ran with a purpose towards Engineering or Weapons Control.  The high-vaulted ceiling rattled as another explosion rang out.

“
How far?” he barked.

“
Ronan,” Reza snapped.  “Why don’t…”

The next blast ripped the air apart.  Steel and fire barreled through the hall and bodies were torn in half beneath a wave of metal and flame.  Ronan smelled napalm and burning blood. 

He flew against the wall.  Soldiers went down.  Viscera steamed on the floor, and people were on fire.  The ship tilted.  Another boom came, so loud he thought his ears would explode.

He felt the ship falling, and for just a few seconds he was weightless, hovering over the metal as if it repelled him.  His stomach twisted and his heart froze.  He thought about entering the Deadlands, but he knew he didn’t have time.

The ship went sideways and back.  The floor became the wall.  A droning emergency call rang out, something like out of an old movie, a panic horn to indicate the ship was going down. 

Ronan grabbed onto a door frame, reached out and took hold of Reza.  He yelled at her to hold him, and realized she was unconscious.  Blood ran down one side of her face.  His shoulder wrenched in its socket as he twisted around and held onto her with one hand.  His fingers were sore, and his grip on her harness was tenuous.  One bad slip and she’d plummet into the obscurity of the corridor below.  The ship wasn’t at an entirely vertical angle, but it was sloped far enough that a fall would be treacherous. 

He saw a gaping hole beneath them in the side of the ship, maybe twenty meters down.  Icy wind howled and sucked at their bodies with scoured fingers.  Smoke and clouds sliced through the corridor, and bodies fell through the rip and into the open sky. 

The ship fell, slowly.  Fires blazed up and down the inverted passages. 

Ronan breathed deeply, and let his mind drift.  He stepped onto a grey field, a place of dead soil and dark skies.  Cold white air and stale earth filled with reeds and frigid pools.  The rush of wind was gone, replaced by a solid calm.  The black and white realm waited for him like a painting.

He moved swiftly, blocking out the pain as he swung Reza’s body up over his shoulder and climbed.  Fires raced up in swirling columns.  Suction pulled from the open hole under his feet.  He heard more blasts and the sound of exploding metal.  The ship was being bombarded from the ground.

Ronan ascended hand over hand.  He’d originally clutched onto the far edge of the door frame, and he’d have to struggle to reach the handle on the upper side.  The metal was smooth, and there wasn’t much to grip. 

More fires raged up above, near the fore end of the ship.  A whirlpool of flame careened down, roiling red and white fire filled with bursts of explosive pressure.  He saw faces, leering wraith visages trapped in volcanic clouds.  Bodies fell past him and scraped down the metal walls, torn to shreds against the rent steel.  Screams filled his ears. 

Something latched onto him.  Ronan lifted up from the metal as a razored tongue pushed against his skin.  His fingers struggled to hold onto the door, but he and Reza both pulled away, held aloft in a whirlwind of twisted air. 

Fire rained down and scorched the spot where they’d been.  Scalding wind blasted his face.  He was barely able to hold onto Reza as they fell back. 

They hung in the air, suspended in a spirit’s embrace.

Creasy.

The warlock stood just inside an open doorway, next to Grail and a pair of soldiers.  His hands clenched the air like he held on for dear life, and Ronan saw a faint shine around him, a throbbing haze.  The older man’s eyes glowed like blood stars as he tightened his grip and held Ronan and Reza in place.

The ship shook violently.  Another explosion rang out as blazing debris and bits of smoking steel flew past.  Ronan and Reza were yanked through the air.  Fiery husks of soldiers fell around them in a red tide.  Heat seared his body. 

They pulled inside the room just as a blast of molten steel tore through the air behind them.  Creasy shouted, and Grail slammed the door shut.  They collapsed to the floor of a small cabin whose cots had shattered to pieces. 

Ronan shouted as his face struck the hot metal wall.  The room flipped.  Steam and smoke exploded from the vents.  He held onto Reza and tried to shield her body as the chamber twisted end over end. 

A soldier fell onto him.  Blood welled in his mouth.  Something sharp cracked against his nose and pain slammed into his back.

He saw Creasy at the center of the room, where he floated and twisted like a baby in the womb, held inside the crackling grip of his spirit.  Exploding fumes wound around his body and held him like puppet’s strings.  The warlock kept his hands close together and pushed the energies outwards, a bubble of gel that slithered over Ronan’s bruised and bleeding body like freezing water.  An electric sensation ran up and down his limbs as he was lifted away from the burning walls.

Ronan tried to distance himself, tried to find the way back to the Deadlands, but his body had already taken too much damage.  Blood ran from his nose, and his consciousness faded.  He tried to focus enough to block out the pain, but his body finally succumbed and he passed out.

He stands outside himself, a stranger on a strange shore.  Black wind rips against him. 

He tastes ozone and blood.  The night sky bleeds shadows thick as rain.  Distant peels of thunder tear at the atmosphere.  Bolts of crimson lightning flash across the horizon.

He looks out over a ruined necropolis.  Pits of charnel flesh smoke in the greying light.  The rivers are thick with industrial waste left by ruined war machines and burst fuel drums.  Once proud structures – mosques and shrines and skin farms and twisted stone monuments resembling black iron swords – have been smelted and reduced to rubble.  Spattered vampire remains grease the landscape.

This happened long ago, on a far off world, and it will happen here.  And he’ll be a part of it, whether he wants to or not.

He came to with a start.  Ronan stared up at a flickering light.

He was on his back, his nostrils full with the stench of steel and blood.  For a moment he thought himself trapped back in the vision, in the dream that crumbled so quickly he lost details of it by the second.  He tried to hold onto them, because he knew it was somehow important, but by the time he sat up and bumped his head against the smoking wall the memory was gone.

The room was sideways.  One of the soldiers lay dead next to him, his head split open.  The other struggled with his wounded ribcage where he’d fallen onto something sharp. 

Ronan felt like he’d been dropped from a cliff.  His face was numb with pain, and hurt radiated through his shoulders and upper back.  He propped himself up on one elbow. 

Reza was unconscious, but she seemed unhurt save for a small gash to the side of her head.  He checked to see if she was breathing, and was relieved to find that she was.

“
You okay?” Creasy asked him.

The red emergency lights made the small cabin look like the inside of a darkroom.  Sparks fell from the wall.  Creasy’s face was drenched with soot but his eyes shone, and his voice sounded stable and calm.  He peeled off his gloves as he knelt near the door.  Grail was close by, checking himself over.  Neither looked seriously injured.

“What the fuck happened?” Ronan asked.

“
We were shot down,” Creasy said.  “I tried to save us, but I’m afraid I didn’t do a great job.”

“
We have to get out of here,” the other soldier said. 

“
What’s your name?”

“
Banks.”  Banks was in his late twenties and wore the rank of Corporal.  His brown hair was slick with sweat, and he had a cut down one cheek.