Steven Montano - Black Scars

“ Which is when you ‘borrowed’ it,” Cross said.

“ There,” she said. She ignored his comment. “It’s just past that ridge, another mile or two.”

They reached the ridge, which was composed of a number of tightly clustered and jagged rock formations. Sizable clefts in the razor-sharp stones formed questionable paths that led to the other side. Those paths looked like they’d been sheared clean through the rock with some enormous blade.

Rather than pass through right away, the group rested. Dillon went on ahead to check out the ruins, which were barely visible about a mile or so off, at the edge of a thinning field of silver-blue mist.

He wasn’t gone long.

“ There’s no way to get into that place without being seen.” He drew a rough map of Shul Ganneth in the snow. He explained that the exterior wall was a massive dome that bore a single continuous crack down its western side. From what Dillon had seen, it was the only easy way to get in.

“ There are some doors on the far end near some separate ruins, but there’s no way to open them. There isn’t even a handle.” He scratched some squares inside of the circle he’d made to represent the dome. “These are buildings. They’re all over the inside of the dome. If I can get close enough to that crack without being seen, I can slip off and hide in the ruins. I might need a distraction so that I can pull it off, though.”

“ Can you scale the dome?” Black asked. “Maybe come in at the top, where the crack starts?”

“ Only if you and Vos have stashed away some pretty incredible climbing gear that I don’t know about. I wouldn’t wish that climb on anyone. That stone is smooth, old and unstable. I barely even trust walking in there…that place looks ready to collapse.”

“ Fine,” Vos said. “We’ll head straight in then. The way I like it.”

“ Good to know,” Cross said sarcastically. “So are we ready?”

They moved through mist made orange by the dusk sun. A hard wind drove across the plain and carried snow dust and white grit that made it suddenly difficult to see past a few hundred yards. They kept to a path clear of ground snow, a stretch of pale hard stone broken with age. The path twisted and curved through ripped ice. Cross felt a cold that gnawed down to his bones.

And then, Shul Ganneth.

It seemed to sneak up on them from out of the icy fog. It was squat and troglodytic, a broken shell like a preposterously gargantuan egg. Its outer walls were smooth dark stone coated in a layer of pale ice. The structure was much larger than Cross had expected.

The fog receded from the dark round walls as the group drew close. Its crumbling carapace looked like a vast stone crab.

Fields of eight-foot-high wooden stakes bordered the stone path that led to the city. The pale wooden poles were sharp and old, covered in dirty ice and dark stains. Cross tasted torment in the air, the whispered rants of long faded spirits whose physical bodies had died in great pain. Those spirits were long gone, but their suffering had been such that their voices left a spectral imprint on the area.

The group marched slowly through the path of stakes. They saw no bones or bodies. The dome of Shul Ganneth towered before them. It protruded from the bitter and frozen earth like a scab.

Vos led Lucan on the back of Cross’ horse. Kane and Ekko were tethered to the camel’s saddle, which Cross held at the rear of the party. Black rode on Dillon’s bay, and while it was clear that neither she nor the animal were terribly comfortable with the arrangement, they made a good show of it.

The vampire prisoner floated behind them, drawn by the power of Danica’s implement. It was a floating flare that snarled into the darkness, a moving undead torch.

Cross didn’t send his spirit out until they neared the entrance to the ruins, in part because he feared lost souls in the area, but also because doing so would alert Cradden Black earlier than they’d have liked. Cradden was a warlock, and even though Cradden’s gang was almost undoubtedly already watching them it would be difficult for him to read the strength of Cross’ spirit if she was reined in, at least until they got closer.

No need to make this more difficult for ourselves than it already is.

They passed into the crack in the ruined dome wall. It was a welcome relief to be in out of the wind, but the air inside of Shul Ganneth was so utterly still and cold it was almost paralyzing. Cross watched his breath crystallize, and felt his lungs burn.

The vampire’s bonds gave them a fleeting view of the ruins inside of the dome, which was good, because the light from outside seemed incapable of penetrating the unnaturally dense shadows. They walked in darkness as thick as oil. White firelight bounced off of jagged and broken structures made of crumbling limestone rimed with frost. The buildings were uneven and covered in sharp crenellations and dangerous edges. Doorways had tilted sideways and steps looked like blades. The ground was dry and covered with rubble and bones that were so soft they collapsed underfoot. The air smelled cold and dirty. Streets led off to nowhere. Structures seemed to float out of the darkness, which was so deep it could have stretched for miles. They walked through a sea of night, an ink stain addled with debris.

Less than a minute after they entered the city, Dillon slipped from his hidden position next to the camel and vanished into the shadows.

Cross’ chest was tight. There were eyes on them, and something more: a presence, vast and ugly and overwhelming. It was foreign, not borne of that place, but at the same time deeply rooted to it. It was an intruder that had melded with the ruins themselves — something vast, and dark, and very old.

Cross drew his HK45, and made his spirit ready. Her spectral skin smoothed over him like a warm tide. She spat at the presence that Cross had sensed. She was so miniscule compared to it, a firefly in a dark sky.

Shadows fell over them like black dust. Decayed facades and crumbling steps and massive doorways leered at them from the edge of the black air like bitter faces.

“ Daaaamn,” Kane muttered. His words echoed like a clap of thunder. “Sorry.” His second word carried even louder than the first, an avalanche in the dark.

Cross looked at him, and raised a finger to his lips.

A lantern appeared in the murk. Danica Black spurred the horse forward. They rode past rows of broken stone fence and between statues of half-eaten lupine warriors. Clumps of petrified clay littered the ground. The frost had gone gray with age. Cross smelled sage and animal musk.

The lantern bearer waited up ahead. He was a stocky and unshaved warrior with leather armor and a chain coat, and he wore a double-barreled shotgun on his hip.

He nodded towards an alcove behind him. It took Cross’ eyes a moment to make out the structure in the muted light — a temple that seemed to melt out of the shadows. The building was cylindrical and very tall, with crumbling columns and spiky protrusions that covered its shell like quills.

“ Danica,” said a voice from the dark. It wasn’t the shotgun bearer, but a second man, a small and wiry individual with a goatee and a black pilot’s coat straight out of World War I. Cross thought the man looked like he should have behind the controls of a Fokker…he even wore aviation goggles. Cross couldn’t begin to fathom how the man could see anything in the impenetrable murk, unless those goggles were some sort of arcane implement. “You made it,” the aviator said with a broad smile. “Cradden was starting to worry.”

“ Hello, Gregor,” Black said icily. “Killed any women or children lately?”

“ Darling, you tease,” he laughed.

“ Can we get on with it?” Vos growled.