Steven Montano - Black Scars

Snow burning on fire and as his hand fell to the panel he breathed in his spirit as something noisy shrapnel metal blast rips through the ship and he is torn from his body

His vision is an arcane stream that floats through the air like a jet of fire. He is over the battle and inside of it at once, a detached carrion bird, a wisp of thought. The dark steel cannons on the warship’s turret turn and rotate at his command, an extension of his senses.

Warships dive in and out of dark clouds of smoke, steam and blood. Gouts of corrosive red flame eddy like pyroclastic balloons in the still winter sky. Bullets and blades soar through the air in thick and deadly streams. Razorwings dive and twist around deathtraps of falling steel. Artillery shells puncture armor plate and create pockets of exploding smoke.

The Coffin floats in low beneath the cover of warships and Razorwings and launches short-range ballistics loaded with electrified nails and spheres filled with explosive gas. Fire and steel splatter and spread through the icy city; the blasts crash into glacier structures and create unearthly waves of steam.

The Panzer shoots down one of the Razorwings, turns it into a splatter of reptilian innards and skin that collapses violently to the ground. Three other Razorwings overtake the Panzer, pick its crew away from the damaged shell and latch onto the gun and twist and pull until it fires misfires the shell goes off inside the turret and kills everything in and around it in a mass of shrapnel and blood.

Cross trains the guns on the Coffin and fires. The roar of the jackhammer cannons is deafening as they launch explosive dark shells. The shots batter the Coffin’s outer armor, but the guns can't do enough damage to reach the hordes that are hidden inside. Ekko brings their ship back into the sky.

Everywhere he looks there is fire and bodies and blood. Ships fly and burn. A missile rips through a Bloodhawk and turns it into a ball of flame. An injured Razorwing flies into a vampire warship and sends them both spinning out of control in a trail of smoke and blood mist, and they crash into an ice dome that explodes into crystal shards.

The once pale city turns black and red.

Danica Black's spirit holds her vessel aloft. She and Cole stand at the door, where they and a pair of soldiers fire small-arms at a dying Razorwing whose claws have latched into the rim of the engines. Cross trains his guns on the beast’s hindquarters, which dangle down well below the craft, and he fires until the body finally falls. Black and Harker's Bloodhawk is badly damaged. It trails smoke and lists to its port side.

Cross blasts through another Razorwing and splatters its reptilian body apart. Its vampire rider drifts away and hovers in the air for a moment before it calmly falls to the distant ground.

There are only three Southern Claw ships left, including Harker’s vessel and his own. He sees no sign of the M2 or the Flak 38. There are still three Razorwings, the Coffin and a vampire warship that need to be dealt with.

He sends his thoughts to Ekko, and without a word she brings the vessel around. Their warship is also damaged, and it leaks blood-red fluid. It moves slower than before, and the roar of its engines has been reduced to a wheeze.

The Coffin flies close to the ground. It bears down on the M2, which races across the ice as the soldiers in the truck fire assault rifles and B.A.R. s at the command ship’s heavily armored hull.

Cross aims the guns and fires. Static booms perforate the air and rip away chunks of steel plate. Fragments of flaming metal fall to the ground. Blasts erupt out of the Coffin's bladed aft and port cannons and paint the sky black.

Explosions rock the warship. Cross tastes metal and rotting fumes. The air outside scalds and scars.

A Razorwing collides with the back of their ship. Arcane blades tear through the beast’s skin as Black’s spirit attacks.

The men on the M2 have rocket launchers. The Coffin moves straight towards them. It flies just above the ground, as its vertical lift has been impaired by the damage that Cross has dealt to it. Ekko flies them in low, as well, and they and the M2 flank the command ship.

The Coffin’s razor cannons fire living shrapnel, necrotic and intelligent blades that fly and seek targets like flocks of malevolent ravens. Cross feels cold wind and black breath. He hears Kane roar as he blasts the aggressive shrapnel with a shotgun in one hand and the M16 in the other just moments before it reaches their ship.

Cross fires at the Coffin's damaged port side, as do Crylos' missile men. Explosive shells claw and burst just as the vessel’s guns blast back at them.

The Coffin is on fire. It descends and lands hard on the icy ground just inside the city. It smashes apart ancient ice structures. The earth shakes as the heavy vessel screams to a halt.

Kane has dealt with the shrapnel, but their ship is losing power. The engines moan and spew forth thick plumes of grim smoke. The wind stings as they bear down on the now grounded command ship.

Flames leap all across its surface. Cross senses the presence of narcotic gasses and fuel tanks that are on the brink of detonation. The Coffin's smaller guns drive the M2 back as they smash open the windshield and perforate its tires. The undead vehicle’s bay doors open.

Cross sees undead — black clad vampire shock troops, red clad Shadowclaws, war wights with enormous talons and pale smooth bodies, zombies with shields and swords and hammers, child-sized ghouls in feral packs, a floating kaithoren with dangling tentacles and six mouths made of circular razors, bone constructs of many limbs and saw blades and pyroclastic eyes, hordes of creatures, a legion, and Cross takes a breath, turns the guns, and fires at the opening in the ship, hoping to mow them down before they can do any damage.

But a Razorwing flies out of nowhere and intercepts the blast. Its body explodes into a greasy missile that collides with their ship.

Spinning flaming out of control weightless dizzy falling Cross fires and pulls in his spirit uses her to shield the others as air and metal falls and crashes into cold hard ground

Cross fell back into the physical world with a painful jolt. Metal pressed against his back, and his body had twisted and contorted into a painful position there in the narrow entrance to the gunner’s alcove.

The bitter odor of smelted metal, gunpowder and burning fuel filled the interior of the ship. Despite the cold in the air, a glaze of sweat covered his face and soaked his shirt, which clung to both his armor and his skin. Pale light spilled through jagged holes in the starboard side of the vessel, where blasted metal had torn into the cabin like curved claws.

Cross pulled himself up, winced at his bruised arm and neck, and looked around.

The front panel was smashed. Arcane circuitry sparked and burned. Ekko pulled herself away from the console; a jagged piece of steel stuck out of her left arm. Kane, bruised and bloodied, pulled her away from the cockpit. Ekko yanked the metal out of her arm without a second thought. Cross watched the wound seal up, like sand falling into a hole.

“ Ramsey?” Cross called out, but there was no answer, because Ramsey was dead.

His small body had been crushed between two plates of steel that had folded in and collapsed where the warship impacted the ground. One hand protruded out of the ruined metal. Cross saw bits of crimson cloth and dark stains of blood.

“ Shit!” he shouted.

They heard gunfire seconds later, the scream of warship engines overhead, and the deep-throated screech of Razorwings. Cross sensed bodies moving outside, guns and claws and saw-blades. They smelled the charnel stench of a mass grave.

They snatched up weapons. Cross pressed a panel to open the rear hatch, which slowly groaned upwards. They heard growls just outside of the smashed viewport at the fore end of the ship, as well as whirring blades and sickening wet slurps.