Steven Montano - Crown of Ash

Danica felt ice vapors curl away from her skin. The rotting wind carried the taste of s pectral drool. Claws like scissors unfolded from the murderwraith’s form.

Her spirit shifted to a column of dark fire. Heat flushed her arms. Her vision narrowed and focused as r age burned in side her.

The murderwraith howled. Knife claws shot towards Danica’s heart and came so close her skin went blue from its icy aura. Steaming t eeth evaporated as the carnivorous ghost exhaled clouds of white frost.

The wraith’s leering inhuman face collapsed as she blasted through it with a spiral of ebon flame. I ts phantom body r etreated in a blast of dead fog.

People screamed and ducked and moved out of the way. Danica was thankful no one had been injured by the blast — it had shot straight through the creature and off into empty air.

“What the hell are you doing?” Vago shouted. His bodyguards stood nearby.

They can’t see it, she realized. They haven’t detect ed it at all. An undead that powerful shouldn’t have been invisible.

“I was being attacked…” she started to say, but a wailing klaxon drowned out her voice.

A Killraven squad flew into view from around a nearby building.

God damn it! That thing was just a scout, calling me out, forcing me to defend myself so they could lock onto my arcane signature.

“You ’re on your own then, you stupid bitch!” Vago shout ed. His bodyguards pulled him back, and they vanished into the crowd.

Shit.

Danica pulled her spirit in and pushed her way down the aisles as the Killravens drew close. Vago was already gone. She was alone.

The Killravens moved fast. S he saw their grey-blue armor and bladed wings draw within 100 yards. Smoke poured from exhaust panels in the bottom s of the armor packs, and their bladed gauntlets crackled with arcane power. A small cluster of scout homunculi accompanied the eight-man crew and fill ed the air like a swarm of enormous bats. The Killravens spread out and dodged through the steel cables and wire mesh that linked Blacksand’s taller structures together.

“Bitch!”

Someone in the crowd shot at Danica with a. 357 Magnum. People shouted and scrambled out of the way. Danica knocked the gunner a side with a sweep of ic y wind.

Another spectator armed with a knife came at her, and Danica ducked beneath his blow and struck him backhanded, then kicked him in the solar plexus and sent him t o the ground.

Her spirit flushed against her skin and shielded her like armor. He’d been cooped up for too long, held inactive and hidden away, and now his anger flooded to the surface like a tidal wave. I t would be all but impossible to hold him back.

The stadium exploded into madness. People ran for safety, but since most of the crowd was armed random gunshots rang out as people attacked what ever they thought the threat was. Luckily, only a few of those shots were directed at Danica. Her spirit deflected stray bullets and fists as she pushed her way towards the edge of the upper seating platform. S he leapt over the side.

Wind rushed up at her. H er spirit push ed up and against her with ethereal force so that she fell in slow motion. H er stomach turn ed inside out. A drenaline and fear raced through her body as she plummeted through exhaust and explosive fumes.

Even s hielded, jolts of pain shot up Danica’s legs as she landed down on the mid-section seating area. She rolled forward into an open aisle. Her heart pounded. The air smelled like fear.

Danica ran down the aisle towards the exits. Many of the people in th e section she’d landed in were still in their seats in spite of the cacophony up above.

T he fighting hadn’t actually halted the race, but there were only a handful of vehicles left on the track. A monstrous truck armed with jagged horns ploughed through a dark van as they turned a corner, and t he crash rattled the stadium.

A Black Dog patrol waited next to the near est exit. Danica saw t hree Revengers and a trio of Blood Dogs, smaller versions of Blood Wolves that were specially bred at Black Scar to hunt down escaped prisoners. Their ebon skin and slathering jaws snapped at her as she came close.

Spectators looked out from the nearby aisles, confused. T he black-masked Revengers leveled their weapons and ordered her to halt.

Danica sent her spirit forward as a rush of cold wind and knock ed t he Revengers back. T wo of the Blood Dogs pushed past her spirit and came at her with snapping jaws. Their collars crackled with hex energies.

Black pulled out her katars, went to her knees and sliced into both hounds at once. H ot blood splashed on her cheeks and face as t heir bodies slid past her.

The third dog charged, and before she could move its teeth ripped into her leg. She swiped and kicked the beast.

Gunshots rang out. Revengers armed with MP5As and auto-shotguns ran into the seating section behind her. She saw a warlock among their ranks, and she wasted a moment wondering if she knew him before she turned on her heels and ran.

B ullets struck the ground behind her. T he Revengers chased Danica right to th e edge of the rac e track, a massive circle of grey and black concrete littered with dirt. S teel walls lined with blades and flaming obstacles wrapped around a network of shifting metal platforms and collapsing barricades of electric chain.

Revengers came at her from the opposite side, and she saw the shadow s of Killravens from above. Her spirit whipped around her like a molten tide. She kept him close and wound him around one of her katars while she drew her Colt Python. Danica looked into the haze of dirt an d vehicular fumes.

There was an exit on the far side of the track, almost directly opposite from where she stood.

Bullets hit the ground. A ricochet caught a spectator in the eye, and he fell screaming. Panic surged through the crowd like wildfire. People leapt from their seats and pointed at the Revengers and fell back as more Blood Dogs came at her.

Danica leapt over the fence and onto the track. Her lungs swelled with black vapors as she ran as fast as she could across the mud and dirt. An armored truck narrowly missed her as she sped across its path, and s he heard it twist and fishtail behind her. Something buried itself in the ground to her right, an electrified lance connected to a razor cable.

She dodged m etal monstrosities and wove through bursts of smoke. The air explode d all around her, and any second Danica expected an armored wheel or a blast of arcane power to strike her down. Her spirit forced her to keep moving, propelled her around spinning blade towers and beneath whirling flame whips.

A truck with a spiked grill burst through the grey smoke. Danica’s heart jumped. She pushed her fists together and dug her feet into the earth. H er spirit turned in to a jagged lance of frost and flew into the vehicle. The truck snapped and folded inward like it had struck an unbreakable iron pole. M etal and rubber wrapped around her body. She found herself unharmed at the center of a steel cocoon.

S he used her spirit to blast her way free. D ebris and smoking stone rained down. Most of the other racing vehicles were gone, and p eople rush ed for the exits. Revengers shot down spectators in an effort to get to Danica.

She ran. Her spirit threw a Killraven aside as he swooped in low. His thaumaturgic pack snapped, and dark smoke trailed his body as he flailed out of control and flew into a steel wall.

A bola snapped around her feet. Danica fell hard onto her face.

Her spirit whipped back and knocked two Killravens aside while Danica cut through the cord with a katar. Blood seeped out of open cuts where the razor bola had torn through her cargo pants, and she felt poison spread painfully through her veins.

She ran up to a downed Killraven. He tried to rise, but Danica kicked him hard enough to send blood all over the inside of his helmet, ripped away his MP5 and fired back at t he Revengers.