Steven Montano - Crown of Ash

She gave him a cold look. He just smiled. T he platform r o se back into the air.

Black watched the m ascend. Hatred burned in her heart.

The other contestants in the race were among the luminaries of Black Scar prison. They’d all been there for a good stretch of time and had all served time under Danica’s watch, which was undoubtedly why Rake had selected them.

All of the racers wore matching black leather body armor. They were forced to change out there in the open, much to Black’s chagrin, and the hoot and holler of the prisoners up above was punctuated by a number of rape threats.

Danica ignored them. She had purpose now: to make Rake pay. Her earlier resignation to her fate had dissolved.

One way or another, I’m living through this.

Markos and Cassandra were siblings from the Reach who’d once been part of a roaming band of marauders that preyed on settlers and workers in the borderlands. Both of them were blonde-haired, pale and tall, and they bore matching blood scar tattoos on the right sides of their faces.

Jorgo lon Creel, aka “ Jorgo the Red ”, was a muscular serial killer who’d slaughtered fourteen people in the city-state of Ath. He’d skinned his victims and used the hides to build a ship he believed would carry him to safety when the world flooded.

Vance Creyzak was a Vuul mercenary who did jobs for the Ebon Cities scouting human settlements and military outposts. The grey-fleshed maniac had a reputation for being a vicious hand-to-hand combatant and had an unsavory taste for human females, who rarely survived his attentions.

The racers present were each given their choice of vehicle. The first person who completed the race circuit, which looped down into the valley and back again, w ould be allowed to live. They were, of course, given full reign to kill each other during the race, though no weapons were provided. Danica knew that probably wouldn’t happen until the race started.

Danica selected a bladed motor cycle, a modified Tiger 800XC, the same model she and Lara used to ride around on. Steel armor plates had been welded to the front and sides, and the wheels were reinforced with metal studs and sealed with anti-puncture coagulant. Razor spines and a thaumaturgic engine powered the sleek black and red cycle.

I must be nuts. I haven’t rid de n one of these things in years.

The twins took a dune buggy each. Jorgo requisitioned a small pickup truck with spiked ram plates and retractable chains. Creyzak took the wheel of a converted vampire war wagon that had been stripped down to its chassis, but the oversized stone and steel wheels still looked formidable enough to crush other small vehicles.

The racers made ready to begin when a sixth contestant was pushed into the underground arena by a pair of Scarecrows.

It was Cole.

“You bastard!” Danica yelled up at Rake. Rake just smiled and waved.

“Dani!” Cole shouted. Danica tried to run to her, but there was a great deal of open ground between them, much of it covered by Scarecrows armed with hand-held cannons. The grinning-skull sentries formed a wall of armored dead flesh between the women and kep t them apart. Cole had already been dressed in her dark armor before they’d brought her out. She looked so small amongst the corpses.

“Lara!” Black shouted back.

“Time to go,” Rake shouted from above, and the racers took their positions under the careful watch of Scarecrow weapons.

Cole was s hoved into an armored orange-and-white El Camino equipped with a ram-plate. She looked at Danic a. Even from a hundred yards away Danica saw the frightened tears in her eyes.

Her pulse raced. She shook with panic.

No. Get a hold of yourself.

Black got on the motorcycle. Motors flared to life all around her. Exhaust and gas fumes filled the air. The vehicles were poised at the top of a dark, steep hill. The hill dipped down t owards a gully that ran like a cut down the middle of a narrow and elevated mesa. T hat mesa, in turn, led to a nother hill covered with a forest of razor sharp stones. F rom there the track ran down to the lower level of the arena.

Rake made a motion up above, and w eapons hidden in the vehicles revealed themselves. Chain-guns and blades popped out of secret compartments. T he siblings discover ed hand-held firearms in their du ne buggies, and Jorgo lifted a m orningstar out of the seat in the pickup.

Danica searched around the motorcycle. There was nothing there — no weapons, no secret buttons or compartments.

That piece of shit!

Her skin grew hot. Cold wind raced against her and slipped through her fingers like a pulsing electric tide. She breathed it in, and her lungs turned to ice.

Her spirit was back. He was weak and dazed, like he’d just woken from a deep sleep. His vaporous presence flushed her skin. She focused her mind, and with each passing breath he grew more solid. He flowed through her with pulsing liquid force. R age burned behind her eyes and boiled in her blood.

She readied herself. The crowd up above counted down loudly.

“ THREE!.. TWO!.. ONE!..”

A booming klaxon wail ed from somewhere deep in the prison and signaled the beginning of the race. V ehicles sprang to life and roared down the hill in a burst of mechanical growl s. C louds of dust kicked up behind spinning armored tires.

The racers wasted no time getting to the violence. Creyzak’s vampire wagon launched smoking spikes sideways into Jorgo’s pickup, and Danica rain ed cold sparks down on the damaged truck with her spirit and finished the job. Jorgo’s vehicle only made it twenty feet before it exploded and buckled in a roar of blue fire. Flaming debris rolled down the hill.

Danica raced ahead. Her heart hammered painfully against her chest. Wind rushed at her. Her spirit roared after her in a trail of spectral smoke.

The bike launched over the side of the hill and sped down the slope towards the top of the mesa. The sound of the roaring engine filled her head, and she drove so fast the ground almost seemed to vanish beneath her. Her head felt suffocated in the tight helmet, even with the wide visor.

She rocketed across the dark earth and dodged sharp stones and debris. Bullets tore into the ground behind her.

Danica twisted the bike as she came to the bottom of the slope, veered sideways, and almost tipp ed into the gully. Chunks of mud and rock exploded everywhere as shots hammered down.

There was only a narrow stretch of mesa top to either side of the gully. Danica was between the cleft and the cliff edge. She could see the floor of the blasted subterranean valley several hundred feet below.

She righted the bike and followed the gully. It was about twenty feet wide and ten deep, and its interior walls were lined with barbed iron stakes. A small horde of grey-skinned zombies waited at the bottom, slathering and moaning and pushing each other ’s rotting bodies out of the way in a desperate attempt to climb out.

Markos and Cassandra ’s dune buggies r ac e d parallel to Danica on the other side of the gully. Danica look ed back and saw the El Camino locked in a tight race with the vampire war wagon.

She whipped her head forward. Up ahead, t he mesa came to an abrupt end just before the forest of sha rp stones.

Cassandra vaulted her dune buggy across the gully. The armored hulk soar ed through the air straight towards Black’s motorcycle.

Danica hit the brakes. T he dune buggy landed awkwardly and bounced down just ahead of her, barely missing the gul f. Cassandra spun her vehicle around and race d straight at Danica. The pale woman fired her M16 at the cycle. Danica twisted her vehicle sideways and us ed her spirit to shield her body from the ground. Metal sparked and rained around her. Danica barely missed the dune buggy as she dodged around it.