Steven Montano - Crown of Ash

She glanced behind her. Cassandra spun her vehicle around. T he vampire tank chased down the El Camino. Cole did her best to keep her distance. C hain guns tore up the earth around Lara’s car.

Come on, Lara.

Danica looked ahead, and her heart jumped into her throat. She and Markos reached the end of the gully at the same time. He steered his dune buggy around the edge and straight towards her. Danica aimed for the stone forest, lowered her head and hit the gas. The cycle roared forward. Her spirit flowed around her in a fire shield.

Markos barely missed her and instead smashed into Cassandra. The dune buggies bounced away from each other.

Danica raced into the columns of bladed rock. An explosion shook the air behind her.

I hope Lara can get through all right.

The cycle was perfect for dodging through the sharp pillars of stone. The s pace was tight, and a single wrong turn would throw her against a sharp edge and end the race for her right there. The columns seemed to twist and snake as she darted back and forth across the smooth ground. She rocked with the cycle, dart ed in and out of the columns and moved deeper into folds of roiling crystal smoke.

A cloud of necrotic matter boiled overhead, and seconds later i t belched slippery oil rain all over the stone forest. Danica nearly lost control of the cycle. The bike slipped, and she had to right it several times to make sure she didn’t fly into a razor-edged pillar. She pushed her spirit ahead and used him to blast the oil out of her path. Slick dark fluid splattered the columns.

Gunshots ricocheted off the stone. Markos and Cassandra now shared a single dune buggy, and they blazed around a column and bore down on Danica. Streams of fire billowed out of their damaged vehicle, and they dragged a stream of smoke in their wa ke. Cassandra’s face was burned. S he grit her teeth a nd fired at the bike.

A bullet ripped into Danica’s arm. Pain lanced through her body, and she nearly spiraled out of control.

“Shit!”

The w heels skid, and the columns seemed to circle round her. Her spirit flew in and grabbed her, slowed the bike so she didn’t fly into the rocks. Danica bit through the pai n, took hold of the handles and straightened the cycle out. She’d lost her sense of direction.

The dune buggy came straight at her. Markos and Cassandra were laughing.

Danica turned and squeezed into a narrow gap between the oncoming buggy and a stone column. A sharp rock sliced her leg open, and she screamed.

Markos wasn’t able to right his course in time. The buggy slammed into the rock and exploded in a noisy blast of metal and flame. Bits of steel rained down.

Danica caught her breath. Adrenaline raced through her veins. Blood dripped down her limbs, and he r spirit quickly and painlessly sealed her wounds. She sensed his fatigue — she was asking a lot of him, and his spectral form was flushed with panic. He was afraid she wouldn’t make it out of this.

That makes two of us. But right now we have to save Cole.

She took stock of her position. Gunfire blasted in the distance to her left. She kicked the cycle into gear and raced on. Her left arm and leg ached like she’d been beaten, but thanks to her spirit the bleeding had stopped, and the pain wasn’t near ly as bad as it should have been.

She emerged from the forest of blade d stone and raced down a steep hill that curved around the far edge of the arena. A maze of short wooden bridges spanned pits in the dark hill side. G eysers of orange acid fire blasted out of the holes at random intervals. The track circle d down the hill for almost a mile.

The other two racers had somehow gotten in front of her. Lara’s El Camino race d just ahead of Creyzak ’s vampire war wagon. The Camino’s tail was on fire. Thin bone needles jutted out of the top of the car like porcupine quills, an d the driver’s side door looked ready to fall from its hinges. The war wagon had taken some damage from small-arms fire and collisions, but it s till moved ahead at full speed.

Damn it.

Danica sped down the hill. The cycle laun ched across the first bridge. T he hole beneath it was deep and filled with charred bones.

Clouds of d ust blew across the hillside like wraiths. The canyon wall was covered with cracks and foul waterfalls of sludge. T he bottom of the slope stood at the edge of a stony field.

Black raced down the hill. The Tiger’s motor revved and faded and shook hard against her stomach and legs. H er body ached. She shook her head and focused.

Don’t stop now.

She barreled over the next bridge and felt it rumble and shake beneath her. F ire exploded up from the hole just seconds later. H eat washed over her, and the force of the blast made the cycle sputter and tip. S he almost lost control. Her spirit shielded her from the heat, but not before she felt blisters sco u r her back beneath the leather armor. Sweat poured down her face and into her eyes.

Fi e ry rain scorched the ground. Danica twisted the bike and turn ed sharp at the nadir of the slope. She dodg e d broken steel girders that stuck out of the dirt like rusty knives.

The ground leveled out. She raced onto grease d stone covered with unnatural mist. Even with the speed and adrenaline and the heat of the fire still washing over her, Danica felt the cloying chill of the black field, the waves of utter cold that rolled at her like walls of frozen breath.

She was still behind the others. Cole was a hundred yards ahead, dodging Creyzak a n d the wagon, which rammed into the El Camino and sent it spinning. Metal flew into the air. B oth vehicles vanished into the brume.

Black rocketed through the field of dark stone. Vapors raced apart beneath the cycle’s armored wheels. Broken links of chain and sharp stones littered the ground. The air smelled like the inside of a meat locker.

She only made it a few yards before she had to twist the cycle so hard she almost spun out. The fi eld was littered with pits, nearly twenty- feet wide and spaced about fifty yards apart, so utterly dark and camouflaged by the stygian mist they were all but impossible to see from a distance.

Danica’s blood froze. She just knew that Lara had fallen into a pit.

She sped forward. Panic gripped her chest. Her spirit flew around her like a hurricane.

The world was blue haze and steaming dark smoke. The midnight ground seemed to go on forever. She heard the distant cheers of the captive crowd.

The vampire war wagon had stopped and parked next to one of the pits. Danica drove towards it and slowed down. Her spirit fused around her in a hot shield.

She brought the bike to a stop next to the wagon. Its bone armor and dangling chains were covered in road grit and scorch marks. Smoke poured out of i ts h eavy guns. I ron blades covered its hull like razor ed fur.

Black leapt off her cycle and ran over to the pit. The El Camino was there, stuck just a few feet below the mouth of the hole. Lara’s vehicle had fallen at a n angle and hung suspended: the front ram plates had wedged into the black stone about ten paces down from the lip, while the rear tires had turned sideways and were stuck in the wall on the opposite side. The vehicle creaked in place, ready to plummet.

“Lara!”

“Dani!” Cole’s voice came from inside the car.

Black’s spirit bristled, then roared. She heard the footsteps, but not in time.

Creyzak stepped up out of nowhere and smashed her face with a long exhaust pipe he’d ripped off his vehicle. Her spirit took the brunt of the blow, but the impact still knocked her backwards. Blood spurted from her mouth. Her back hit the stony ground.

Creyzak brought the pipe up over his head. His translucent Vuul skin flooded with angry blood, and h is squat grey eyes burned with rage.