Steven Montano - Crown of Ash

They carefully navigate through the area. S mall animal-like creatures, purple and black lizards and razorback toads, race away as they approach.

The smooth stones are slabs of frozen crystal fused around humanoid remains. The creatures frozen within have claws and sha rp fangs, and he realizes they’ re vampires, trapped in the dark ice.

They pass through a graveyard of frost- en tombed dead. The sick pools bubble and pop as they walk through the labyrinth of ice sarcophagi.

A storm churns over the mountain. The peak is preposterously tall and looms over their heads. Dull bursts of thunder echo out of the sky. Pale explosions detonate within the cobalt clouds.

They’ v e nearly reached the forest when the stones fall apart.

Icy rock melt s like candles. Thick chunks of frozen crystal fly through the air. The cloying cold turns to a sweltering heat. Massive talons tear through the ice. Dripping anemic bodies pull themselves free. Slathering fangs open wide and issue cold howls.

He draws his blade. There are a dozen vampires, and they descend on the group from all directions. Flesh tears and blood flies. His arms ache as he does battle. Gore covers his face.

They are beset by waves of un dead. K ni f e — like claws pierce reptilian flesh. Hammers smash vampire skulls into pulp. C laws rend open torsos and tear off faces.

Kyver motions. He and Vala run for a narrow corridor lead ing into the mountain, located just past the small forest.

Cross follows. A vampire flies at him with such speed he can’t react before it throws him to the ground. The back of his head strikes rock. Everything bleeds to a blur. He feels the body come down on top of him.

Talons scrape across his knuckles. H e hisses as blood pours onto his face. He pushes back with all of his strength.

The vampire glares down at him. Cross sees himself r eflected back in its glassy eyes.

He kicks and rolls away from the naked brute. It lashes out and rakes him across the back. H e falls screaming. Razors burn across his skin.

Without thinking he rises to his feet, turns and buries his blade in the vampire’s face. Cold blood splashes on his arms. He wrenches Soulrazor/Avenger free from the gnarled bone.

The reptilians are dying all around him. They fight v aliantly. Spears skewer undead and curved sickle blades cut through the dark-haired fiends, but the vampires are too strong, and more of them appear out of other ice tombs, primitive undead interred in frozen prisons to act as sentries for the Shadow Lords.

V ampire s fall beneath wedge blades. Reptilian throats are torn out. Vampires dart in and out like wolves, stab their foes with eight-inch claws, pull away, stab again, a dance of blades and blood.

Something grabs him from behind, and he nearly turns and stabs Vala. She scowls, and pushes him forward. Kyver is a hundred yards away, just inside the dark doorway into the mountain. The corridor i s next to the copse of dark trees, a glade at the edge of an ice-water pool.

It looks familiar.

Heavy leaves fall in his path. He sees women assembled near the tree line.

She’s there. She has to be there.

He goes to find her. His feet splash in ankle-deep freezing waters that hadn’t been there a moment before. Tears of joy run down his face.

No, Vala screams, but he doesn’t listen. He can’t.

He only t akes a few steps when tentacle s wrap around his leg. Their touch is so cold they burn. The water bubbles and pulls back, no longer icy and cold but hot and turgid and filled with blood. Foamy eyes take shape in the murk.

The dark tentacles tighten around his limbs and lift him into the air. A great maw like an open wound rises from the water beneath his feet. It pulls open like a tear. T housands of tiny teeth glisten with poison and filth.

He hacks through the tentacles and falls into the water. He twists and kicks and swallows the sick fluid, emerges and gasps for air. A nother tentacle wrap s around his throat.

Vala charges in and hacks off the leathery appendage with an axe. Kyver grabs Cross’s arm and pulls him free. They struggle out of the water and make their way back to shore. Cross’s body is wracked with hurt.

The rest of the Grey Clan is all dead. The vampires feast on the remains and howl into the sky. Several of the undead turn and look and run after the three survivors as they struggle to escape the tentacle beast, a bulbous sack of meat limbs and drooping mouths. Teeth grind and twist in the gaping holes all over its body.

T he forest is now nothing but dead branches. Whatever Cross thought he’d seen had just been an illusion. The same is true of the mountain: it’ s actually a stout metal citadel made of twisted edges and serrated walls, towers like spikes and portals like wounds. The Citadel is fused to a smelted hill of granite and stained quartz. Jagged crenellations reach towards the sky like hooked claws.

The Black Citadel.

The y run for the doorway in the base of the Citadel. Vampires snarl at their backs. The tentacle beast lashes out, grabs some of the undead and pulls them to the water, but that does n’t deter the relentless mob as they scrape their way through bloody remains and tear across the open ground. L ong tongues drip acid drool and claws scratch against the ground.

Vala shoves him forward through the doorway and time slowed. The dark walls came into focus. The light brightened as they moved away from the shadow grime of the Whisperlands.

Kyver shoved Cross ahead and looked back at the door. The crowd of bestial vampires was less than thirty yards away.

“Go!” Kyver shouted. “This is as far as we can take you!”

“What…?”

“I hope your Eidolos friend told you what to do!” he shouted, and he turned back. Vala slammed the door shut, and t hey barricaded it with a thick wooden beam and propped up iron bars that looked like they’d once been part of a portcullis.

Hazy torchlight suffused the Citadel. B its of sharp metal protruded from every wall, which was dirty and covered with rust and dried blood. Dangling iron braziers swung back and forth on metal chains that ran up to the height of the narrow ceiling. Thin curls of grey smoke filled the hall with the smell of burning coals. The corridor that led from the entrance ran for as far as Cross could see.

The door buckled behind them, and they heard the wild growls of rabid vampires. C laws raked the door from the other side and filled the air with the song of knives.

“Go!” Kyver yelled again. “We’ll hold them for as long as we can…find Azradayne! Stop her from getting the Obelisk!”

Cross nodded, and ran. He wanted to say ‘thank you’, but it seemed ridiculous given the circumstances. They’d used him just as much as he’d used them. They all had something to gain, and plenty to lose.

He just hoped he wouldn’t fail them all.

The door buckled again. The growls grew louder. He glimpsed back, but Kyver and Vala faded into the dark ness behind him as he ran.

He didn’t have much time.

The hall emptied into a sort of amphitheater. Wide and rounded steps led up to a platform covered with large cages and slabs of ice turned grey with age. Multiple halls led away from the chamber.

Each cage held the skeletal remains of a creature, and not all of them were human: he saw Gol and Vuul, Gorgoloth and thin and mouthless Lith.

W hite-grey illumination bled down through dirty skylights in the tall ceiling. Thin sheets of grease ice covered the steps and the upper platform, and old gnarled bones and rocks littered the floor.

Cro ss looked down the hallways and saw nothing but shadows. He heard the growl of monsters in the distance.

The air tasted like smoke. With Soulrazor/Avenger in hand he crossed the chamber. His boots felt like they were ready to come apart. He looked down at himself and saw that his rotting clothing was brown and black with dirt and shadow y filth. He looked like a beggar.