Steven Montano: Crown of Ash

Shapes floated out of the blood- black smoke: sleek and bladed warships, vampire fliers, Razorwings and gargoyles, Bloodclouds and Hexbats. T he last rays of dying sunlight pierced through the grim barrier of clouds.

The opposing ground forces would collide in moments.

“Let’s go,” Kane said. “We have people to save.”

The tops of crumbling buildings were just visible from outside the ruins. Kane, Ronan, Jade and Maur slipped through a gap in one of Voth Ra’morg’s pulverized stone walls.

They moved down streets lined with s hort round buildings. Patches of frozen moss, black grass and grease ice covered the ground. Thick banks of mud blocked off most of the alleyways.

The air in Voth Ra’morg was still. The cannon blasts and blade bombs and bursts of acid napalm all seemed a world away, even though the battle raged just on the other side of the walls.

Cold sweat laced Kane’s skin, and his arms and legs ached. His dirty armor was dented and covered with mud, and his long hair was pasted against his scalp. His gums burned with hunger.

It was becoming more and more difficult to keep the whispers out of his head. They promised blood and flesh, and though t heir voices sickened him he knew that if he accepted, if he just turned himself over to what they wanted, the pain would end.

Too bad, he told himself. Nothing has ever been easy for you. You don’t get to start now.

He thought about Ekko.

He would n’t let Danica die. For a time he’d actually wanted her dead. I t had been stupid to blame he r for what had happened to Ekko, because he knew that even if Black hadn’t smuggled them out of Black Scar they both would have eventually died in prison anyway. B ut knowing that still hadn’t stopped him from harboring deep resentm ent, and e ven though he’d tried to keep his anger to himself he knew that Danica had been all too aware of how he ’d felt.

He and Black had come together during their search for Cross, and they’d bonded in a way they never had before. There was no way he was going to let her or Cross go now.

They quietly made their way across the ruined city, through d rifts of grey smoke that smelled of ash and cinder. Wooden walkways creaked overhead, weighed down with hoarfrost and iced mold. The buildings were dark and smooth and seemed to suck in what little light remained.

They heard voices up ahead, and Kane signaled everyone to stop. He nodded at Jade, and she sent her spirit to scout. The team had stepped in to the shadows of leaning cylindrical towers clustered near the center of the city. The g aping holes in the towers revealed their twisted rebar innards.

Kane smelled axle grease and vehicular fumes. He heard a churning engine just around the corner of the nearby building. Ronan and Maur stood ready, but Jade was locked in concentration, and almost seemed to be in pain.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“My spirit is having trouble…” she said. “It’s like he c an’t get any further…something’ s blocking him.”

An explosive b last ripped through the air. Metal flew out of the closest tower behind them. Noise rang through his ears, and ice dust fell across his eyes.

“Contact!” Ronan yelled, and he leaned around the corner and fired.

“You think?!” Kane shouted back.

Gunfire cut the air apart. Maur and Jade dropped to the ground.

A n other explosive shell ripped into the tower behind them.

“Jade, do something!” Kane yelled.

“I can’t…it’s like my spirit isn’t there…God…”

“Shit, ” Kane said, and he fired his M4 around the corner.

“Move back, ” Maul said.

The Gol pushed past Kane, calmly stepped up to the corner of the building, and tossed a grenade at the source of the gunfire. Shouts of warning rang out, and Kane heard a vehicle back away. He poked his head out just in time to see a Scarecrow aim its cannon right at him. A dark armored Hummer and a small group of Revengers stood behind the undead. O ne of them looked familiar, and Kane realized he knew him: it was a former inmate in the prison named Gath. Kane didn’t have time to wonder why he was dressed as a Revenger.

The grenade went off, and the Hummer flew backwards. Its back end cr ashed into a nearby building.

The explosion made the Scarecrow’s shot go wide, and instead of hitting Kane it blasted away a chunk of stone high in the tower wall.

Several Revengers flew through the air and landed in bloody heaps. O ne was missing his legs, and another had lost an arm.

Gath’s chest had been blown open. H is corpse smoldered.

T he Scarecrow r a n straight at them. Kane and Ronan shot it in the face. B ullets smashed into its grinning skull. The gaunt undead raised its cannon and aimed while it charged, undeterred by their assault.

“ Duck!” Jade yelled from behind them. Her spirit came out of nowhere and drilled forward, a lance of green acid that impaled the Scarecrow and filled the air with ghastly fumes. The creature withered, and its gun lowered to the ground.

Kane ran up and snatched the weapon away. The rifle was heavy and almost 4-feet long, but he swung it around, dropped prone and balanced it on a loose rock to help him aim. Revengers fired at them from a block away. The Hummer roared to life.

The 20mm cannon ripped backwards. Kane felt the impact in his shoulder, and his eyes watered from the sound of the sharp crack as the shell launched. The front section of the Hummer exploded. Oil and water shot up from the shattered engine block, and the dead driver flew forward through the broken window.

Ronan leapt over Kane and ran at the other Revengers, firing as he went. Maur tossed another grenade as Jade’s spirit hammered the Revengers with cold black nails. Men fell screaming. Those that survived were mowed down by Ronan.

Kane hefted up the cannon and brought it with him. He felt stronger than he had in some time, and full of vitality. He could have hefted that thing around anywhere.

Careful, he warned himself. That’s not natural. You know where that strength is coming from.

At th at moment, he didn’t care.

Smoke drifted over them as they moved across the street and up to the building the Revengers guarded, a pale structure that looked like an industrial plant or a factory. They saw an open set of damaged steel doors at the bottom of a short iron staircase. Steel yellow barrels leak ed phosphorescent ooze. Kane smelled gas. The space beyond the open doorway was black and still.

“There’s something down there…” Jade said.

“Uh, that’s sort of why we want to go in…” Kane said.

“No, you don’t understand…there’s something down there. Something powerful.”

They looked at each another. Explosions hammered Voth Ra’morg’s outer walls. They hear d explosive bursts of gunfire and Razorwing calls. The ground shook from the battle outside.

“Then that is where Maur needs to go,” the Gol said, and he stepped forward. Ronan nodded and followed with a W hat the hell, why not? look on his face.

Jade hesitated.

“You don’t have to go,” Kane said as he stepped close. “ You don’t owe us anything.” He nodded at her. “ Find a place to hold up. We can take care of this.”

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. He realized it wasn’t fear that held her back — she’d been an enforcer for Klos Vago and t he Shard, after all, and she’d doubtlessly done and seen things that would have given him nightmares — but something else.

She’s making a choice. She’s deciding if we’re worth putting herself in this much danger.

After a moment, she moved towards the stairs.

“You’d better be worth it,” she said. Kane stood there, dumbfounded, before he turned and followed her inside.