and dodges streams of arcane fire. Explosive nails soar up at them from guns mounted on the rooftops.
He sees the ship dive, rise and turn. The forward motor guns strafe the air ahead of them and destroy a small spiked vessel which spins away into the dirty clouds; a fiery trail marks its descent. He sees Razorwings and other vessels, sleek and fast-moving gunships that lead a larger command vessel, a stout juggernaut that resembles a flying armored shark. Its guns are massive blasphemies of steel, bladed cannons that leak black smoke and liquid fire.
Cross fixes his ethereal vision, this newfound omnipresent spectral sight, on the nearest Razorwing. He wills the guns to fire.
Twin black cannons, little more than tubes about four-feet long and just a few inches wide, make the air explode with noise.
Each boom is like the fall of an enormous hammer. The guns rock back and forth on their swivel turret. Each shot causes the twin guns to slide and recoil at blinding speed, a jackhammer weapon.
Large shot tears the Razorwings and their riders into husks of smoking meat. They plummet into the sea of ochre clouds below.
Cross wills the weapons to fire again, this time on the other gunships. Blasts exchange, steel and bone and flame.
The red and cloudy sky is made black with fumes. Harpoons the size of horses barely miss the renegade vessel. The ship lurches and dives.
Cross lands a lucky shot on a gunship, and its foredeck catches aflame in an explosion of dark and billowing smoke.
They seize the opportunity, and flee.
The ship flies into thick clouds and dives down into valleys of stone. They will be over the Bone March before long, but until then the rocks and hills and valleys west of the Wormwood will provide them with cover. The sound of vampire vessels fades into the background, and soon they fly through quiet skies, and hide beneath blood clouds.
Cross fell away from the grip of the turret vision. He tasted metal and smelled burning oil. He promptly bumped his head hard against the low metal ceiling of the alcove compartment, and he was still cursing and nursing the back of his skull when he emerged to find the others.
“ Well,” he said. He wasn't sure of what there was else to say.
Black and Cole sat quietly against the wall. Cole had the boy in her arms. He'd fallen asleep, and Cole didn't look far from being unconscious herself. Her eyes were dark, and her face looked ashen and pale. She looked off into nothing and held the boy, with her back against the wall and the two of them wrapped in a blanket.
Black sat next to her, watching her with concern. She looked up at Cross. Her expression bore a mixture of loathing, fear and resignation.
Awesome, he thought. Well, at least that's the look I'm used to getting from attractive women. He met her gaze for a moment. Understanding passed between them: whatever their differences, they’d have to wait for now.
His body was bruised and sore, and despite how much of the past few days he’d spent unconscious, Cross felt like he hadn't slept in a month. His shoulder wound was already healing up — there were unquestionable benefits to being tied to a vampire, he had to admit — but every muscle felt like he'd been pounded with meat tenderizers.
Rest, Ekko told him. He felt her vigil, the waking nightmare that was her growing hunger. She held it at bay.
But for how long? he wondered, not concerned if she heard the thought or not. How long before you Turn?
Ekko made no indication that she heard him. She just sat silently and piloted the vessel, her fingers barely touching the runes on the control panel.
Kane stood with his hands on her shoulders. He was clearly uncomfortable. Her skin had to be freezing to the touch, and seeing Ekko like that was like looking at her corpse. The blonde man's eyes were filled with worry.
“ Congratulations,” Ramsey said. He sat down heavy on the floor. The vessel hummed and rattled. All there was to see beyond the cracked pilot’s window was a red and grey haze of clouds and dust. “You’ve escaped Krul. Now the real fun begins.”
“ Speaking of which,” Kane said. “Would someone kindly explain to me what the hell is going on?”
Cross sat down against the wall.
“ Rest first. We’ll talk later.”
It swims through clouds of corroding soul matter, drifts of spectral unguent that block its senses. Much of its existence has been spent sleeping, so its senses have long been dulled. It spent centuries lying drunk and drowning in the debris of dreams.
Its ebon bulk grows fat from the souls it absorbs. It reels from sucking the marrow from living bones. Soulless shades of the dead — the so-called vampire elite — pummel and bombard it with their technology, with their beasts and ships.
It disregards them. It stands at the nadir of their city, where it grows. Its once small frame has swelled. Merely existing on this world lends it fuel.
Life can be found everywhere here. It permeates the air and saturates the water. It multiplies and folds and breaks apart in waves. It expands and collapses and rebuilds. Its energy is chaotic and destructive, but in the midst of that chaos are living constituents, shining spheres of unfiltered life that burn like glittering stars.
Its ancient enemy still lives. That core of light, though greatly weakened, survives in the pinprick souls of the three humans. Now it sleeps: the jailor. Now it is the one imprisoned. It is trapped in the trio of flesh vessels.
But that is not what worries the Sleeper.
Because she is here. The avatar.
It feels her. Her presence hangs heavy, and the weight of her age makes the air sluggish. The light of her blazing heart is like a beacon. After so much time, so many eons spent sleeping in The Black, it wants to take revenge on her. Only its fear keeps it in check.
There can be no fear, a voice tells it, an ancient and decrepit voice from the time before The Black, from a world where it was once powerful. The Sleeper knows that voice. It fears it more than it does the avatar.
Our enemy is here, the voice says. Destroy it. Destroy it, and you will be free.
But it is free. It can go anywhere, do anything. Nothing on this fused bastard world can stop it.
Wrong. It can. She can.
Which means that the Sleeper has failed. It had the chance to destroy the humans, but it allowed them to escape. They’d remained hidden, and when suddenly the light of their cores was revealed the shadow was too burdened by its own power, too drunk off of the energies that the world continually poured into it, to stop them.
This has happened before — this is how it was imprisoned. Its power builds. Its form expands. Too much life. It grew tired before The Black, fat and lethargic off of its own might. It gave her the opportunity to imprison it.
But now she is the one who sleeps. Now it can destroy her, and it will never fear imprisonment again.
The shadow rises. The steel towers and batholitic lights and necrotic chains of the city crumble in the corruptive cloud that leaks from the Sleeper’s ethereal skin. Dark funnels of vapor lash out and collapse metal buildings and stone barracks.
It swells with power. It howls and cuts the land apart. Earth shakes and shatters and sinks in its path. The sky crumbles. It stretches mammoth arms and closes its smoking claws.
It is the Destroyer. It is Dra’aalthakmar. All it needs to do is exist, and by so doing it brings death.
It is the bane of the living. It is the pit into which the world will fall.
All it needs to do is kill its jailor and destroy the scattered remains of her servant.
It will feed for all eternity after it destroys the humans, and the Woman in the Ice.
PART THREE
