The Southern Claw base camp became a makeshift medical bivouac. Thankfully, only a few of those who’d been injured were in serious condition. The death toll, however, was high, and already there were mutterings that it was all too much for them to take on, that they barely had enough men left to secure the area, let alone dedicate more to a thorough search of what promised to be a sizable underground complex.
Cross quelled their concerns as best he could.
“ I don't need many of your men.”
He, Black, Cole, Crylos and Ankharra stood away from the camp, at the top of a low rise that offered a good view of the frozen city. Thirty square blocks — nearly a quarter of the city — had been reduced to icy ruin in the battle. Dark steam and churning drifts of yellow-orange fog still clung to the area. Even at a distance, it was easy to smell the smolder of artillery and scorched bodies. Drifts of ash covered the ground like grey snow.
“ How many?” Crylos asked.
“ We have to consider the very real possibility that we're still going to have to deal with the Black Circle, in one capacity or another,” Cross said.
“ Well, correct me if I'm wrong,” Ankharra said, “but we have zero intel regarding the Circle's numbers or capabilities.”
“ That’s correct,” Cross said. “And we also have a 600-foot-tall walking shadow on our tail. We'll need as much warning as possible when it gets here so that we can clear the area.”
“ Is there any way to engage that thing?” Crylos asked.
“ Not if you want to win,” Black answered.
Everyone paused at that.
“ So what do you need?” Crylos asked.
Cross looked at the bivouac, and at the remaining soldiers of 1st and 2nd Platoon. The image of men falling out of the sky was still stuck in his mind.
“ Spare me two men,” he said at last, “to escort us back to the Bone Tower. They can standby and back us up if we run into trouble.”
Crylos nodded. The last Bloodhawk had a damaged fuel pump and needed repairs, and it wouldn't be ready for any sort of heavy activity for several hours, at least. They'd need it to get the remaining men out in a hurry. Claw Company could send reinforcements, but Cross made clear that he didn't want that. It would only provide more fuel for the Sleeper.
It's coming, he thought. It wants to destroy us, and the Woman in the Ice. It knows what we can do to it.
Kane and Ekko were just outside of the main camp. They sat in a small and private tent carefully watched by a pair of soldiers who politely kept their weapons stowed.
There had been no way to conceal the fact that Ekko was Turning once the battle had finished, and Crylos had been understandably less-than-thrilled to discover that a near-vampire was now in his camp. The fact that she’d helped defeat the Ebon Cities undead helped her case, but Crylos’ biggest reservation was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the same that Cross had himself: what happened when she did Turn?
As far as Cross could guess, all three of them — he, Ekko and Black — were tied to Lucan's power and the Woman in the Ice. What would have happened if one of them had died during the battle? What if Ekko became a vampire before their task was finished? Cross didn't think that her transformation was likely, at least not yet…he still felt that the primordial energies they'd inherited from Lucan somehow prevented her Turning completely, at least for the moment.
But what happens when all of this is done? What happens when Lucan's power is no longer needed? Will it fade away? Will she Turn then?
Cross walked into their small tent. Kane and Ekko sat quietly. He meditated in lotus position — his flexibility was impressive for a large man — with his eyes closed and his palms out. Ekko sat in the same pose, utterly still, her blank eyes like black pools. The air was cold from her presence. Her blonde hair looked stiff, as if from frost, and her lips had gone dark blue, a sharp contrast to the excess of her pale skin.
I'm scared, Cross. She spoke to him with telepathy so seldom it was easy for Cross to forget that she was even capable of doing so.
I know, he answered with his own thoughts. Me, too.
Will you do something for me?
She didn't have to say what — he already knew. She didn’t want to Turn, and if it came down to it, she wanted to make sure that someone would do what was needed. He wasn't sure that he could, but he knew he’d do his best if she made him promise.
She did.
Kane's eyes opened.
“ Is it time?” he asked.
Cross wanted to take him aside, to talk to him about Ekko.
What the hell would you say? he asked himself.
“ Yeah. It's time.”
On his way back to the bivouac, Cross saw Black and Cole. They stood just behind the M2, which needed some repairs. The two women stayed largely out of sight. He couldn't hear anything they said, but it was clear they were having a disagreement, since Cole held up her hands in frustration and shook her head, but Black kept talking, perhaps imploring her lover to listen.
Cross wanted to step away before he was noticed, but Black looked up and saw him. He pointed at the city, nodded, and in the blink of an eye she regained her composure and nodded back.
He walked to the frozen city gates, a frosted archway lined with runes. Even with as cold as the air was, the gates were colder. Cross wondered who could have constructed something as wondrous as this city, and why. It was born of another world, clearly, but was every structure in that world like this, icy and beautiful, fragile and yet capable of withstanding the test of time? Or had it been something different once, and had it only been given this icy form after The Black? Was it like so many other things that Cross had seen: had it been re-invented after the cataclysm, made into something that bore only a passing resemblance to what it had once been?
Everything is wounded, he thought. Every place that I go, every person or creature that I meet. We're all injuries that have been stitched back together, and now we’re nothing like what we'd once been.
The Black made everything a scar: healed, but imperfect. And as we heal, we change…and not always for the better.
They walked through the city of ice. Ash filled the air like charred snowflakes. The streets were uneven and covered with frost, and everything lay in utter silence. Frozen shadows and icy wind pressed against the seven of them as they crept along. The structures were crudely detailed, caricature renditions of normal buildings. At a glance, Karamanganji could have been an artist's rendition of Thornn, or Ath. The frost glittered like a diamond glaze in the failing arctic light. It would be night soon; the temperature was already dropping.
Cross pulled his armored coat tight against his body, and his spirit folded around him and warmed him with her burning proximity. He knew that she had been cowed and maybe even hurt by Lucan's primordial power. Cross held her close. He was ready to be done with this mission.
They walked on streets of glacial white, and they crossed avenues that had frozen like glittering waves. They walked through shadows made solid with cold.
The two soldiers, Tasker and Daye, were quiet lads who did as they were asked. Cross thought they looked far too young to be soldiers, but he also recalled seeing them there on the ground when the undead horde had made the charge. They’d had their baptism of fire, and they’d stared into the flame. There was no un-seeing what had been seen. Even soldiers who survived something like that died in other ways: even survivors were casualties.
Black, Cole, Kane and Ekko kept their eyes alert and keen. Cross watched behind them, expecting the Sleeper's massive shadow to appear at any moment.
The Bone Towers loomed in the distance. They were pale slivers, stark even in that environ. Thin arrow-slits and frosted windows dotted the strangely angled structures. Dark portals rested at their bases.
