He stares back at that twisted triple angel, that masochistic altar of vampire pain. He is dwarfed by its presence. G lacial smoke billow s from between its curved fangs and its molten seductive smiles. He breathes it in, and it soils his soul.
They walk through fields cleared of trees, over ground packed with clay and low mounds of rock and bone. He doesn’t remember leaving the shrine.
The two natives are with him. He doesn’t know their names, isn’t sure if they even recall the concept of names. Both wear primitive battle dress, armor made from the carapaces of shadow insects and bladed gauntlets carved from bone and steel. O ne wears a helmet made from some sort of longhorn’s skull, and t he other wields a tall staff adorned with dark skins and sharp edge s.
He’ s safe with them. They search, either for something in the Shadow Lord’s possession or something else that is located near their stronghold, the Black Citadel. The Citadel lies near a place called the City of Thorns, where these shadow beings are taking him. They believe he can help them somehow.
H e has become a part of some sort of shadow rebellion. H e is allied with the se shadow people, who search for the means to oust their oppressors. He has been caught up in the politics of the damned.
We can be more.
They walk through shadow- soul fields and past towers of crumbling iron. The patchwork landscape is a conglomeration of detritus sucked in from other worlds and drenched in darkness.
Flames send pale smoke into the sky. The fires form spot s of light in the perpetual dark.
The y pass the burned homes of shadow villages, haphazard settlements littered with the corroded remains of dust corpses. He smells cooked meat and vehicle fuel. Ashen remains drift in the air and land on his tongue.
If his escorts feel any sorrow for the carnage they witness, he can’t see it. Their grim visages remain unchanged, caricatures of human faces.
We search, one of the natives says. It ’ s been some time since they spoke. Their voices are utterly foreign and false, as if spoken by an automaton, but there is a soul buried somewhere deep inside, some semblance of the creatures they once were.
The details of his f ormer life gro w hazier by the day. They are more like dr eams now than memories, distant and hard to recollect. He holds on to j ust a few vivid details, and with every step more of th em fade away.
What do you search for? h e asks.
The stone, they say. The stone, and the door.
He fears that’ s supposed to make sense to him. It doesn’t, at least not in this world, or in this life.
O thers join them, natives with skin so dark they resemble walking carbon silhouettes.
There are only a few of them at first. A ll of them are attired like his two escorts, who he’s come to call Bull-Horns and Longspear. The new arrivals also wear battle-dress, and each of them maintains at least one article of armor or weaponry or clothing that sets them apart from the others. One yields a bone-white ceramic sword; another wears a steel helmet with no eye- slits; one holds a crescent axe in each hand; and yet another carries a dented iron shield with a skull emblazoned on its face. He doesn’t know if they do this for his sake, or for their own.
Soon they are a dozen, then two dozen. They march across the Whisperlands in near silence. The black wind comes, hard and cold and filled with particles of sharp dust. The air smell s of toxins and industrial waste. Blood smoke fills the sky.
Th e y march through barren fields, towards a fast-flowing black river. W reckage and war waste litters the path. The y see the s moking husks of burning homes and the opened c orpses of elephantine beasts. The e arth has been broken apart by cannon fire, and the fields are covered with poison fumes so dense they will never dissipate. There are d eep trenches where bone crafts fe ll from the sky. P iles of black corpses have nearly moldered to dust, and f lecks of collapsing bodies pull away in the wind.
We search, Bull-Horns says again, and all he can do is nod. His body aches with fatigue, his legs are weary, and worry gnaws at his gut. We search.
I know.
They come to the dark river. Bony refuse floats on the surface, and h e sees the outlines of beasts swim ming below. The river stands between the m and the base of a wide path that cuts its way through an imposing onyx cliff several hundred feet high. The path is difficult to see in the darkness, but it’ s been marked with the pale bones of massive creatures.
The shadow soldiers prepare for battle. They move towards a wide platform made of wood and steel, a c raft hooked to a thick chain that stretches across the river and is attached to pillars of cold iron on the opposing shores. Arcane r unes and sigils cover the chain and the barge. The vessel isn’ t large enough for even half of the shadow warriors.
They’re not coming.
After a moment, he understands why.
The Shadow Lords haven’ t left the entrance to their inner realm unguarded. Dark fliers take shape in the sky, human bats and draconic beings, things without form, nightmare avians. More shapes approach on the ground, humanoids that look like the arcane natives, only these enemy creatures wear human skins and ride bastard conveyances of living flesh and shadow matter, dark iron armor grafted to unstable reptile skin. The small legion appears from nowhere and moves with startling speed.
The black air comes alive. He doesn’t even see the battle begin. B odies fly into one another, shadow vapors and steel. The combatants are voiceless in their conflict. Metal explodes against metal and bodies explode like sacks of gel. Razor-white blades shear away limbs. Dark blood smears across the ground.
He watches in horror, but he’ s held back and hedged towards the barge. His allies restrain him, and they prevent him from tak ing part in the strife. Shadow limbs push and shove him along. His vision goes dizzy as he ’ s forced forward.
Fliers descend. They fall in an aerial wave. They fill the crimson sky with the sound of beating wings.
Blood rains down. The sound of ripping fill s his head. There are no shouts or screams, but he hears bodies torn apart in the razor storm. The ground gr ows thick with ruined corpses.
He stumbles, dizzy, his blade held ready. T he swarm of fliers launches down, and h is allies push him to the ground.
Blood pounds in his ears. His body aches. Dark fluid burns his eyes. Stone grates against his knees. Something hauls him to his feet.
White m issiles explode in mid-air and fan out like webs of steel rain. Behemoth hooves stamp s hadow corpses into paste. He swims through a sea of sand and blood.
Bodies fall into the water, where t hey’ re consumed by the ripping tides. B one fish and serpent limbs drag them under.
He can’t tell the combatants apart in all of the chaos. He swings at whatever come s close and threaten s him. He hopes he isn’t hurting his allies.
He’ s on the barge. He barely re member s getting there.
Bull-Horns and Longspear are with him. T hey toss the dark mooring rope ashore and push the heavy vehicle into the waters. The chain guides them across.
A feeding frenzy takes plac e just beyond their feet. Moon- pale fish with black eyes and knife teeth chew their way through dark bodies. Corpses come apart and drift like putty to the surface. Black water splashes on to his face.
An explosion shakes the barge, and he falls. Fliers descend, but they ’ re forced away by Bull-Horns and Longspear. He joins them in battle. His blade carves through shadow flesh and spills silver blood that s izzles o n the deck. Ozone and acid fill his nostrils. His arms grow sore as he saws back and forth and cuts through relentless waves of misshapen bat-like creatures with human faces and long prehensile tails capped with quivering hooks. He sees eyes, deep and cold and black, shards of ice encased in dark flesh.
His arm is wounded. He bleeds shadow bile that freezes against his sk in. Pain blazes from the cut. His skin is overtaken with cold.
Bull-Horns is ripped from the vessel and thrown into the water. The body thrashes before it’ s snapped up in the jaws of an oil-skinned marauder, a shark-creature with a pulsating orifice mouth. Bull-Horns vanishes underwater.
