The idea might not be for us to actually survive, Ronan says. They’re probably watching us. This is all probably for their God damn ed amusement.
Then piss on them, Kane says. T he best thing we can do is stay right here.
As if in response, the ground shifts. The ir mountain cracks ope n like melting ice. C hunks of rock fly into the air as the bridge between the towers starts to fall apart. The rail-thin mountain crumble s beneath them. The island shakes and tilts under their feet. A ll three of them fall to their knees. Kane glances up, and notices that the other island remains stable.
Of freakin’ course, he says.
Do you guys ever shut up? Sol growls.
K laxons sound in the Bonespire. Dark fliers take to the air. Kane smells brimstone engines and arcane fuel. The small keep is five — stor ies of smooth black rock dotted with crimson battlements, and it stands just a short distance from the stone bridge. A single door slid es open and releases hulking Doj zombies with putrid grey flesh and hammers in place of hands. An undulating kaithoren — a mass of billowing tentacle flesh and uncertain mouths fill ed with grinding canine teeth — follows the zombies.
The three men run onto the rock bridge, and it falls to pieces behind them as they race for the other side. Kane waits for his feet to fall on open air. Vertigo hazes through his skull, and he expects to be ripped into the void sky at any moment. Everything spins.
T he zombies approach the bridge from the other end. Their monstrous dead forms grow larger by the second.
The mountain falls behind them with the dissonant roar of crashing stone. The y barely make it across. Kane jumps off the crumbling bridge and lands hard on his chest on the opposite ledge. Ronan falls next to him. Sol is the last one to make it, and he jumps f orward and lands on top of both Kane and Ronan, flatte n ing them b eneath his weight.
Get. O ff, Kane coughs.
The Doj zombies draw close. Red sweat pours down Kane’s face as he picks up one of the gauntlets. Hard wind claws at his back. P anic grips his chest as he glances over the edge and sees the blood sky below. Red clouds and shards of derelict rock float like ice in glacial waters.
He looks up. The nearest zombie is practica lly on top of the m. Its putrid skin drips vile grey fluid and worms. M assive neck muscles strain as the zombie raises its rusted hammer fists and clenches its rotted teeth.
He takes a breath. For a moment, Kane is back in the arena. He finds his focus.
H e calmly fixes the gauntlet to the back of his hand and forearm. The device is made of bone and pale metal and easily weighs five pounds. T he short-muzzled firearm consists of three short barrels, and t he ammo belt coils up around his elbow and extends to the mid-point of his upper arm.
Metal clamps snap shut and pierce his skin. T hin needles in the gauntlets send electric jolt s through his body. His flesh tingles, and he feels something shift in his synapses, an understanding of which muscles he has to use in order to activate the weapon.
He tightens the muscles in his arm and fires.
Explosive rounds fly from the weapon with such force he’ s nearly throw n from his feet. The rounds rip into dead flesh and explode. Skin shreds and bursts open in chunks.
The first zombie falls off the top of the mountain. The grotesque corpse tumbles like a flank of flayed meat through the open sky.
Kane growls and shoots again. His arm and side ache from the force of the weapon, but he uses his legs and lower back to keep his body stable as he advances towards the citadel.
He shoots th e next zombie giant in the head. It falls backwards, and its hammer arms flail wildly before the brute rolls down the slop e and plummet s into open air.
The kaithoren is further back, a bulk of flailing shadow limbs and dripping razor beaks. Roiling tentacles launch bone shard projectiles. Kane fills the air between them with gunfire and shatters the organic missiles before they can reach him.
A tentacle reaches for him, but he blasts it apart. The kaithoren roars through the air l ike a wall of kamikaze slime. Kane throws himself prone.
Machine-gun fire sounds over his head. S hells clank to the earth behind him. Ronan and Sol wear gun- gauntlets and flak vests. Their bullets tear into the kaithoren and drive it back. P utrid emerald slime sizzl es on the dark ground.
Kane lif ts himself up. Ronan hands him a saber. He runs forward with the weapon and slice s open the kaithoren’s suddenly exposed undead heart, a mass of fibrous tissue the color of old meat. It’ s the only solid thing about the c reature, an unholy core that holds the rest of the abomination together. Kane strikes at the stillborn mass and cleaves it in two. R ed ichor s explode outwards as the kaithoren squeals and melts to the ground.
Streams of red-brown ooze stain his face and stick to his skin like clumps of putrid mud. His nose is filled with the stench of animal rot.
This sucks.
Ronan hands him a flak vest, which he hastily puts on. It’ s too big at first, but a fter he buckles the vest in place it automatically resizes itself.
The sky grow s darker. T he fliers h ang back in the air, a host of gargoyles armed with nets and axes.
He checks his ammo, and realizes the weapon has reloaded itself.
Well that’s handy. I guess t his hasn’t been too difficult, Kane says.
The gates to the citadel open again, and a Creed of vampires emerges. They wear blue-black armor with bladed epaulets and yield smoking hand-cannons and pikes. Their greasy pale skin shines dull y in the autumnal light. D ark hair is pulled back in severe top-knots. Fangs glisten and drool with anticipation.
The hollow tower behind them is a shaft of red fog and black steel filled with equipment and machinery parts. More undead wait inside.
The gargoyle s descend and move to flank the three men, while the Creed advances on their position.
Ronan gives Kane an angry look.
Don’t say it, Kane says.
They battle their way through the citadel.
His arms grow weak from shooting the wrist-cannon and swinging the saber. Ronan and Sol fight beside him. They t ear thr ough red armor and black fliers and scorch the air with metal, fire and blood.
The vampires never stop coming.
Even after the first Creed falls, another emerges from deep er with in the Citadel. Not all of the undead in the Bonespire are soldiers — they fight wight technicians and zombie surgeons, skeletal laborers and ghoul messengers, hulking mountains of zombie flesh meant to carry large loads. Only the vampires are meant for combat, but they still j oin in the attempt to throw back the three-man assault.
The gargoyles, also, come at them in seemingly unending waves. The me n tear the air apart with thaumaturgic ammo. T hey shoot and cut down silhou ette fliers and send bloody bodies crashing to the ground.
They battle half- automaton flesh walkers, monstrosities of ebon iron fused to patchwork assemblies of smoking skin. Dozens of eyes leer at Kane as he ducks beneath steam-driven hammers and blasts through limb joints to topple the golem s.
P oisonous air fills the inside of the citadel, making t heir lungs burn and their eyes sting.
A vampire armed with twin blades descends upon them from the height of the tower, an unseen void of shadow over their heads. This undead is some sort of champion, a leader accompanied by two more red-armored vampire fiends with dark hair and iron fangs. Their e yes are hidden behind thick goggles, and they wear twisted tattoos on their dead flesh.
Z ombies pour out of vents in the floor and emerge from hidden storehouse s of mutated skin.
Kane feels superhuman. He is more in th at shadow world, better, stronger. He senses an arcane presence in him and around him, some subtle augmentation that not only allows him to breathe and exist in an environment that by all rights should be caustic to humans, but to excel in it.
It occurs to him this is what the Grey Clan did to them on the ship: prepared them for battle on this dread world of shadows.
The melee is a blur of motion and noise. E verything becomes instinct and reaction. Years spent in gladiator
