“
He's coming with us,” Cross said, as loud and as authoritative as he could. He felt cold inside. There was a hollow space where something important used to be, something that would keep him from killing Black in spite of how important he knew she was.
No. Focus
.
“
Give me one reason,” Kane said, “why I shouldn't hollow out his skull and use it for a piss pot.”
Ramsey laughed.
“
Well, you're creative, at least,” he said.
Black scowled, and closed her fist. An incandescent blade of shimmering dark glass took shape in her hand, so sharp it made the air bleed.
“
No,” Cross said. He didn't recall picking up the triple-barrel shotgun, but he felt its weight in his hand, felt his finger longingly stroke the trigger. “He's coming with us.”
Black kept her eyes on Ramsey. The Gol hadn't moved – he just stood there with his face covered, his tattered cloak blowing in the bladed wind, his milky eyes regarding them without a hint of emotion.
“
And who put you in charge?” she asked Cross.
“
I
did,” he said. “And for one simple reason: unlike you and Kane, I’ve left the arena behind.”
Both Black and Kane looked at him. He saw the confusion in their eyes, the rage. He saw them desperately try to reconstruct the past few weeks, to try to discern truth from nightmare, to try and remember all of the lives they'd taken and the terrible and violent things they'd done just to stay alive. Just as quickly as they seemed to remember, he saw them want to forget.
“
Tega Ramsey is the only reason we're getting out of here at all,” Cross said. Ramsey nodded. “What about the other prisoners?” Cross asked him. “The inmates held in the city?”
Ramsey shook his head.
“
Dead,” he answered.
“
All of them?”
“
Krul protocol,” Ramsey said after a moment, as if weighing whether or not he wanted to share it. “In the event of any sort of incursion or disaster, all cells are summarily filled with neurotoxin. It happens automatically, and without question. Chances are that most of them were dead before you even made it off of that platform.”
“
Wait,” Black said. “That…thing was disrupting everything mechanical. Maybe not all of the gas was released.”
“
In which case those prisoners were let loose into the lowest bowels of the city, where the sentries and golems would destroy them.” He shook his head. “And that’s not even taking into consideration the poison gases floating around in the alleys and lower streets. There may be a few scattered survivors here and there, but you have to ask yourself if they’re worth looking for.”
“
Look,” Cross said. “Maybe…”
A sharp blast of wind cut through the air behind them as a bladed warship rose up out of nowhere. Its turbine engines screamed as their exhaust distorted the air and turned it molten. Bone cannons mounted on the blood-colored forward deck sprayed the air with explosive white needles.
Sparks and bone exploded across the face of the platform. The sound of steel filled Cross' head. Debris flew into his face as he dove through a cloud of choking exhaust and heat.
The maimed man was torn to pieces by the vampire ship’s weapons.
Cross screamed. He tasted hex and glacial salt seconds before Black hurled her sword through the air. Bone needles shattered the blade and turned it to glass, but the resultant explosion sent fragments of onyx dust that flew like a swarm of razor bees. The cloud flew into the vampire vessel and buried it in sharp black sand. The turbine engines sputtered.
Cross took hold of the motor gun on the hovercraft, swiveled the weapon around, and opened fire. The blasts nearly shattered his eardrums, but Cross narrowed his eyes and held the wildly bucking weapon steady. Shots as large as railroad spikes ripped through metal and undead flesh. The weapon shredded the vampire ship into pieces. The vessel listed to its side and spun out of control before it fell into the clouds and shadows below.
Not far away, more ships and fliers took notice.
“
Can we leave
now
?!” Kane shouted.
Ramsey left no question as to which of the two vessels under repair they should take when he darted past everyone and into the closer airship, a squat vehicle the color of sand. The ship had large turbines at its aft, and large motor cannons at the fore and in a top-mounted turret. The craft’s size identified it as some sort of cargo vessel, but its sleek design seemed more inclined for speed.
Either way, Cross and the others got aboard.
The interior of the vessel was made from twisted and sinuous metal cast in a variety of desert hues. Dark and vaguely organic panels housed wiring that looked like massive tube-worms filled with crackling fluid. The vessel smelled of arsenic and sumac.
Cross instinctively threw a hand against a dark panel on the wall that looked like a black vomit stain. Sharp pain lanced into his hand, but the rear doors slid shut.
The ship was a single open area. There were small alcoves on the starboard and port walls, while the fore and aft sections respectively housed the cockpit and the rear doors. Each alcove looked barely big enough to squeeze a child into.
The ship rumbled. Ekko was already in the pilot's seat, a massive and bizarrely curved chair that bore an incredibly low back, preposterously high arm-rests and a number of frightening-looking spiked protrusions that hooked to a network of translucent tubes. Those tubes, in turn, ran all throughout the claustrophobic cockpit. The rest of the interior of the ship was long and low, with only a single yellow window covered in what looked to be a century's worth of oil, dirt and slime.
“
Can you fly this thing?” he asked.
Yes
, she answered wordlessly.
I was raised by a pilot
.
“
Of course she can!” Kane yelled. “She was...”
“
Raised by a pilot. I got it.”
Kane gave him a confused look. Black had Ekko and the child pushed against the port wall. There were no visible seatbelts, or even actual seats, just areas where the metal curved slightly. Cole had the boy in a protective grip, and they clung to the wall as best they could. Ramsey ran to the front and pointed out what controls and readings Ekko would need.
They heard an impact blast hit somewhere outside of the ship's thick metal walls. The vessel lurched sideways at least six inches as part of the platform exploded.
“
Let's go!” Cross shouted. A second blast rattled the ship and knocked Cross to the ground. The turbine engines roared to life. The walls groaned.
Cross could tell when the vessel took to the air by the sudden sense of weightlessness. It had been a while since he'd been in an airship, to the point where he’d actually forgotten how much he despised flying. He felt like he was stuck in the act of falling even with steel all around him.
The scream of incendiary weapons passed behind and beneath them. He felt heat through the walls.
“
Shit!” Kane yelled. He stood right behind Ekko and Ramsey in the smell cockpit area. “Watch out for the Razorwing, babe!”
“
Will you sit down?!” Black shouted.
The vessel lurched and turned. There was a dull thud and the sound of cracked glass. The window was covered with a radial crack that spread like a spider's web.
“
Cross…man the damned guns!” Ramsey shouted.
The vessel had guns at the fore – massive twin motorguns operated by the pilot – and a rotating turret on top, which required a gunner. Cross climbed into the portside alcove that, so far as he knew, was where he needed to be. The space was claustrophobic and uncomfortable, and he was sure he'd pulled at least one muscle before he finally managed to get inside.
The console, just like the pilot's cockpit, lacked any discernible handle or trigger – there was just a short pillar, about eight inches high, which glowed with Jlantrian runes. Those runes hummed when Cross brought his hands close to them. The alcove had no window, no monitor, and no way to see the outside of the vessel.
What the hell
?
Cross took a breath. His spirit curled around him and filled his lungs with frozen vapor. He focused on the stone. The confined space of the alcove squeezed in on him. His eyes locked on the runes.
He felt another whisper, a deep-throated growl somewhere between a wolf and a saw mill. His vision bled. He stared into the heart of a tornado.
Cross touched the pillar, and was ripped out of his body.
He sees the ship fly through a maelstrom of clouds. Arcs of black lightning lick against the hull as it moves over Krul's outer walls. Flying obsidian mines turn the air to fire, and lances of sound launch from Krul’s outer defenses. He feels his shoulders ram against the alcove compartment as the ship rocks from the force of explosions 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.”