“ What, you mean before The Black?” Cross asked.
“ Yeah.”
“ Not really,” Cross said after he thought about it for a moment. “I was so young…five, maybe six when it happened.” He looked at Graves. “Same with you, right?”
“ Yeah.” Graves looked out into the dark, his face half lit by firelight. “But I remember a lot, actually. I remember my dad pushing me on the swing. I remember sunlight that didn’t look all bloody.” He spat on the ground. “I wish I didn’t remember. I wish I had no idea. Then maybe I wouldn’t know how shitty this all is, because I’d have nothing to compare it to.”
“ Sam…”
“ Don’t worry about it,” Graves said. “I’m fine, and I’m going to do my job. We’re going to find that bitch Red, and we’re going to make her pay for what she’s done.” He looked up at Cross. There was something cold behind his eyes. “We’ll do it for Morg, and for Kray, and for Winter. And we’ll get your sister, and we’ll take her home.”
Cross nodded.
“ I’ve got your back, man,” he said. He offered Graves his good hand. “Thanks for everything.” Graves shook it.
“ All right,” he said, “enough of this male bonding crap. Get some sleep. You’re on watch in four.”
Cross sat quietly through his shift. His eyes were alight with white shadows. The gossamer threads of his spirit danced around him in a nimbus of spectral strands. She stayed anchored at the corner of his mind, poised and dangling in the thick gloom of the dead night. Cross watched the stillness of the plains, and stretched his arcane senses out across the deepness of the wastes.
Something was wrong. There was something broken, something out of place.
That sense of wrongness nagged at him all the next morning as they marched northeast, out of the hills and into the deep northern tundra. They were out of the Bone March now, nearing the most northern areas ever explored by the Southern Claw. Patches of frozen moss and blue-black lichen stood in shallow pools of briny slush and icy reeds. The deep red sky hung low and oppressive, and the air was bitter, sharp and cold.
The earth seemed to be made of rust. The squad walked across the tundra, following trails of vaporous red clouds that stained the sky. They passed by drifts of great spider silk and sinkholes of frozen mud. Black pits of congealed tar lay like great footsteps to the southeast. Ahead, still at a good distance but so massive it was impossible not to notice, was the Carrion Rift, a cold black cut in the land. The entire landscape seemed to drift ever closer to the Rift, as if the ground were sinking toward it. Even at that distance the squad heard the black hounds in the Rift, its eternal prisoners. Their mournful brays carried in the dead wind.
The squad spoke only sparingly. Graves and Stone had their weapons at the ready. Their eyes were constantly alert, as they expected to be ambushed at any moment. Cross kept his spirit at the edge of his thoughts, tethered to his consciousness by an emotive line, just far enough out that she could sense if anything approached. His legs ached, and he knew there had to be at least a few blisters on his weary feet. Cold sweat dampened the shirt beneath his armored jacket. They hadn’t rested for quite some time, and they wouldn’t until they found some sort of cover from both the bitter air and from any prying eyes.
The tundra eventually gave way to cracked hills and rocky ridges of sharp stone. The path grew steep enough that even the camel seemed to complain by its reluctance to carry on.
It was just past noon when they stumbled on the first signs of slaughter. Thin lines of dirty grey smoke spiraled out of the nadir of a low canyon to the north. Cross’ eyes followed the winding plumes down to the canyon floor. The amount of debris and carnage thickened closer to the source of the smoke: a smoldering husk of shattered trucks positioned in a crude defensive circle. Black stains marred the ground around the broken perimeter of vehicles, and as the wind shifted in their direction Cross gagged on the charnel musk.
Despite their misgivings, the group investigated. Cross’ eyes and spirit were alert as they walked into the canyon. The walls down there were jagged and deep, and every cleft of rock was filled with shadow.
The bodies were at least two days dead, most of them horribly burned. There were too many to count, and Cross didn’t care to try. He pulled his spirit in as close as he could to keep her shielded away from the worst of that deathly air.
There were no barriers between arcane spirits and the spirits of the recently dead. To Cross and Cristena’s spirits, those dead souls in the canyon were like a pack of rabid wolves, just waiting for an opportunity to maul intruders that dared venture into their territory. Even with his spirit safely hidden behind every safeguard that he could muster, Cross felt the pain of those lost in the doomed caravan. He heard the haunted dirge and felt the stirring of the unquiet dead, forever trapped in a nightmare of their own demise.
“ Settlers,” Stone concluded. “Probably bound for Rhaine.”
“ Settlers, this far north?” Graves asked. “I’m surprised anyone would want to come this deep into dangerous territory.”
“ There’s still unclaimed land up here,” Cristena said, clearly as uncomfortable in that butcher’s yard as Cross was. “Not everyone wants to be a part of the Southern Claw, and most of the good land south of here is claimed. Plus there aren’t many vampires this close to the Rift.”
“ Well, there’s something up here,” Cross whispered.
They searched the field of ashen bodies and open vehicles. There was scattered bedding, crockery, open bags of seed, grain and rations, tools broken apart and scatted by the chill valley winds.
While most of the bodies had been burned, it didn’t take long for the squad to realize that fire wasn't what had killed those people. Skulls had been smashed in by hammer and boot, and a number of bodies north of the truck circle had been impaled on oversized barbed spears. Gaping bullet wounds were visible on many of the less burned corpses, and the holes left were far too big to be the handiwork of human weapons.
“ Shit,” Graves said. “Sorn.”
“ Yeah,” Stone said. He looked at the rest of them. “Only a large group would have been able to tackle a caravan this size. And I guarantee you there is no way that a Sorn raiding party would pass up a target as tempting as a remote human city. Not a chance.”
“ We have to warn them,” Cross said. “We have to get to Rhaine, and warn them.” Everyone looked at him uneasily. He expected Stone to say something about how that wasn’t their mission, or how it was probably already too late. Instead, Stone looked at each of them in turn, finishing with Cross.
“ All right. Let’s go.”
NINETEEN
The remainder of the trek to Rhaine was grim.
The air turned greyer the further they walked. Cross’ eyes hurt, and he almost fell asleep while they marched. Only his spirit’s anxiousness kept him conscious. Dread built up deep in his chest, as strong and as heavy as if he’d swallowed a chunk of lead.
To a mage, being near death was like walking through a freezing waterfall. There was no mistaking its presence, and Cross had to constantly hold his spirit close and anchor her to his will. Otherwise, she might be drawn out and ambushed by free-roaming ghosts, or else so distracted by the deadly lull of lost souls that she’d never be able to return to him.
The task of keeping her contained grew more difficult the further they went. The squad passed the ruined remains of a remote cabin, once the property of a trapper or a mountain seer, which had been partially crushed beneath some great concussive force. Bone weary and on edge, they passed through a field of dark soil, and while both Cross and Cristena felt the proximity of death they still managed to slosh halfway across the field before they noticed a pale arm that jutted out of the loamy earth. Their boots sank in thin pools of blood that were just beneath the surface, and soon they were ankle deep in crimson slush.