Moments later, a Sorn crashed through the walls of the building Cross was hiding in. The Sorn had suffered a gaping blade wound in its stomach, but it still yielded an enormous axe made of black steel in its gauntleted hands. Its single eye glared at Cross. Cross saw his battered and bruised reflection stare back at him.
Cross leapt back. He let his spirit explode away from him, and a battery of razor sharp stones curled up and shredded the Sorn’s face, ruining the massive eye. Even blinded the Sorn was relentless, and its axe-blade sank into the ground less than a foot from where Cross stood. Cross moved his hands in a slicing motion, and his spirit curled like a moonlit razor and cut clean through the Sorn’s throat, spilling a rain of purple blood.
One wall of the building collapsed, and what was left of the roof came down like oversized chunks of hail.
Cross ran for the square.
A Sorn stormed after him with a wide-muzzled and cannon-like weapon connected to its backpack with tubes and wires. The weapon growled like a locomotive as it fired nails the size of railroad spikes. Chunks of wood and stone were everywhere. Cross fled, trailed by a barrage of projectiles.
He ran through the field of bodies. His spirit was shrouded around him. Dead eyes stared at him from mattress-like piles of corpses. He brushed against cold hands and rotting feet. Cross heard the chaos of the battle: the mini-gun’s rapport, heavy mortar shots, the crackle of evil magic.
He was suddenly lost. He kept his spirit at hand, felt her excitement and fear burn cold against his skin. Cross tried to get his bearings.
He rounded a corner in the maze of the dead, and found himself thirty yards away and face-to-face with another Sorn. The stoic brute was armed with a broadsword in one hand and a pipe bomb the size of a watermelon in the other. Cross heard the dull hum of a metallic dirigible in the air behind him.
The Black Egg.
Its shadow loomed over him, and he saw the great orb reflected in the Sorn’s hateful stare. Cross pushed his spirit away in an eldritch wave. She melted into a tidal force of incandescent energy that flared like a jet of molten fuel. The pyromancy leapt off the ground and into the Sorn, setting its body ablaze. Even dying, the creature remained silent. It threw the bomb.
Cross ran. The heavy roar of the Egg’s chain guns and chemical charges filled his ears. The air tasted hot as exhaust from the Egg’s turbines washed over the ground like a blast of desert wind. The pipe bomb soared over his head. Cross heard it bounce against the Egg’s outer hull with a thud.
The force of the explosion threw Cross forward. He hung weightless for a moment, flying through air filled with shattered steel. Sharp pain drove through his body as he landed.
He was on his back. The air had been knocked from his lungs. He felt deflated.
The bomb had detonated behind him. He felt shrapnel in his back.
Still struggling for breath, Cross tried to rise, but he didn’t have the strength. His ears rang. Gory chunks of exploded corpse bits were everywhere.
The Egg was damaged, but not destroyed. Thick black smoke churned from a visible rent near the top of the machine, and a few metal plates burned and dangled from the sphere. Cross saw ancient gear works and broken tubes that dripped dark fluid through the damaged hull. The Egg listed to its left, incapable of properly maneuvering or lifting as high as it had before.
Damaged or no, the Egg bore down on him. It was as big as a wagon. It drew within a few yards before Cross got his exhausted legs beneath him and ran.
The Egg strafed the earth with small rotating guns built into its underbelly. Fist-sized bullets shredded the ground.
Cross moved as fast as he could. His chest pounded. He ran without any idea of where he was going. He heard the Egg closing in.
He saw Cristena at the end of the row. Her leg seemed to be injured, and she hobbled along. She didn’t see him, just as she didn’t see the Sorn that rushed at her from behind. Its great blade was held high to deliver a killing blow.
“ Cristena!” Cross shouted.
She looked up, surprised. Cross dove forward and sent his spirit ahead of him as a missile of pure force. He landed hard on the ground. The arcane bolt took both of the Sorn’s legs off at the knees in a splatter of purple blood, and the giant fell, soundlessly.
The Egg kept firing. Massive rounds soared over Cross and found Cristena. Blood exploded out of her back. She fell in a crumpled heap.
Cross turned, screaming. He held his fists in the air, and with a breath his spirit exploded away from his hands in a white maelstrom. The blast scorched his eyes and boiled his blood. Cross felt himself smolder. His soul burned and smoked.
A phalanx of hot razors converged on the damaged Egg, and they struck through the rent in the weakened hull. White fire flashed in a destructive corona. Cross was thrown backwards as shards of flaming metal flew from the explosion. The wind smelled of molten steel. The shriek of blasted metal deafened him.
Cross lay on his back for a long time, barely conscious. There was no more gun fire, no more sounds of fighting at all. He looked up into the blackened sky, which seemed impossibly vast and deep. He could have fallen up into it.
Cross rose, slowly. His body was wracked with pain. He’d been burned and badly bruised, but he was alive. He felt his spirit, soft and weak, clinging to him, but she was there. They were both there.
Easy, he thought. Easy.
Cristena.
He looked to where she fell, and slowly moved towards her. She’d warned them of the futility of their revenge.
After wanting so much not to come with them, not wanting to be involved…not wanting, even, to die a meaningful death, but instead to waste herself in the pits as just another anonymous gladiator in the lurid history of Dirge’s criminal sports…
She didn’t have to die. This isn’t what was supposed to happen. She was supposed to be here, I know it.
None of that mattered now.
Cross’ legs burned with every step. He only made it a few feet when an injured Sorn appeared from around the bend. One hand clung to a gaping wound in its chest, while the other gripped a wide-bored pistol with rotating barrels the size of pipes. The Sorn blinked its one eye, and its expressionless face regarded Cross for a moment before it took aim. Cross braced himself, knowing he was about to die.
I’m sorry.
“ Hey! Tough guy!”
The giant turned to face the voice. Graves came out of the shadows. The M203 belched out a grenade with a hollow thud. The shot took the Sorn in the chest and tore straight through its armor with a noisy explosion.
The Sorn fell backwards and fired its weapon as it died. The shot slammed into Graves and snapped his body backwards.
Cross screamed so loud his throat nearly tore.
He left the Sorn and Cristena behind him and ran as fast as his failing legs would carry him. He nearly passed out.
“ SAAAAAM!!!”
The enormous bullet had blasted off most of Graves’ face. Bits of his jawbone and ruined tongue were just visible in the bloody mess. Cross put a hand on his friend’s arm and doubled over, sick.
He didn’t move for a long time. If there were more Sorn there in Rhaine, he hoped they’d just find him and finish him off.
Later, sometime near dawn, Cross left Graves and Cristena and went and found Stone. As he’d guessed, Stone was also dead, having been cut down by Sorn gunfire. He hadn’t left without giving them the proverbial fight. No fewer than four dead Sorn were near Stone’s body, each of them torn to ribbons by mini-gun fire, small explosions or sliced open by Stone’s black-bladed kukri. It was remarkable he’d lived long enough to do such damage. Cross could only barely recognize the body.
Cross stood at the edge of the Rift and stared out across the long and rickety bridge. Thick grey fumes floated in the depths of the canyon, a rich and poison fog. Strange shadows hovered there like drowning birds. Dismal calls echoed from the depths. The walls of the Rift were jagged and impossibly tall.