Across the canyon waited a dismal wasteland of cold steam and black hills. That bridge might as well have led through to another world. No reliable data of what lay on the other side of the Carrion Rift had ever been gathered.
Some movement from behind him caught Cross’ eye. A pale spider crawled across the ground, separated, it seemed, from the destruction all around it. It scuttled off into the shadows.
The camel found him later. It had wandered through the city, carefully avoiding the flames. Now it stood nearby, waiting. It knew they weren’t done.
But I am, Cross thought. I’m done.
No, she says, a voice from the edge of the glade. Will you let it end like this? Will they die in vain?
We all do, he replies. Each and every one of us.
And yet…
And yet there he was.
He would not leave this unfinished. He felt hollow inside, broken, and exhausted beyond measure, but he was alive, and their mission was now his burden alone to carry.
He decided, right then and there, that he would carry it.
PART FIVE
TWENTY
Cross and his last remaining companion crossed the bridge, and entered a dead land.
Blue-gray fog enshrouded everything. The land on the other side of the Rift was thick black mud interrupted by occasional islands of dry earth. Deep saltwater marsh and bubbling pools of acrid slime made walking a chore, and before Cross and the camel had marched for even a few minutes they were both covered up to their knees in sludge. The air was bitterly cold and icy, and their breath hung heavy in the air.
There were spirit voices in the fog there on the other side of the Carrion Rift, more than Cross had ever heard in any one place before, but they were surprisingly passive. They moaned like lost children, confused and frightened.
The camel trudged on behind him, slow but stable. Cross spoke to the pack animal in a reassuring manner from time to time, his voice alien in the silence, but he was just happy to have someone to talk to.
“ We’re doing well,” he told it. “We’re doing just fine.”
Cross wasn’t exactly sure where they were headed. The map he’d translated put Koth’s location somewhere in the area just north of the Carrion Rift, but that was as specific as it got. They’d come to where the map had told them to go.
Now, he felt as if he were nowhere. They seemed to have reached the end of the earth.
Cross saw signs of lost civilization in the form of baskets set out on the ground at irregular intervals. The baskets had been filled with bones. Cross decided not to investigate them.
They rested often. Something about that place seemed to drain his strength, and Cross sensed the same in the camel. The squad had kept most of their supplies on the pack beast, which meant that Cross now had little need to worry about rations or fresh water. He wanted desperately to start a camp fire, but for some reason he doubted that was a wise idea.
The air was sullen and grey. Cross heard insects buzz through the air, and the occasional call of a distant bird. There was no breeze. It felt as if the world had paused, frozen.
They continued north, or so he hoped. It was difficult to tell in that endless fog, and he’d lost his compass somewhere back in Rhaine. Cross quickly lost track of time. It was difficult to measure the hours, or even the day, when the dull grey light never changed.
Trenches appeared in the landscape, deep enough and wide enough that Cross and the camel could fit down into them. Cross decided against using them at first. After a while, however, there were so many trenches it became challenging to navigate around them. The higher ground became a maze of ridiculously thin earthen paths.
Cross succumbed, and he led the camel down a gentle slope. The ground down in the trenches was even muddier than the higher ground, and soon they sloshed through ankle-deep water turned red-brown from sediment and rust.
All the while, the spirits passed around them at a distance, curious, watching. Cross kept his own spirit close, for fear she’d be drawn away by these others.
“ I’m not going to name you,” he told the camel some time later.
Cross’ body had grown bone weary. He was wet and cold, and the wrist of his left hand itched terribly inside the gauntlet. The air felt sick, and he felt constantly fatigued no matter how much or how little they rested. Still, he refused to stop for any extended period, sensing it was dangerous to do so in a place that already robbed them of so much of their strength. He was afraid to sleep in that undead land.
“ I’ve never named my spirit, either. Things that I name tend not to last very long.”
He wondered how Cristena’s spirit had endured her death. He’d heard the spirit’s pain and rage when she’d died. Cross had half expected the spirit to follow him, if it was able. For all he knew its voice was mingled with the other whispers now, just a part of the ghostly choir that drifted through the mist.
They walked on through the mud, endlessly. He knew they had to stop eventually. They’d have to sleep.
Where is he? Cross wondered. Where is the Old One? Where is Koth?
Where’s Red?
“ Here.”
He stopped.
They were no longer in the trenches. And it was no longer they, but he.
Cross stood alone in the fog, ankle deep in brackish water. A tall, red-headed woman stood before him, her body wrapped in a tattered black cloak and a dark riding skirt. Her eyes were large and expressive and as blue as sapphires. Her long hair hung loose, and a long braid of strands dyed coal black dangled down one side of her face. She wore leather gauntlets set with metal studs, and her feet were bound in tall black boots covered with mud. Her beautiful face bore a perfect and happy smile, like she greeted an old friend.
“ Bitch!” he shouted.
Cross didn’t hesitate. He called his spirit up to form an eldritch shield, and breathed her into a lance of ice…
Nothing happened. His spirit was gone. Again.
Oh, no…how?…
“ She’s fine,” Red said. She made a sweeping gesture, and the fog burned away. A flowing stream of water ran cold against Cross’ booted feet. Ice-laden leaves fell from the wet canopy of trees. The dark mountain loomed over them, an edifice of the past.
“ I’m dead,” Cross said aloud. Red laughed. “Or not.” He thought. “Asleep.”
“ Unconscious,” she corrected with a smile. “But I like that you immediately assumed the worst.”
“ Go to hell.”
“ Drop the tough guy act,” she said patiently. “You’re not Graves, and you’re not Stone. You’re not even Cristena. She had more balls than you do.”
“ What do you want?” he asked. Dream or not, his flesh felt frozen as he stood there in the icy stream. His gut churned. He knew how powerful Red was in real life. He had no idea what she was capable of there, wherever they were.
“ I wanted to meet you,” she smiled. “The best way to do it seemed to be to approach you when you couldn’t do anything foolish.”
“ So you waited until I fell asleep?”
“ I put you to sleep. It wasn’t hard. Even if you hadn’t been completely exhausted — which you were — the Carnivore Mists would have worn you down eventually.”
“ So what’s become of my body?”
“ We’ll get to that,” she smiled. Cross could see how men found Red attractive: she had smooth skin and a voluptuous frame, her voice was seductive and she was surrounded by an air of authority. He, personally, found her loathsome, full of false confidence and empty charm. “You know,” she said, “I may not be able to read your thoughts, but I can sense your emotions.”
“ Good for you,” Cross said. He did his best to focus his mind, to keep it clear and on the moment. “So, here we are in a dream. What now?”