He sees Snow, burning in the train.
You failed to save her. Don’t fail again
.
His opponent was the Regost, which didn't surprise him. Only it or the Vuul would provide an adequate challenge to a mage, due to their innate resistance to magic. The Regost – the Hollow Men – were husks of humanoid bodies possessed by angry spectral beings that existed only as vapor, and who were forced to possess flesh automatons constructed in the strange factories they controlled at the bottom of the Ebonsand Sea. This figure was seven feet tall and sheathed in dark leather armor covered with metal plates positioned to protect the weaker joint areas. The Regost bodies would lose audio input from a strike to the head, but the hosts were more concerned with guarding the mobility of their flesh vessels, as well as the precious organic heart-engines that kept the host alive. The Regost’s face was little more than a fleshy mask fused to a rough piece of steel. Dark blue and black armor covered the thin body, which yielded a sharp steel blade set with an exceptionally long handle.
Cross knew he had to plan every step carefully. No magic would directly affect the Regost or its vessel, and while Cross had spent the better part of the last year learning to better use a blade, the bone hand-and-a-half sword they'd given him felt awkward and heavy at the tip. Cross feared he was too unfamiliar with the weapon, which he felt didn’t have a large enough hilt to counter the weight of the blade.
They circled one another. Their booted feet shuffled noisily on the stone as they turned. Each matched the other’s movements. The air bristled.
The Regost came at him with a furious series of blows. Cross met each in time with his blade. The force behind the Regost's attacks was staggering. Cross' arms stung from the effort.
He countered as best he could, stepped into the Regost’s strikes and deflected them away and countered with a well-balanced two-handed swing, but the Regost was faster than it looked, and its height afforded it a significant reach advantage.
Cross let his spirit swim around him. She cast the air in a fog made from bone dust and she whipped debris into a noisy shield. Cross knew the Regost didn’t rely on sight – maybe by disrupting what it could hear he’d gain the advantage.
Everything Cross did, his opponent countered. Its blade parried his attacks and forced him to move quickly to avoid being struck back in kind.
Some of the attacks got through. Blood ran down the dark runes on Cross’ skin, which pulsating in time to the beat of his heart, while his own blade dripped with dark Regost blood that steamed and sizzled on the ground.
The Regost came at him again, and he threw its blow aside. His spirit churned and howled. She desperately wanted to lash out, and before he could stop her she became a fan of dark flame that flew from his gauntleted hand.
Fire recoiled from the thaumaturgic shield that was permanently fused to the Regost’s spectral form, and the attack flew back at Cross. He fell to the ground, dazed. Dark fire licked at his body and spread all over his arms. His spirit screamed as she imploded in a burning ebon whirlpool.
Cross sensed the Regost as it stood over him. Pain crowded his head and fire lanced up his body, but he thrust his blade up and into his opponent’s stomach with a last valiant strike before he doubled over, screaming. The black fire swallowed him whole.
The mountain explodes behind him. He barely escapes into the pale doorway. His body smokes and churns. His spirit clings to him, angry and afraid. Her claws tear him open, and his blood leaves him soaked as he falls to the ground.
Anger swells. Pain sears his body. Something inside of him feels hollow and distant. It is as if a part of him has died.
He is in the Reach. The air is cold and hard. The sky is a white slate as brittle as glass.
The wreckage of the Dreadnaught is there, splintered wood and burning fuel that fills the sky with greasy fumes. He feels the presence of the Sleeper, a dread soul that is thousands of years old, a prisoner and refugee from another world. It is the harbinger of a darker sunset.
The woman is there, as well. Her face is pale, and her eyes are bloodshot and dark. Blood covers the tattered rags she’s been forced to wear.
The cold sky falls apart. Birds freeze in the melting twilight sun. Ashes float like snowflakes.
Help me.
Who are you?
You know who I am. And you know what you have to do. If you don't, they'll both die.
I don’t,
he says.
I don’t know what to do.
The memory returns to him, painful and fast.
I lost. I died.
No. Almost…but not quite.
What do I do?
I reached out for you. I knew the woman wouldn’t help me. I was a psychic in life. I heard the whispers of the dead, but I was not a witch. I heard their stories, and their secrets.
You understand them?
he asks.
Sometimes. And they have taught me how to survive. But you must help me.
Her bleeding body collapses. She falls forward, and if not for him she would hit the ground. He holds her in his arms, and lifts her up. She is thin and frail. Her blonde hair is pasted to her face and neck. She smells sweet, like nectar.
I love him,
she says
. I want him to live. Help me. Open yourself to me.
Why should I trust you?
Because I promise you nothing,
she says,
but a fighting chance.
He carries her over dead water. His spirit trails, unhappy, untrusting, but somehow cowed.
Soon he is covered in the woman’s blood. They leave a thin crimson trail behind them on the pale and cracked earth.
Just before he is about to stop and rest, she leans in and bites him in the throat
.
Cross woke, and screamed.
He wasn’t in his cell, but in a gray room with a single door. Sand and heat surrounded him. Dank sunlight cut through the bars and illuminated the dust motes in the air.
Cross’ body burned. He sat up slowly, as he felt nauseous and dizzy. His arms throbbed with pain, and his head felt as if it had been split open. His back and neck were stiff, almost jagged, like they were made of broken glass.
The runes cast onto his arms pulsed with dark light. They throbbed in time to his heartbeat. He felt his spirit there with him. She hovered a good distance away, as if afraid to initiate contact.
It took him a long time to pull himself off of the cot, which hung from the wall in the corner of the room. His stomach growled with hunger, and his gums ached. Memories of the fight flashed back to him.
Dillon.
A sharp clank sounded on the other side of the door as a bolt was withdrawn. The portal opened with a loud creak, and golden sunlight flooded the small chamber. Tega Ramsey stepped inside with tall vampire guards at his back.
“
Good to see you’re recovering, Cross,” he said.
“
What happened?”
Ramsey hesitated, and cautiously walked into the room. The Gol was right to fear him – Cross badly wanted to tear the dwarf’s head clean off of his shoulders – but there were more important things to worry about.
“
You don’t recall?” Ramsey said quietly.
“
No. Not all of it, anyways…”
“
You lost,” Ramsey said bluntly. “Or rather, you had a draw. A stalemate.”
“
Is that possible?”
Ramsey narrowed his eyes, as if suspicious.
“
You tell me.”
Cross readied an insult, but stopped. He realized there was a great deal that he couldn’t remember about the fight. Images flashed through his mind.
Blades. Fire. A Regost. Dillon.
Dillon
.
“
You tried to use your magic,” Ramsey said. He stood fully in the room now, while the vampire sentries remained stationed at the door. Cross didn’t remember sitting back down, but he was hunched and cross-legged on the cot, which strained under his weight and made the steel brackets creak where they held it against the wall.
“
I was on the mountain…” Cross said. “There was a woman…”
No. That was before. Or after.
It was becoming harder for him to determine what was real, or if any of it was real. Dream and pain and visions of blades all bled into a collage of images and sensations.
“
You tried to use your magic,” Ramsey said, slowly, “on a Regost. Just like some idiot first-year novice warlock. Your own flames were all over you, burning you.”
Ramsey’s milky eyes went to Cross’ arms. Cross looked down.
He was unscathed. It was as if he’d never been touched.
“
My spirit?” he asked.
“
Oh, no,” Ramsey said with a shake of his head. “Something else, but they’re damned if they know what it is. They’re very interested in you, Cross. They know
who
you are, but they’re not sure
what
you are. They know about how you lost your spirit, got her back, and lost her again. About how you found another. About how you somehow survived a necroclast explosion at point blank range.” His voice dropped. “About how you’ve seen the world where the spirits roam, and yet you came back. They know you’re…unique. Special, even. And that makes you valuable.”
Hatred snapped Cross back to clarity for a moment.
“‘
They’
?” he said sharply.
Ramsey smiled a hideous, black-toothed grin.
“
You count
me
as one of them?” He nodded. “If you wish.”
“
You
are
one of them.”
“
You don’t know
what
I am,” Ramsey said coldly. “You don’t have a first-born clue.” He paused, and drew an angry breath. They waited in silence. Cross heard engine turbines somewhere beyond the walls. “I do what I have to in order to stay alive,” Ramsey continued after a time. “The same as you.”
Ramsey turned to leave. The vampires let him out, and they waited when he paused at the doorway.
“
You’ll fight the Regost again,” he said. “Its name is Tower, by the way. But first the vampires will test you. They’ll pit you against lesser foes. See how much you’re capable of. And I suggest you do well.” He cast his eyes down. “For your friend’s sake.”
He left. The door was slammed and locked behind him.
Cross breathed in, slowly. His body shook all over.
After a while he rose. He ignored the pain that blazed through his body and he worked through every block and parry and thrust and swipe he’d ever learned. Images of his dead sister burned in his mind.
TWELVE
RAZOR
Cross stepped into the arena.
Just as before, death and silence waited for him. Floating silver flames and dead white snakes slithered through the air around the pale and rune-marked stone. Vampire eyes watched him from the dark stadium seats, calm and hungry. They never moved when the gladiators were present, but Cross could tell that they were anxious, and that they hungered for blood. He knew that the vampires fed on the fallen when the fighting was done, and that was why the arena floor was never cleaned between battles. That floor was immaculate when the gladiators arrived, but soon it would be covered in thick pools of blood and steaming flesh.
The bone blade that he wore on his back had been honed to a razor’s keen edge. The hilt was wrapped in black cord that had been stained and fused with oil and lacquer. The blade itself was yellowed bone taken from the fangs of some massive and primordial beast. The sword was lightweight but long, and it could cut through flesh and light steel.
Cross had used it many times. How many, he couldn’t be sure. He had been a fighter in that arena of the dead for what felt like weeks.
Cross was always the first gladiator to arrive, but never the last to fight, not anymore. He, Kane, Black, the Regost called Tower, and Gorge the Vuul were all that remained of the group that Cross had first been brought to the arena with. With the exception of the match between Tower and Cross, none of those fighters had fought against one other.
Until now.
Gorge was no match for Kane. Despite its ferocity, size and weapon – it carried a heavy flail made from bone and metal – the Vuul was nowhere near as skilled of a fighter as Kane was. The blonde gladiator’s face still looked boyish no matter how many scars he acquired or how thick and shaggy his beard became. He was too fast, too agile, and filled with too much raw fury for his opponent. Kane’s crescent axe sliced the flail’s chain, and when the gray-skinned Vuul tried to hammer Kane with its formidable fists, Kane switched to a thin scimitar made of bone, a faster and lighter weapon that was far more accurate than an axe. He hamstringed the Vuul and let it writhe and crawl along on the ground before he finished it.