Cross nodded.
Damn it. I hate prophecies. Layers and layers of them now, stacking up, burying us deep
. It had been a prophecy that had led to the mission in the first place. Another had led him from the Lith camp to the Dreadnaught.
And now this
.
“
Well?” Black asked.
“
I’m thinking.”
“
Does it usually take this long?”
“
Yes. Shut up, please.”
The air turned dark. Ebon claws of shadow crept over the horizon, and pale fog thickened close to the ground. There were strange calls in the distance – carrion birds, wolves, inhuman echoes that seemed to crawl into the width of the sky. The wind died down, but that didn’t help with the incessant chill. Not far away, Kane and Ekko talked quietly, while Dillon and Vos struck up a conversation. Lucan stared out into the night, his eyes glazed.
“
Cross…”
“
What does your brother want with Lucan?” he interrupted.
“
I told you, I don’t know.”
“
That’s not what you said. You didn’t say anything. You just dodged the question,” Cross said.
“
You’re a pushy bastard, you know that?” she snapped. Danica Black had her limits, too, it seemed. The fact that she had something of a temper wouldn’t make much of a difference in Black Scar, he supposed; if a prisoner was lucky there they’d get beaten to within an inch of their life.
“
Is Cradden a Revenger?” he asked.
“
No,” Black said dismissively. “Not all of Ma and Pa Black’s children turned out well.”
Great
, Cross thought.
Silence again fell between them, longer than the last time.
“
I’ll make sure,” Black finally said, after the lack of conversation had almost lulled Cross to sleep, “that Lara helps you find what you’re looking for. All you have to do is help me deliver Lucan to my brother.” She shrugged, and smiled darkly. “Without a ship, I can’t exactly do this with just Vos to help me. And Cradden has men. Lots of men. If I waltz in there with just two guns he’ll screw us.”
“
Why not use Lucan?” Cross asked, afraid to hear the answer. “You obviously have no qualms about doing
that
.”
“
Screw you,” Black said quietly. “Cradden’s my brother. I’m not sure I’d be able to protect both he and Cole if I turned Lucan lose like that.”
Cross thought about that for a minute. He let Black wait while he pondered his options.
“
We’ll help you, and you’ll get Cole to help us. But there’s a caveat,” he said. “I can’t let you give Lucan to your brother. Especially if you’re not going to tell me what Cradden has in store for him.”
Black smiled, almost sadly.
“
Is that right?”
“
Yes,” he said. “It’s too dangerous to give him up.”
“
Then go to hell,” Black said, and she stood up.
“
Can I finish?” Cross said, as calmly as he could manage. Cross considered his own people skills less than stellar, especially when he had to deal with women. Women who looked like Danica were particularly tough for him to handle. “I’ll help you get Cole back, if you’ll convince her to help us.” He stood up, and looked Black in the eye. “But I can’t let you give Lucan to anyone but me. He’s too dangerous. He has to go back to Thornn.”
Black watched him carefully. She reminded him of an angry cat. Her nostrils flared with barely contained anger. A sudden cold breeze caught her dark red hair and pulled it across her face. Cross couldn’t have pulled his eyes from her even if he’d wanted to.
Stare away, stud. She has a girlfriend. Even if she wasn’t a lesbian, you’d be about as interesting to her as a pile of corkwood.
“
I don’t want Cradden hurt,” she said at last.
“
I don’t want him hurt, either,” Cross said. “But I also can’t let him have Lucan. And I need to find the Woman in the Ice. A lot of lives may depend it.”
She shrugged.
“
Saving lives doesn’t mean much to me,” she said matter-of-factly. “You have to protect what’s yours. That’s all that matters.”
Black left Cross alone, and walked back over to the rest of the group.
Cross ran his hands over his face. He felt like he hadn’t slept in days. His eyes were raw and tired, and his skin was so dry he could’ve used his face to take the edge off of a piece of wood.
Why the hell can’t anything ever be easy?
After he meditated on his conversation with Black for a few minutes, Cross went and found Dillon. His hands itched beneath his leather gauntlets, but with how quickly his new spirit rose to anger he found that he needed to wear them almost constantly.
The Reach was cold, pale and vast. The dead forest where they’d battled the Gorgoloth was only half a mile away, but it looked much further.
Night fell. The sky was deep and bloody purple, like a discolored bruise. Ice-hard snow padded the ground.
The main campfire had been dug deep and entrenched in a low ring of packed snow to protect it from the wind. Its flames cast the figures around it in ghostly shadow.
Dillon had already ventured back across the bridge after the battle. He’d fetched both of their mounts and the camel. Cross had no idea how Dillon had coaxed them across the log, and he decided it was better if he didn’t.
Cross and Dillon sat together, away from the others, and spoke quietly. Kane and Ekko were both fast asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms beneath a thick wool blanket. Lucan kneeled, as if in prayer, also wrapped in a blanket and also, as far as Cross and Dillon could tell, unconscious. Black read a small book at her seat on the opposite side of the big fire, while Vos was just out of sight behind her, walking the perimeter.
The two men ate warm beans heated in tin cans. Cross thought they tasted like asphalt. The ground was hard beneath them, and it was so cold it more or less nullified the blankets they hid under.
Cross brought Dillon up to speed regarding his conversation with Danica Black. He left out what Black had said to him there at the end about saving lives not meaning much to her. He still wasn’t exactly sure what to make of that.
“
Shit,” Dillon said when Cross finished. “Man…this is turning out to be a real pain in the ass, Cross.”
“
Sorry,” Cross said. “What did you expect when they handed you the job of babysitting me?”
“
Trouble,” Dillon laughed. “Not like this, though.” He paused, and cast a furtive glance at Black. “You, uh…you buy her story?”
Cross took a sip of cowboy coffee. It tasted like they’d made it with dirt instead of coffee grounds.
“
I think so,” he said after a moment. “But we need to be careful.”
“
You think she’s setting us up?”
“
No,” Cross said. He stretched his arms out. He could have used a healing salve, but he wanted to hold on to what small supply they had in case they needed it later. Black and Vos had salvaged everything they possibly could from the Dreadnaught’s wreckage, but even with what they’d recovered there was still barely enough supplies for the five people from the ship. Cross and Dillon had enough of their own supplies, but there was very little they could spare. “No,” Cross said again. “I truly believe she wants her girlfriend back.”
“
I dig the fact that she has a girlfriend,” Dillon said with a wry smile.
I don’t
, Cross thought.
“
Just because she wants to get her girl back,” Dillon continued, “doesn’t mean she won’t turn on
us
when the deal is done. You know, so she doesn’t have to keep up her end of the bargain.”
“
Yeah…in the end, she may not want to give up Lucan,” Cross said. His beans were gone, but his stomach still growled with hunger. “So like I said…we’ll be careful.”
Dillon threw the rest of his coffee into the fire, and pulled a licorice root out of his pocket, which he chewed on thoughtfully.
“
You got any family, Cross?” he asked. They’d been on the mission for weeks, but Cross realized he knew little about the ranger.
“
No,” he said with some hesitation.
He sees Snow, burning on the train.
“
You have a sister, right?” Cross asked him. “And a nephew?”
“
Yeah,” Dillon said. “Jeraline’s husband died a few years back. She’s been taking care of Dwayne on her own. He’s a good kid. Cute. Loud, though.” Dillon laughed. “I don’t see them too much,” he said. “But I
would
like to see them again.” He looked at Cross. “I’ll follow your lead. Just try not to get us killed, all right?”
Cross nodded.
“
Fair enough,” he said. “Shall we?”
They rose and went to speak with Black. There were some things that needed to be sorted out.
They took their seats by the fire and accepted more coffee, this time from a fresh kettle that Black had just made. It tasted slightly less gritty than what Cross and Dillon had been drinking.
Black sat bundled up in a blanket. Her face looked ashen in the firelight. Vos came over and stood with his weapon folded in his arms.
“
We’ll help you get Cole back,” Cross continued. “In return, you convince her to help us find what we’re looking for. In either case, when this is all over, Lucan Keth comes with us.”
“
Back to Thornn,” Vos said with an angry smile on his face.
“
Yes,” Cross answered. “Back to Thornn.”
“
Do you want us to bend over, too?” Vos asked.
Dillon blew Vos a mocking kiss.
“
I don’t like being bullied, Cross,” Black said. “But you have to protect what’s yours. Vos and I can’t do this on our own. If you help us get Cole out of there alive, and you help us get to safety…sure, I’ll let you have Lucan. And I’ll ask Cole to tell you what you want to know.”
“
So we have a deal?” Cross asked.
“
We have a deal,” Black said.
Vos bristled, but he didn’t say anything.
“
Where’s the exchange supposed to take place?” Dillon asked.
“
At some ruins to the east,” she said. “They should be about a day’s march, I think. If we still had the airship, we’d have been there by now.”
“
Wait,” Cross said. “When were you
supposed
to be there?”
“
Today,” Vos said. His words were cold.
Cross looked at Black, and she met his gaze. Her expression was controlled, but he noted the worry.
“
She’s fine,” Cross said.
“
Yeah,” Dillon said, sounding less convinced.
“
Of course she’s fine,” Black said firmly. “I don’t need
you
to tell me that. If Cradden went through this much trouble to get Lucan from me, he wouldn’t kill his hostage and wreck his chances. Besides, he knows damn well he’ll never get anything out of me if he hurts her. But…” She paused. That worry returned to her face. It was subtle, almost too subtle to notice, but her eyes creased ever so slightly, and the inflection of her voice cracked, just a hair. “If he thinks we’re cheating him, or if he thinks we’re not going to deliver…then there’s no telling what he’ll do. He can be a real spiteful bastard when he’s cornered. But he’s not stupid.”
“
He also has a good crew with him,” Vos said. “A half-dozen mercs, at least.”
“
Well, that’s great,” Dillon said quietly. “Do you have a layout for the ruins?”
Black produced a map. The ruins in question were those of a city, depicted in carefully cast lines of charcoal and ink on a faded piece of yellowed parchment. If the map was accurate, there were plenty of buildings in the ruins, at least ten square city blocks worth.
“
All right,” Black said. “So what’s the plan?”
“
Wait,” Cross said. “There’s one more thing.” The air stiffened as a cold and dead wind came at them. Cross rocked in place to try and stay warm. The sky was clear and vast. “What made the ship crash?”
Vos looked at Black, as if for permission to answer. Black swallowed, and she took a deep and shuddering breath.
“
We’re not sure,” she said. “Something…dark.”
“
Dark skinned?” Dillon asked.
“
Maybe,” Black said. “It wasn’t human. Royce…the pilot…whatever it was, it tore Royce and the entire cockpit in half. But right before it happened, he said he saw something, and whatever it was sent him into a panic.”
“
Well…what was it?” Dillon asked when Black looked away. “What is it the man said?”
“
He said it was a shadow,” Vos answered. “A ghost. A cold, dark ghost.”
He looked terrified.
“
Ebon Cities?” Cross asked after an uncomfortable silence.
“
I don’t know,” Vos answered. “I don’t think so.”
“
No,” Black said with certainty. Her eyes were lost out in the dark. The tiny campsite was a speck of light in the dark sea of the plains. “This was something…old. You could feel it through the walls of the ship. You could feel its presence, so cold and vast and…dead. Like a heartbeat that came from the bottom of a pit.” She looked back at them. “That’s the best I can describe it. It was like a hole. Like a void.”