Vampire Down (Blood Skies, Book 7) (28 page)

SIXTEEN

GIANTS

Year 25 A.B. (After the Black)

They followed the giants into the mountains.  Danica laughed to herself – it seemed they’d walked right into a fairy tale, and that wasn’t a good thing.  She used to love Grimm’s stories as a child because she appreciated the lesson they gave: life doesn’t have happy endings. 

The Deep Doj crossed sharp terrain and steep slopes littered with trees and massive shards of broken rock.  The giants traveled with alarming swiftness and grace through areas of darkness that would have killed Danica and her team if they’d been forced to pursue them on foot; lucky for them the Doj seemed complacent, if not pleased, with the notion of being followed by the airship, and Maur was a capable enough pilot that he could keep the modified vessel close to the ground and navigate some preposterously difficult areas which many other pilots would have been afraid to even get close to.  Alvarez watched the instruments, and with Raine’s help the two of them were able to keep close tabs on the giants when Maur lost sight of them, which was often: their dark flesh was perfect camouflage against the landscape, and they were well accustomed to using its clefts and valleys and shadow-stained fields for cover.  If Danica had ever wondered how the giants had kept their location a secret to the world, she had her answer now.

The sky flattened as night grew on, and the darkness pushed down against the smudged red horizon.  Faint trails of starlight scattered into the atmosphere, vagrant stars sucked into the void of night.  The airship was cold inside, and even with the thermocouplings and coil heaters Danica felt a sullen chill press through the walls and against her bones.  The wastes they traveled were not fit for human survival.  Vampires thrived in the cold – stories told of their home world, a vast and lifeless ice field, bereft of sunlight and filled with frozen walls of grey dust and soiled snow. 

Danica’s spirit wound tight around her chest, nearly suffocating her with his worry.  She sensed tension in the others, even Maur, who normally kept his emotions well bottled. 

They were close, they could feel it.  If the stories were to be believed, then taking control of Bloodhollow could give them the means to end the war. 

She thought about Shiv.  It felt like she should have been there, that her fate, odd as it sounded, was somehow meant to have been tied to Bloodhollow.  Danica’s heart tightened at the thought of the girl, so frightened, so overwhelmed, even with her incredible powers.  Cross had met Shiv and her father Flint near the Carrion Rift and had immediately bonded with them, even took Shiv under his wing.  The girl had proved how immensely powerful she was when she single-handedly sealed the gate at The Witch’s Eye and later destroyed one of the Maloj in the desert wastes of Nezzek’duul. 

So much power.  It came too fast.  She had to grow up far too quickly.

Danica stared out at the bloody sunset and shook her head.  Everyone grew up too fast.  You had to, if you wanted to live.

“Hey, Chief?” Alvarez asked.

“
Yeah?”

“
Any idea how far these freaks are taking us?”

“
Who are you calling a freak?” Delgado boomed down from the gunnery nest.  It was sometimes hard to tell when the half-Doj was joking, but Danica saw the creased smile on his leathery face. 

“
Nobody,” Alvarez said with a laugh.             

“
You wanna stay focused?” Raine asked.  “You’re better at using this damned nautascope than I am, so if you don’t mind...”

“
Yeah, yeah,” Alvarez said.

“
I’m not sure how far they’re taking us,” Danica said.  “But they owe the Gol, so they’ll show us where Bloodhollow is.”  She looked back out the window.  “They didn’t promise anything else.”

The ship rattled along.  Maur cursed to himself about the cold and how difficult it was to keep the ship straight in the dire crosswinds – Danica noted with some amusement that even in self monologue he referred to himself in the third person – and Delgado hummed lightly as he manned the guns.

“You mind if I ask you something, Danica?” Raine said.  The dark-haired woman was slight and short, but almost all of her weight was raw muscle; Danica recalled how impressed she’d been when she’d seen the woman in her skivvies back in the locker room, and how amazingly toned she was for someone who when fully clothed looked all of five feet tall and a hundred pounds.  Back before she’d hooked up with Cross, Danica knew she would have been all over Raine, and she fantasized about the mercenary sometimes in spite of herself.  She hadn’t been with another woman in a long time. 

“
Go ahead.”

“
Do you really think this Bloodhollow place exists?” 

“
I don’t know,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. 

“
Need to know basis,” Alvarez said with something of a sneer, though it wasn’t directed at Danica.  “You think with something that important we’d have had better luck finding it, eh?  I hear they’ve known about it for while, but they’re just getting around to telling
us
about it now.”  By
they
Alvarez was of course referring to the Gol command, the strange council of Meldoarian rulers who’d opened their city to any human survivors who wanted to keep up the fight against the Ebon Kingdoms, though they’d maintained a low profile about it.  Meldoar was a formidable city-state, but if the vampires or Wulf decided they’d had enough of the Gol’s interventions it wouldn’t stand for very long.   Yes, the siege would be costly to their attackers, but it was only one city-state, and their enemies to either side had vast resources and relentless drive. 

“
They have their reasons for sharing what they share,” Danica said.  “Just like any military leadership.  I don’t begrudge them that.”

“
I do,” Alvarez said.  “They’re not even soldiers, for fuck’s sake, what do they know about tactics and secret missions?”

“
Well, they must know what they’re doing, because their city is still here,” Raine said.  Alvarez gave her a look, but she shrugged.  “Just sayin’.”

“
If you’re unhappy with the Gol, Alvarez...” Danica started.

“
Maur is deeply offended by all of this,” Maur said off-handedly, in a tone that clearly indicated he wasn’t offended at all.

“
...then I’m sure they’ll be happy to relieve you of your duties,” she finished, giving Maur a look she knew he couldn’t see from the small cockpit but hoped he at least felt.  She considered releasing her spirit from the bloodsteel arm – she felt him roil inside the false limb, thaumaturgic pressure like cold steam and curled lightning, growing more and more agitated by the moment – to go and spark Maur’s chair or produce some other irritating but ultimately harmless effect, but she thought better of it. 

“
No need to go there,” Alvarez said.  He forced a smile, but he was clearly irritated.  “Like the lady said, I’m ‘Just sayin’.”

“
Well,” Danica smiled back.  “Don’t say anything.  The world will be a better place.”

“
Best order you’ve even given,” Delgado said from the gunnery seat above.

Another dreadful blast of wind buckled the vessel.  They felt a moment of alarming weightlessness before Maur got the ship back under control.

“Where are the giants?” Alvarez said.  “Shit, I lost them!”

“
Hang on...” Raine said, focusing on the second lens on the nautascope, an ungainly device propped in the center of the open space behind the cockpit.  It was one of the more advanced of its kind, allowing not only schematic readouts and three-dimensional map interfaces but infrared, microwave and arcane triangulation.  One would never know how advanced it was just by looking at it – the nautascope looked hundreds of years old and weighed a ton, and without it the ship would have been infinitely more maneuverable.  “I’ve got them.  Jesus, they’re going fast all of a sudden.”             

“
Is there anything else in the area?” Danica said. 

“
Yeah, I’ve got bogeys coming in from the north,” Alvarez said.  “Hard to tell what.  No tech, some sort of primitive cavalry.” 

“
Maur sees them!” Maur yelled.  “Mages!”

“
Shit,” Danica muttered. 

They gathered weapons and prepared their landing packs; it would be best to stay airborne, but when facing wild witches and warlocks it was always best to be prepared, because even with the ship’s arcane shielding a well-placed thaumaturgic attack could rupture the engines or breach the hull, and if they weren’t ready to set down at a moment’s notice they could all wind up dead before the battle even started. 

Delgado started heating up the guns, while Raine stayed on the nautascope; Alvarez helped Danica pass out parachutes and land-packs, ready-made survival bags with everything one needed for a quick and dirty escapade into the wilderness.

Maur brought the ship in low, and Danica stood behind him and peered out through the forward glass.  The sky was dark, a haze of red and black squeezing around a pale and fading sun, and the ground was rough and uneven and riddled with dagger-like hills and knifed peaks.  Bolts of golden lighting shot up from below, a blaze of shifting pillars which briefly lit the silhouettes of a dozen humans blasting them with icy knives and scythes of flame.

Danica looked closer, and realized the attackers weren’t human at all, but Dracaj.  Undulating scales pulsed in the grim light as fanwings spread from arms rippled with oily muscles and bone spurs.  They had wide dark faces lined with rows of reptilian teeth, massive and perfect and squeezed together like bear traps.  Their eyes were as black as pools, reflective and uncannily dark, and their clawed hands clutched ceremonial daggers and talismans of skin.  The lower halves of their bodies were serpentine, great snaking tails which pulsed smoothly.

Little was known about the Dracaj, especially considering sightings were fairly common, especially along the western shores of Rimefang Loch.  The lizard-like humanoids were renowned for their capricious cruelty and their strange magic, not spirit-bound like human sorcery or powered by souls like the mongrel enchantments of the vampires, but raw elemental power.  Water, wind and rock shaped to their whims, but their applications seemed limited to inflicting pain, shaping weapons from their natural surroundings and launching hexed assaults. 

Danica noted with some horror there were only a small band of the creatures – four, maybe five – and that the rest of their party were even more horrifying.  The reptilian soldiers accompanying the Dracaj were small and quick, and they darted about with sharp talons and fanged maws which dripped putrescent slime.  Their heads were vaguely avian, with eyes of red glass.  Tails lashed as they moved lightning quick, and they easily dodged as Delgado fired at them with the chain guns. 

“
Maur, take us up!” she shouted.  Danica moved to the starboard door and released the hatch.  Her mind unlocked the safety catch on her bloodsteel arm, and within moments her spirit slithered across her flesh like a burning gel.  His rage filled her, and it took effort on her part not to send him straight out as the hatch opened and icy wind blasted in at her.  The dark hills loomed like ebon monuments, and immediately she noted the stench of zombie reptiles and the burning taint of elemental magic.  Whorls of blood-red fire spiraled up at the warship, and Maur had to turn the ship hard to port to avoid being immolated.  Choking smoke and flaming haze filled the hold, but Danica’s spirit shielded the opening and kept most of it at bay. 

“
Shit!” Raine shouted.  “Weapons are offline!”

“
Maur says hold on!”

Danica gripped the steel bar over the door.  She sensed the openness of the space outside, felt her center of gravity shift as the ship tilted.  Giant shapes moved below, their hammers and claymores crushing undead reptiles and pushing back barrages of ice-wreathed smoke and burning rain.  The Dracaj hovered on their serpentine fin-tails, fluttering through the air like waves.  Something smashed into the view port and cracked it like a network of varicose veins. 

Maur brought the ship down hard.  There was no avoiding it – elemental sorcery burned straight up through the turbines and twisted the metal so the Gol had no chance to shut both power and fuel to the engines before they ruptured and exploded.  The upper wings were able to catch enough wind to guide them in safely, but Maur wasn’t able to avoid crashing against the side of the hill and cracking open the hull.  Danica’s bloodsteel grip kept her from flying across the hold, but Alvarez wasn’t so lucky, and he pitched forward and smashed face-first into the steel. 

Raine and Danica rushed over to him after the ship finally came to a halt.  Smoke and steam were everywhere, and they heard monstrous growls outside.  Danica felt blood in her eyes and realized she must have hit her head after all, and her meat arm and shoulder were sore from her being battered against the wall.  Small fires burst all across the ship, and emergency venting engaged, blasting them with freezing and ionized air.  Red lights flashed.