They flew through tunnels as vast as fields. Subterranean wind howled out of the depths of the Netherwere: the underworld, the realm beneath. It was a place of lightless pits and dank coves, a haven of things made of shadow, and born to it. In those troubled deeps lived things bred and raised in dark ness. They had never seen light, and never would.
The tunnels were smooth and unnatural, dug by the arcane engines and dread behemoth work beasts of the monstrous Cruj. Entire cities had been built in the soiled deeps, rune stone dwellings chiseled from rock and salt. Stalactites had been crafted into inverted towers. Sinkholes became watch posts.
The Cruj had unexpectedly left earth a decade ago, abandoning their vampire allies to face the human s alone. No one knew why they fled, including the vampires. One day the giants were simply gone.
But there in th at network of tunnels called T he Way stood ample reminder of the cruel black giants and the power they’d once held. There were sta tues of the twisted Drann, the Cruj’ succubi deities, monstrous threefold creatures twisted into a singular entit y, dread angels made molten and twisted, vaguely erotic but monstrous, all edges and splayed blade wings. There were shell remains of the gruesome Iron Eggs, intelligent arcane orbs, chromatic iron artifacts that commanded legions of the barbaric Sorn with their psychic transmissions and terrible power. There were vast bridges that spanned underground canyons, waterfalls of black water that flowed into complex aqueducts, blank slates of housing built into the rock like parasitic organisms.
The tunnels smelled of smoking carbon and glaciers, bat guano and wet clay. The air was dark and thick. Only phosphorescent algae lit T he W ay, as the ancient Crujian furnaces went cold long ago. Deep clefts in the earth led to shafts of frozen water and piles of scorched bones, bubbling pools of white slime and rock lizards, giant bats and eyeless walker fish.
Hard wind blasted from the depths of the tunnels. Depending on which tunnel it came from, that wind smelled like dead animals or raw ice, industrial smoke or human waste.
The ecology of the Netherwere had been forever altered not only by the presence of the Cruj, who twisted everything they touched with their arcane genius, but by th os e who came after the giants fled, the humans who took over the Cruj’ most powerful stronghold. In many ways the new masters of Meledrakkar were far, far worse. They didn’ t seek to alter the subterranean ecology out of experimental interest or coy malice, nor did they intend to build an empire.
All the new masters of the Netherwere wanted was money. Money, and more money, and they didn’t care who or what they had to kill or destroy to take it. Where the Cruj would sometimes let life flourish if it’s continued existence piqued their curiosity or provided a favorable variable to one of their experiments, the new lords of Meledrakkar — Black Scar, they now called it — were nowhere near so amiable or forgiving. In their own way, these humans were even m ore monstrous.
They were T he Revengers. And there was no escaping their wrath.
Danica’s eyes strained against the dark. She rode atop a platform on the back of a Razorwing that slowly fl ew down T he Way. Miles of frost — wracked stone lay behind them. The air rushed past her and lashed her face with tiny snow crystals.
Her skin was frozen. She was on her knees, with her arms bound behind her back. Her dark armor was stained with blood, dirt and ice dust. Blood had crusted to her forehead, and her skin was filthy with grime. Her body ached with fatigue. Tears stung her eyes.
“Oh, stop crying,” Burke said from the front of the platform. “T ears don’t suit you, you heartless bitch.” He turned and looked at her. “We both know what you did while you were here, Danica Black. We both know what you’re capable of. Don’t play like you’ve suddenly grown a soul.”
Danica said nothing, because she knew that he was right.
The platform of wood and steel was wide enough to house a contingent of Revenger guards and a handful of prisoners, with enough space to s ecure each passenger to the deck with chains. The entire contraption was secured to the back of the Razorwing, one of many such giant draconic creatures purchased at a discounted rate from the Ebon Cities. Each Razorwing was controlled by a warlock or witch who formed a special telepathic bond with the creature using a strange parasite provided by the Ebon Cities ’ beast handlers. The parasites grew in pa irs, and one was affixed to each the mage’s and the Razorwing ’s necks, which allow ed the stronger-minded of the duo to exert control over the other. Lucky for T he Revengers, Razorwings weren’t terribly intelligent.
Burke, Raven, six armed sentries, the warlock pilot, a pair of leath ery undead and two more warlock wardens stood guard over their prisoners: Danica, Lara Cole, and the unconscious body of Eric Cross.
You stupid bitch, she told herself. You couldn’t have messed things up any more than this.
She looked at Cole. Cole wouldn’t look back at her.
It had been two years since they’d last seen each other, when they’d barely survived the Battle of Karamanganji. Black had aban doned T he Revengers, stolen prisoners and gone to hell and back to save Cole’s life, but in the end that still wasn’t enough to erase their romantic difficulties. Danica still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened between them… things had seemed fine. Lara had always had some difficulty reconciling Black’s career choice, but Danica made sure she got out and saw Lara as often as possible, and they were very careful to make sure that nothing about their relationship in any way violated prison protocol or put either of them in danger.
They used to drink and go out on the town, carouse and shout and have fun, stay out late and sleep in later, get into trouble and never look back.
Danica might have saved Cole’s life, but by that point Lara had already saved Danica ’s soul. When the nightmares that the prison g ave Danica had all but destroyed her, Cole’s love and companionship pulled her back out of the darkness. Lara was so exciting, so joyous to be around, so full of life.
And then, one day — just a few weeks before Cradden decided to kidnap her so as to force Danica to give him valuable prisoners — Cole told Danica it was time for them to move on, and that she didn’t want to see her anymore.
Is this a second chance? Black wondered.
She looked at Cross. She’d betrayed one person she loved in a desperate bid to save the other.
You didn’t have much of a choice, she told herself. They would’ve tortured and killed you both. And they still might.
Danica felt like she’d swallowed freezing water. Her skin chilled as a gust of black wind sliced down the enormous tunnel. The platform on the Razorwing’s back creaked loudly. Everything shifted beneath her, and it was only the chains around her wrists that kept her from rolling into the air as the massive reptile twisted and flew deeper into the bowels of the earth.
Danica’s stomach lurched. The Way was so vast she couldn’t see the bottom. Black rock stretched over their heads, endless miles of stone reamed in ice and shadow. Outcroppings appeared out of the gloom like granite phantoms.
The Razorwing ducked beneath a massive stalactite, an iron and stone watch post that hung suspended from the endless ceiling. Rotating chain guns turned and tracked the reptilian flier. Gargoyles silently hovered through the air. The inverted tower hung over a giant fissure that ran up the face of the wall like a wound. The flaw led from one behemoth cavern to another.
Black Scar waited on the other side of the crack. The s ight of it always took Danica’s breath away. I ts dismal grandeur was awe-inspiring.
She always knew she’d return. It had somehow seemed inevitable.
Steel towers stretched out across the cavern. Pillars of dark fire roared to wards a ceiling so tall it might have been the sky. The air tasted like sweat and iron. D istant and d ark walls glowed in the blaze of furnaces. C rystalline f laws in the stone shone like false daylight in the gloom. Thick iron shields built over natural fissures helped maintain the cave’s stability.
The cavern stretched for over two miles in either direction. At its center stood an underground city made of cold iron, black structures molded together to form an edged metropolis.
The central Black Scar complex sat at the nexus of it all, a dome of pitted steel surrounded by needle-like towers webbed together with crackling electric-thaumaturgy. Circling blasts of cold ene r gy cast the ceiling in ghostly light. Grinding machines echoed and crashed in the distance. Droning Razorwings cried out, and their strangely hollow voices echo ed like tortured cries.
The prisoner population of Black Scar was l ocked within the iron walls, guarded by rotating watchtowers covered with ball turrets and arcane trebuchets. They lived in squalor in a tight arrangement of prison buildings, tiny structures packed like honeycombs and locked down around the clock. Those few prisoners visible on the grey lanes were chained together and held under careful watch by more of the gaunt wight — giants. Yet more of the undead stood on the towers and on the walls, their grinning skull visages unmoving, their cold white eyes glowing like torchlight.
The diamond mines were to the west, a scar in the rock. Danica saw streams of workers ushered in and out of the wide opening to the mines, their skin red with dust. Gouts of explosive vapors erupted from the open shafts and paint ed the air in a bloody haze.
Mechanical dreadnaughts strode through the city, faceless automa tons built like massive tin men with motorgun arms. Swivel- mount ed cockpits sat where the heads should have been, and they hous ed Revenger pilots who kept a careful watch on the metropolis of prison structures.
Black cables ran between the taller buildings. S pirit unguent race d along lines of iron wire. S trands of arcane energy crackle d and fe ll in sparks of electric rain.
“He’ s looking forward to seeing you, ” Raven said. She smiled at Danica. Danica didn’t say any thing. She didn’t even look at the Revenger, and after a moment the woman turned away.
“Lara,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Dani,” Cole said. She was crying. “I’m sorry.”
“Shut up,” Raven said coldly. Burke laughed.
T he Razorwing dipped down and flew beneath hex wires and razor ed turrets. Hot wind from the furnaces blasted up into Danica’s face, and when flame s poured from one of the central factories she went blind for a moment from the blazing white light. S he had to blink several times before her vision returned.
The reptile landed on an elevated steel p latform surrounded by a low barbed fence that had been decorated with human hair. The likeness of a black skull had been painted in the middle of the platform.
A number of leathery undead sentries armed with bladed rifles and hatchets stood at attention. The Razorwing folded in its wings and flattened itself down. An iron staircase was rolled up to the platform on the reptile’s back. Black and Cole were led down.
Danica had trouble finding her land legs — they’d been riding on the Razorwing’s back for hours, and the ground still seemed to shift and tilt beneath her even as she stepped onto the flat surface. Her head spun from dizziness and hunger, and her eyes watered in the smoke and haze. The light in the Netherwere was unnaturally dim and dank and often took Revengers years to adjust to.
They stood Cole and Danica side-by-side in front of a steep iron staircase leading to the depths of the processing tower. Both of t heir arms were still bound behind their backs. Black’s spirit wailed in the background, like he was lost at sea. Danica deduced that she had no chance of touching him so long as Raven was nearby and conscious.
She looked behind her. Burke supervised as the undead quietly hauled Cross down the ladder. He’d been wrapped up like a mummified corpse.
“Hey, bitch. Been a l ong time.”
Danica turned and looked at the man who’d sp o ke n. S he’d recognize the scratchy voice anywhere.
Vorgas Rake was lean, tall and unshaven, an imposing man with red-bl onde hair and a thin goatee surrounded by stubble. He dressed in black, and moved like a pan ther. The former pit-fighter had grown up as a street thug, but during his travels he’ d become extremely well-connected in the criminal underworld. Once he’d graduated from hired muscle to mercenary his influence and clout continued to grow. Eventually h e and his partners had formed T he Revengers, and they’d transformed Black Scar into what it was now. T hose partners were long gone, and Rake ran the show all by himself now.
“It has been a long time,” Danica answered. “ You d ick.”
Rake calmly stepp ed up and punch ed Danica in the stomach. He would never hit her in the face — he’d always told her how pretty she was.
The blow knocked the wind out of her, and for a moment Danica thought her insides might come spilling out. She wobbled in place and sank to her knees. Her breath s wouldn’t come, and her throat went raw as she tried to suck down air.
“You know you’re in deep shit, right?” Rake smiled.
Danica coughed.
“Just leave her alone,” Cole barked.
“Shut up, bitch,” growled a deep and monstrous voice. Geist stepped onto the platform. He was a mountain of a man, if indeed he was a man — six-foot-six and as broad as a barn, Geist was half-Doj and so badly scarred and burned he looked mostly dead. A cowl conceal ed most of his face, and a thick cloak made of gre y wool was wrapped around his bulk of muscles and heavy Revenger’s armor. Geist wasn’t terribly intelligent, but h e reveled in the act of killing and served Rake without question. A massive war axe and a n AA12 auto-shotgun were sl ung across his back.
“Should have known…” Danica coughed. “You two lovebirds…are never far apart.”
Geist stepped up and kicked Cole in the chest. She coughed and fell back. The gigantic steel-toed boot had torn open her shirt.
“You f ucker!” Black yelled. S he tried to get to her feet, but Raven secured her bonds and forced her back down to her knees.
H er spirit struggled in the distan ce. She sensed his frustration and rage at not being able to reach her.
“You’re t rying to call your spirit, aren’t you?” Rake smiled. “You’ve guessed by now that isn’t going to happen, I hope.” H is smile was cold and toothy. He actually would have be en quite attractive if not for the fact that he was such a lying and manipulative sadist. “Do you know why? ” he asked her. “ I’m sure you do.”
“I ’d thought…it was Narcosm…” she coughed. The Revengers had used the arcane drug for years to subdue captured mages, but when the effects hadn’t w o r n off and Danica had realized she could still detect her spir it’s presence, she ’d kno w n something else was going on. “But then I figured out that this ninja bitch behind me is a Fade.”
Rake smiled.
A Fade was a relatively new phenomenon, something of an anti-mage whose presence and force of willpower disrupt ed or suppress ed a mage’s arcane spirit. Danica had never actually run into one before, but she’d heard the stories. They were extremely rare, and some believed they didn’t even exist.
If only that were true.
“She’s smart,” Raven said behind her. T o emphasize her power, Raven exerted her will, and Danica sensed as her spirit slip ped even further away. She felt hollow and weak. H er chest w en t tight.
“Not too smart,” Rake said. Danica was still on her knees. She looked at Cole, who tried to get up. Behind her, the undead carried Cross towards a transport lift. “ I f she was smart she wouldn’t have stolen my ship, my prisoners and my men. And she would’ve had the good sense to stay hidden, so I c ould never find her.”
His smile was cold.
Danica smiled back.
“Who a re the new guys?” she asked with a nod towards the leathery undead, the tall and emaciated sentries with oversized grinning skulls and skeletal frames. “Is the Ebon Cities giving you troops now, too?”
“The Ebon Cities…” Rake laughed. He knelt down, and looked her in the eye. “Oh, Dani, you’ve missed so much in the last couple of years. I ’ve miss ed you. You know that, right?” His smile faded. “You were always one of my favorites. It really hurt when you left.” He stood up. “Th ey’re called Scarecrows: s pecial zombies with the martial skill s of a Vath but without the out-of-control bloodlust. They used to be Revengers. The Grand Vizier of Koth sold us the secrets of how to make them.”
Danica tried not to let her shock show. Koth was a renegade necropolis populated with outcast undead, exiled vampires and others not deemed worthy of rank by the Ebon Cities. The remote city of the dead had been relatively quiet the past few years, ever since Cross had destroyed their leader, the vampire called The Old One.
“Wh y are you allies with Koth?” she asked. “And w hat do you want with Cross?”
“Koth is the new super power, Dani,” Rake laughed. “The Southern Claw and the Ebon Cities have been so focused on destroying each other that you morons forgot all about Koth. And you forgot all about us.”
Raven pulled Black to her fee t and punched her in the kidneys. Pain flared down her back and into her thighs, and t ears of pain ran down her face. Geist picked up Cole, and a pair of Scarecrows stepped up and aimed their massive assault rifles at the women.
“Don’t worry about Cross,” Rake said. “He’s in good hands.” He stepped close r, un til his and Danica’s faces almost touched. His eyes were like icy glass. “You should worry more about what I’m going to do with you.”