Black Scars by Steven Alan Montano Read Free Book Online Page A

the form of an edged shadow and sliced her way through barbaric ranks like a murder of ravenous crows. Ribbons of black flesh splashed onto earth made wet with blood. She returned as a cloud of vapor that soared into his lungs and burned them. She was exhausted, and Cross felt like he’d been running for hours.
    Still the Gorgoloth came.
    Cross fired his HK into the onrushing mob. They were closing fast. Sharp and heavy throwing stones as large as baseballs soared at the humans, only to crack and scatter in the air as Black’s spirit barely formed a shield around them in time.
    He sensed the fatigue in both of their spirits. They needed time to recover. Just precious moments would help. He hoped that by releasing them one and then the other the spirits would each have chance enough to rest, but it wasn’t enough.
    The Gorgoloth pulled to within thirty yards. Cross saw fury in their blank eyes and fanged visages. Dillon and Vos fired furiously into the small horde. Cross watched with horror as the ebon brutes reached the hull of the ship and swung stone axes and dark blades and broke into the vessel. Wood splintered and collapsed, and the two gunmen backed deeper into the wreckage and disappeared from sight.
    “ Cover me!” Black shouted.
    “ What?!”
    Cross didn’t have time to argue. Black ducked away and moved behind the prisoners. She started undoing Lucan’s bonds.
    What, is she going to offer the poor guy up as a snack?
    He had only heartbeats before Gorgoloth were upon them. A rushing waves of bodies and weapons. The air thundered and the ground rattled, and Cross’ heart dropped to his feet. He didn’t feel himself move, but suddenly he was right there in front of them. His HK flashed four shots, and two Gorgoloth fell as the chamber clicked empty. His spirit turned into a fan of liquid fire that shot out in a gushing stream. Gorgoloth collapsed with their faces and hands melting. Cross crouched down and ripped the shotgun from the holster on his back.
    He felt how weak his spirit was. She wouldn’t be able to keep it up.
    He fired a blast from the shotgun. The force threw him back since he was off balance, but the shot tore off a Gorgoloth’s arm and sent the brute sideways.
    Still they came, a wall of black warriors. They trampled their own dead. They had no fear.
    Cross did. His body was cold with it. There was no way out, and no way to deal with so many.
    He felt a presence behind him. It was massive and powerful, a looming force of immense and primal magic. The monstrous spirit erupted out of nowhere.
    Arcane power pushed at Cross from behind and nearly froze him in place. Its touch was so chilled he felt his movements slowed. Pinpricks of shadow pierced his skin and crept into his muscles. Everything darkened. The sky turned midnight, and the mist became as thick as iron.
    Cross fired his shotgun again. The blast seemed distant. A Gorgoloth’s face tore away in slow motion. Time froze. They trudged through air like dark ice.
    He looked at the prisoners.
    Lucan floated a full foot above the ground. Black stood behind him. Her hands were wreathed in arcane power, and all of her attention was focused on the floating prisoner. The energy she held paled compared to Lucan’s.
    Everything paled compared to Lucan.
    He was a catastrophe of light, a storm of cold electricity that twisted and danced across the surface of the hard ground like drops of arctic rain. His eyes and his heart glowed hot white. The air sucked toward him, as if he were some sort of void, an inescapable hole. Space bubbled. Cross felt something inside of him weaken, and his energy drained away like water from a punctured sack.
    Lucan’s spirit was an enormous and screaming entity, a collective force of hundreds bound into an unstable mass. It was a clay thing, an idiot specter. It filled the space between the living and the dead like a churning miasma. Pain and rage and hatred and fear leaked from that collective like wisps of deadly