The Witch's Eye by Steven Montano & Barry Currey

Author:Steven Montano & Barry Currey [Montano, Steven & Currey, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1482513005
Amazon: B00B2YB37C
Publisher: Darker Sunset Press
Published: 2013-01-17T18:30:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

NOMADS

The Bone March was endless.

Black clouds crushed the horizon, and stale winds blasted the three refugees as they walked. The slave caravan had stopped a day’s ride outside of Dirge. Cross, Flint and Shiv, unfortunately, had to travel on foot, and they were dangerously low on food and water, and there was little to be found in that cold desert. The land was stark, like the surface of the moon.

Cross’s feet were sore within his crumbling leather boots. He wore a dead man’s coat over his tattered clothes, but it did little to shield him from the cold. Flint wore a thick white cloak that flapped in the scratching breeze, and they kept Shiv wrapped in a blanket, making it appear like she’d just stumbled out of bed.

They’d been walking for nearly a day. It felt like ten.

The world was utterly without moisture, and Cross felt sand in his teeth. His back and legs ached down to the muscles. Sweat glazed his skin, frozen there by the numbing cold.

They crossed open plains of ice and sharp rocks and passed twisted vegetation bent like writhing snakes. There was nothing on the horizon but drifts of cobalt dust and trees that resembled sharpened stakes of bone.

They’d managed to find a few weapons in the ruins of the slave caravan – the shotgun, a rifle with a damaged scope, and the ancient Colt .45 Cross had acquired back in the Carrion Rift – but they had very little ammo, and none of the mercenary’s armor had been salvageable. They’d found some hardtack and dehydrated soup mix, a couple of pots and pans, a spare blanket, and a half-full canteen. Everything else had been eviscerated by the malign crystalline entity.

“I hate this place,” Flint said. “It’s too dry, and too cold. I’ll take life on a ship any day.”

“I never took you for a sailor,” Cross said.

“Dad loves his boats,” Shiv said. She didn’t bother to suppress the moan beneath her words.

They’d been amiable enough companions. Cross was happy to have them with him, even if their presence made him more paranoid than ever. Shiv was barely twelve, and Flint was close to fifty. They were capable survivors – besides Flint’s experience as a Marine, both he and his daughter had spent plenty of time prospecting near Rhaine and working odd jobs ever since Julei, Flint’s wife, had passed away from a staph infection after a lengthy battle with cancer. Flint didn’t like to talk about it, and Cross respected that. Some things didn’t need to be discussed.

He was surprised by how talkative Shiv was. She’d been almost silent in captivity, but now that they traveled across the wastelands she talked…and she talked a lot. She challenged her father’s often exaggerated statements of things he’d done, offered her opinions on any observations he made, asked detailed questions about how far they’d come or still had to go, and politely demanded every last shred of information from Cross regarding his experiences as both a soldier and a mercenary, most of which he really wanted to keep to himself.

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