Free Black Scars by Steven Alan Montano

silence.
    Cross thought that he recognized what Black was talking about. It had been described as a dream, a nightmare of an absence, a dark void. An evil older than the new world, and it roamed free. It was a hunter, which meant that it might have been the same entity that he and Dillon had been sent to stop.
    No, not to stop. To find out how to stop. No one can take that thing on alone.
    It was out there. Waiting.
    I hope I’m wrong, he thought. I hope that’s not what it is. Either way, we’re in it deep now .
    After a while, they went over Black’s intelligence about the ruins where her lover was being held, and laid their plans.
     

 
     
     
     
     
    FIVE
    RUINS
     
     
    The ruins where the Blacks were to conduct the exchange were of a place called Shul Ganneth, once a temple-city of the lupine race called the Maloj. Not much was known about the Maloj, save that they’d been bestial creatures with foul appetites and a talent for tribal magic. They were also thought to have been extinct for several years, possibly even before the remnants of their civilization had been fused with earth during The Black. Only bits and pieces of their culture remained in the form of ruins, artifacts and fossils found in the wilderness.
    The mixed group of Revengers, Southern Claw soldiers and Black Scar inmates traveled at a good pace all through the next day. The air was moist, filled with a thick and freezing fog that blocked sight past half-a-mile and that left them constantly clammy and cold. The ground they traveled over was mostly flat plains covered in snow and beds of smooth ice-covered stone, stony ridges and partially frozen streams.
    They traveled on foot and spared the horses and the camel the extra weight, save for those times when Dillon rode ahead to scout. The terrain they passed through was mostly wide open country, so they moved in a spread out formation, with the prisoners at the center, shackled and bound to each other by their wrists.
    Cross’ legs ached. The effort of walking on slick ice and brittle ground was exhausting. The air was the color of milk, and thick with frost. Patches of ice covered Cross’ armored coat, and the blankets on the animals turned white with brittle snow powder.
    “ Are we there yet?” Kane groaned after a while. No one answered.
    “ What’s their story?” Cross asked Black. The two of them walked behind and a good distance away from the rest of the group, though not out of any intent. Cross was stuck leading the slower camel, while Black was busy checking maps of the area, which slowed her pace. Cross’ horse also clunked along beside them.
    “ Kane and Ekko?” she said. “They’re stowaways.”
    “ How’s that?”
    “ They were trying to escape from Black Scar. I’m still not sure how they did it, but they managed to sneak out of general population and smuggle themselves onboard the Dreadnaught. I guess they thought they’d sneak away the next time it left.”
    “ Which is when you ‘borrowed’ it,” Cross said.
    “ There,” she said. She ignored his comment. “It’s just past that ridge, another mile or two.”
    They reached the ridge, which was composed of a number of tightly clustered and jagged rock formations. Sizable clefts in the razor-sharp stones formed questionable paths that led to the other side. Those paths looked like they’d been sheared clean through the rock with some enormous blade.
    Rather than pass through right away, the group rested. Dillon went on ahead to check out the ruins, which were barely visible about a mile or so off, at the edge of a thinning field of silver-blue mist.
    He wasn’t gone long.
    “ There’s no way to get into that place without being seen.” He drew a rough map of Shul Ganneth in the snow. He explained that the exterior wall was a massive dome that bore a single continuous crack down its western side. From what Dillon had seen, it was the only easy way to get in.
    “ There are some doors on the far end near