Read Online Darksiders: The Abomination Vault by Ari Marmell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ari Marmell
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save in great numbers, but your myrmidons are far more effective. We know now what sorts of tactics the White City is likely to employ in its defensive bastions. And we know that the Charred Council has, as yet, no notion of what we’re after.”
“And just how do you figure that?” Belisatra asked.
“Because Eden was guarded
only
by angels, not by any of the Horsemen.”
“Hmm. Fair, but we can’t count on that lasting. And Heaven will certainly have reinforced the garden’s defenders at this point. We’ve lost our shot.”
“Our shot at Eden, yes. But only temporarily. And besides, Eden was never our only option.”
“True, but—”
The fever was actually squeezing him, reaching out with great tendrils so it might crush his mind to its breast and feel his thoughts burning. He’d begun to sweat across his forehead, his neck …
But not his hands. His hands were steady, cool, comfortable on Black Mercy’s grip.
“Enough for now!” He refrained from shouting, not out of any desire to remain diplomatic with his ally but simply because he lacked the energy to both remember the meaning of the words
and
spit them with any real vehemence. “I believe you have some constructs to replace before our next attempt, don’t you?”
Belisatra grumbled something unintelligible and swept from the room, the heavy steel of her armor adding its own metallic voice as she vanished down the corridor. Behind her, her ally remained beside the table and its scattered tools, sagging in his chair, fixated wholly on the only thing remaining in his sight, in his mind, perhaps even in his soul.
Click
.
T HE SNOW WAS THE BROWN-GREEN OF MARSH WATER , rather than traditional white or even slushy gray. It even
smelled
vaguely stagnant, not that there were many creatures around to notice. It fell in thick flurries, some of which seemed to ride their own individual winds that spun in utter disregard for the weather patterns mere paces away. Everywhere it fell it froze almost instantly into ice, painting abstract patterns of dull hue across the landscape.
And it fell so swiftly that Death, who had crouched in this particular spot for only a few moments, was already half buried and otherwise coming to resemble just another small geological feature of the terrain.
He lurked low on the slope of a mountain so astoundingly massive that it was impossible, from any distance, to view both the base and the summit at once. Several protrusions of stone jutted from the slopes, a few of them large enough to qualify as mountains in their own right. And this was but one of an entire range, forming a wall in the world—and creating steep valleys and gorges where so many Nephilim and so many demons had fallen, long and long ago.
Jagged rock, eternal winter, and a surface of ice some hundreds or even thousands of hands in depth. This was all that the ancient battle had left of the fields of Kothysos.
Within those valleys, swarming across floors of ice and snowy slopes, were those six-limbed beasts of stone of which the departed angel had told him. Hordes upon hordes of them, transforming all Kothysos into one enormous anthill of industry. That they were, indeed, scavenging the ancient battlefield, Death could have no doubt. Their forelimbs were transformed into digging tools, shovels and picks for the most part, save when they hauled something from the ice. These, whether the tiniest object or an entire demonic corpse, long preserved by the cold, they then carried off to some central assembly point the Horseman had not yet discovered.
He had
not
yet seen any trace of the stone-and-brass warriors, nor any sign of a living mind directing the lesser automatons. The things seemed relatively unobservant as well as unintelligent; so long as he remained on the slopes high above, and let the snow do most of the work, remaining concealed ought to be simple enough.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice almost lost to the falling snow and cracking ice.
Dust,
“And just how do you figure that?” Belisatra asked.
“Because Eden was guarded
only
by angels, not by any of the Horsemen.”
“Hmm. Fair, but we can’t count on that lasting. And Heaven will certainly have reinforced the garden’s defenders at this point. We’ve lost our shot.”
“Our shot at Eden, yes. But only temporarily. And besides, Eden was never our only option.”
“True, but—”
The fever was actually squeezing him, reaching out with great tendrils so it might crush his mind to its breast and feel his thoughts burning. He’d begun to sweat across his forehead, his neck …
But not his hands. His hands were steady, cool, comfortable on Black Mercy’s grip.
“Enough for now!” He refrained from shouting, not out of any desire to remain diplomatic with his ally but simply because he lacked the energy to both remember the meaning of the words
and
spit them with any real vehemence. “I believe you have some constructs to replace before our next attempt, don’t you?”
Belisatra grumbled something unintelligible and swept from the room, the heavy steel of her armor adding its own metallic voice as she vanished down the corridor. Behind her, her ally remained beside the table and its scattered tools, sagging in his chair, fixated wholly on the only thing remaining in his sight, in his mind, perhaps even in his soul.
Click
.
T HE SNOW WAS THE BROWN-GREEN OF MARSH WATER , rather than traditional white or even slushy gray. It even
smelled
vaguely stagnant, not that there were many creatures around to notice. It fell in thick flurries, some of which seemed to ride their own individual winds that spun in utter disregard for the weather patterns mere paces away. Everywhere it fell it froze almost instantly into ice, painting abstract patterns of dull hue across the landscape.
And it fell so swiftly that Death, who had crouched in this particular spot for only a few moments, was already half buried and otherwise coming to resemble just another small geological feature of the terrain.
He lurked low on the slope of a mountain so astoundingly massive that it was impossible, from any distance, to view both the base and the summit at once. Several protrusions of stone jutted from the slopes, a few of them large enough to qualify as mountains in their own right. And this was but one of an entire range, forming a wall in the world—and creating steep valleys and gorges where so many Nephilim and so many demons had fallen, long and long ago.
Jagged rock, eternal winter, and a surface of ice some hundreds or even thousands of hands in depth. This was all that the ancient battle had left of the fields of Kothysos.
Within those valleys, swarming across floors of ice and snowy slopes, were those six-limbed beasts of stone of which the departed angel had told him. Hordes upon hordes of them, transforming all Kothysos into one enormous anthill of industry. That they were, indeed, scavenging the ancient battlefield, Death could have no doubt. Their forelimbs were transformed into digging tools, shovels and picks for the most part, save when they hauled something from the ice. These, whether the tiniest object or an entire demonic corpse, long preserved by the cold, they then carried off to some central assembly point the Horseman had not yet discovered.
He had
not
yet seen any trace of the stone-and-brass warriors, nor any sign of a living mind directing the lesser automatons. The things seemed relatively unobservant as well as unintelligent; so long as he remained on the slopes high above, and let the snow do most of the work, remaining concealed ought to be simple enough.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice almost lost to the falling snow and cracking ice.
Dust,
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