Read Online Black Scars by Steven Alan Montano - Free Book Online

them, longer than the last time.
    “ I’ll make sure,” Black finally said, after the lack of conversation had almost lulled Cross to sleep, “that Lara helps you find what you’re looking for. All you have to do is help me deliver Lucan to my brother.” She shrugged, and smiled darkly. “Without a ship, I can’t exactly do this with just Vos to help me. And Cradden has men. Lots of men. If I waltz in there with just two guns he’ll screw us.”
    “ Why not use Lucan?” Cross asked, afraid to hear the answer. “You obviously have no qualms about doing that .”
    “ Screw you,” Black said quietly. “Cradden’s my brother. I’m not sure I’d be able to protect both he and Cole if I turned Lucan lose like that.”
    Cross thought about that for a minute. He let Black wait while he pondered his options.
    “ We’ll help you, and you’ll get Cole to help us. But there’s a caveat,” he said. “I can’t let you give Lucan to your brother. Especially if you’re not going to tell me what Cradden has in store for him.”
    Black smiled, almost sadly.
    “ Is that right?”
    “ Yes,” he said. “It’s too dangerous to give him up.”
    “ Then go to hell,” Black said, and she stood up.
    “ Can I finish?” Cross said, as calmly as he could manage. Cross considered his own people skills less than stellar, especially when he had to deal with women. Women who looked like Danica were particularly tough for him to handle. “I’ll help you get Cole back, if you’ll convince her to help us.” He stood up, and looked Black in the eye. “But I can’t let you give Lucan to anyone but me. He’s too dangerous. He has to go back to Thornn.”
    Black watched him carefully. She reminded him of an angry cat. Her nostrils flared with barely contained anger. A sudden cold breeze caught her dark red hair and pulled it across her face. Cross couldn’t have pulled his eyes from her even if he’d wanted to.
    Stare away, stud. She has a girlfriend. Even if she wasn’t a lesbian, you’d be about as interesting to her as a pile of corkwood.
    “ I don’t want Cradden hurt,” she said at last.
    “ I don’t want him hurt, either,” Cross said. “But I also can’t let him have Lucan. And I need to find the Woman in the Ice. A lot of lives may depend it.”
    She shrugged.
    “ Saving lives doesn’t mean much to me,” she said matter-of-factly. “You have to protect what’s yours. That’s all that matters.”
    Black left Cross alone, and walked back over to the rest of the group.
    Cross ran his hands over his face. He felt like he hadn’t slept in days. His eyes were raw and tired, and his skin was so dry he could’ve used his face to take the edge off of a piece of wood.
    Why the hell can’t anything ever be easy?
    After he meditated on his conversation with Black for a few minutes, Cross went and found Dillon. His hands itched beneath his leather gauntlets, but with how quickly his new spirit rose to anger he found that he needed to wear them almost constantly.
    The Reach was cold, pale and vast. The dead forest where they’d battled the Gorgoloth was only half a mile away, but it looked much further.
    Night fell. The sky was deep and bloody purple, like a discolored bruise. Ice-hard snow padded the ground.
    The main campfire had been dug deep and entrenched in a low ring of packed snow to protect it from the wind. Its flames cast the figures around it in ghostly shadow.
    Dillon had already ventured back across the bridge after the battle. He’d fetched both of their mounts and the camel. Cross had no idea how Dillon had coaxed them across the log, and he decided it was better if he didn’t.
    Cross and Dillon sat together, away from the others, and spoke quietly. Kane and Ekko were both fast asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms beneath a thick wool blanket. Lucan kneeled, as if in prayer, also wrapped in a blanket and also, as far as Cross and Dillon could tell, unconscious. Black read a small book at