Darksiders: The Abomination Vault by Ari Marmell Page A

still shared any sort of link. Funny how he didn’t bother to mention that when he bound you to
me
.”
    Dust cawed miserably.
    “I should leave him to his own fate,” the Horseman muttered. But even as he spoke, he knew he wouldn’t. Not because he felt any particular affinity, but because the Old One—perhaps the
oldest
of the Old Ones—could prove useful.
    And even more, because the blades appearing in the series of images, though seen only briefly, looked very much to him like brass. Like the malleable limbs of the four-armed gilded soldiers Sarasael’s spirit had described.
    The ghouls Death had summoned collapsed back into thesnow, and out of Kothysos entirely. Despair appeared an instant later in response to the Horseman’s silent call.
    “Very well, Dust,” Death said. “Let’s see what dares to trouble your Father in his own home. And maybe, depending on what he decides to tell me, I’ll be able to decide whether I should assist him or kill him myself.”

CHAPTER SIX
    I T HAD BEEN DIFFICULT, AT FIRST, TO TELL THAT HE’D crossed between worlds at all.
    The biting, predatory chill; the gusts so cold they nearly congealed into a solid mass; the flurries of swirling snow … All were as much a part of where he had gone as where he’d been.
    But where the snows of Kothysos were thick, sludgy, discolored by waste and corruption, these were pure, as white as angels’ wings. Here was not the sapping cold of the blizzard, but the raw sharpness of the highest peaks.
    Death and Despair had emerged from the emptiness between worlds at the very edges of the Crowfather’s domain. The ancient hermit’s eldritch defenses would allow nobody, not even the Horsemen, to materialize any nearer. From there, under clouded skies as gray as any headstone, Rider and mount had traveled the meandering canyons of jagged rock that ran beside the mountains’ roots. For long hours, Despair had galloped tirelessly, carving hoofprints into the cracked, icy surface. Slowly, a thickening of the grim overcast began to suggest the fall of twilight—except, Death realized almost instantly, what he saw wasn’t twilight at all.
    The heavens ahead were not darkened, but obscured.Spreading in all directions like an oily stain came a roiling mass blacker and heavier than any storm. Crows. Uncountable, perhaps infinite, crows.
    And not merely these, the Crowfather’s chosen, but multiple pillars of twisting smoke choked the skies as well. Even from such a distance, the occasional sharp crash or ringing clatter of battle wafted over the open ground. Flashes of searing light silhouetted the swooping flocks, or the occasional gleaming figure both down in the canyon and up atop the towering ridgeline.
    The Horseman ordered Dust into the air, though he knew that the snow and the sheer population of those skies might prevent his companion from observing much of use. He and Despair had then charged headlong for the base of the nearest cliff.
    It was clear immediately that the mount could go no farther. Continuing along the canyon floor would have been
asking
to be spotted by the dozens of constructs atop the mountain ledges. Death would have to proceed on higher ground; yet the looping switchbacks, narrow shelves, and perilous climbs could not possibly provide purchase for hooves, no matter how dexterous or unnatural. Harvester strapped to his back by a leather baldric that hadn’t been present only moments before, Death had slid from the saddle and begun his ascent.
    Although the peaks and ledges were crawling with the metal soldiers, their spinning supports providing uncanny balance, Death had faced little opposition during his ascent. He came across several fallen constructs wedged into crannies in the rock, their brass-and-stone carapaces marred by scores of scratches, small yet deep. The crows descended upon the invaders, and the power of the Crowfather bestowed their talons and beaks with more than enough strength to wound the unliving