Darksiders: The Abomination Vault: A Novel [Paperback]

Ride with the Horsemen of the Apocalypse as they seek to unearth a plot that could plunge all of Creation into chaos!
 
Ages before the events of Darksiders and Darksiders II, two of the feared Horsemen—Death and War—are tasked with stopping a group of renegades from locating the Abomination Vault: a hoard containing weapons of ultimate power and malice, capable of bringing an end to the uneasy truce between Heaven and Hell . . . but only by unleashing total destruction.
 
Created in close collaboration with the Darksiders II teams at Vigil and THQ,Darksiders: The Abomination Vaultgives an exciting look at the history and world of the Horsemen, shining a new light on the unbreakable bond between War and Death.Ari Marmellis the author ofThe Conqueror’s ShadowandThe Warlord’s Legacy. He has published a fair amount of shared-world fiction, including several short stories andAgents of Artifice,a Magic: The Gathering novel. Marmell lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, George, and two cats.CHAPTER ONE

The ashes seemed to go on forever.

A thin layer at first, very much like a gentle coating of gray, clinging snow. Deep enough, if only just, to retain the imprints of passing feet--or would have, had there been any.

After barely a few finger widths, however, the fine particles began to compress, suddenly and swiftly. A light dusting became a shifting grit, then a sucking mire. And below even that, the ash had lain so deep, for so long, it had condensed into a layer as unyielding as any earthen crust. If this world even had a surface beyond the omnipresent dust and cinders, it was buried so utterly that it would never again appear to the living.

It filled the air as well, that ash, casting a constant veil across the face of the horizon. It diffused the light into perpetual dusk, blotting out the lingering embers of what had once been a sun. For those rare few lS