“Mid-afternoon,” the angel replied urgently. “The Veil is becoming dangerously thick. You were screaming in your sleep.”
“Just a dream,” she said.
“An unnatural dream. This air is not healthy.” He pointed east. “Something has happened to the skyships.”
Far across the Deadsands Rachel saw three isolated pockets of flame.
“They came down,” Trench said. “One after the other. I cannot explain it.”
Carnival? Rachel saw no sign of the scarred angel. But what else could have brought those airships down? The Heshette? It seemed unlikely. Deepgate’s aeronauts always kept their ships well above arrow range.
Then Rachel noticed the sands around her. Blue and green ash had drifted down and settled in soft bright clumps across a hundred yards of desert, like scabs of alien lichen. But this flora, when she disturbed it with the toe of her boot, stank of rotting metals.
A deep rumble rolled out from the chained city. Showers of white sparks rushed upwards from the burning city, sparkling against the vast dark columns of fuel smoke. “The Poison Kitchens,” she said. “Deepgate won’t last much longer.”
“Then let us hurry.”
Trench got to his feet and unfurled his wings against the turbulent sky. For a heartbeat he appeared in silhouette-an angel wreathed in red smoke and falling stars-and then the sky behind him bloomed with white light.
Deepgate exploded.
Rachel’s head struck the metal groyne as a violent concussion slammed her backwards. Flames swam across her vision. She heard an explosion as vast and terrible as the death cry of a god-then nothing but a shrill whine. A fireball of unimaginable size was mushrooming over the chasm. Silver-white flashes in the sky bleached the surrounding landscape as the blast swelled upwards, sucking a vast column of white smoke and embers upwards in its wake.
She grabbed Trench and dragged him down behind the groyne.
Torrents of sand howled past the edge of the iron barricade. A furious rumble shook the ground. The groyne shuddered and groaned, then pitched over at a shallow angle.
Silence.
Through a thick haze of dust Rachel saw Trench crouching beside her. Grit pattered against her leathers. The air was opaque, a fuming cloud of white and pink, yet Rachel glimpsed darker shapes in the sky above.
Debris?
It began to fall like hail. Shards of metal and blocks of stone thudded into the sand all around. Most of the pieces were small, no larger than a sword or a man’s head, yet they struck the ground with enough force to kill. Something hit the iron barrier with a teeth-numbing clang. Rachel shoved Trench up against the leaning groyne, then crawled in beside him. The low barrier gave limited protection, with barely a foot of overhang under which to shelter, but it was better than nothing. There she waited while shrapnel pounded the desert around their makeshift shelter, raising puffs of sand and colourful ash.
Smaller objects pinged against the barricade, yet she felt deeper, more violent concussions through the ground. From somewhere came the screech of rending, ripping metal, the crack and crumble of stone-the final death rattle of a city.
How many minutes passed Rachel could not say, but the hail of debris gradually lessened and finally stopped. A deep silence fell over them.
She wiped sand from her stinging eyes. “Shit. Are you all right?” What had the chemists stored there to cause such a powerful explosion? “Trench?”
“I’m fine.”
Abruptly, the air grew cold. A chill wind blew in from the desert, towards them, like a reflexive inhalation in response to the outward force of the blast.
And it began to rain.
Gently at first, then with increasing vigor, the rain came down. Fat black drops of water churned up the desert floor, rattled against their iron shelter. Rachel covered her nose and mouth. The water stank, like-?
When she heard Trench screaming, she knew it wasn’t water at all.
12
THE ROAD TO PANDEMERIA
After a while Jack Caulker began to hate the fog. It was damp, oppressive, gloomy, miserable, confusing, tiresome, frustrating, and endless. He passed the time by thinking up more and more ways in which it annoyed him. How had Anchor managed to live within this gloom all of his life? Caulker had begun to despise the big man, too. Anchor remained in high spirits, humming merrily as they marched across the Deadsands, a perpetual grin on his big black face.
Was the bastard even human?
The wet grey murk blanketed everything but fifty yards of ground around them, and made navigation through this wasteland treacherous. Twice already Caulker had been forced to retrace their footsteps to avoid pools of slipsand.
South of the caravan trail, the landscape dipped gently into a vast wet basin where poisoned water bubbled up through the sand in places. The whole area had been polluted by Cinderbark Wood: Deepgate’s chemists’ most hideous creation. Caulker planned to avoid the wretched place if at all possible. Besides, the majority of clean springs were all on the northern side of the trail-each fed, it was said, by a subterranean river that flowed deep underground from MountBlackthrone itself. On this route, all they had to worry about were Spine patrols and those occasional bands of Heshette raiders who came down from the north to prey on pilgrims.
Having witnessed Anchor’s combat skills in the Widow’s Hook, a few temple skull-faces and heathen goat-fuckers would be the least of Caulker’s worries. So when he heard riders approaching from the north, the cutthroat felt somewhat relieved. Some wanton slaughter might at least alleviate his boredom.
John Anchor called out to the riders before they could even see them-an action that did not disturb Caulker as much as the big man’s reasons for doing so. Had the giant kept his mouth shut, the Heshette might easily have ridden past the two travelers in the fog. But Anchor’s halloo made the horsemen change course at once. Sensible enough, Caulker thought at first, for the giant needed souls to feed the god whose airship he dragged around.
Except, as Caulker soon discovered, the Adamantine Man had not summoned these raiders to slay or rob them. His real reason for giving them his position beggared belief.
Six ragged warriors appeared out of the fog, clothed in sand-coloured gabardines and head scarves. They rode scrawny horses covered with tribal fetishes, the bones and feathers denoting their clan and their rank within it, and carried a motley assortment of weapons: mainly daggers and clubs, although a couple of men waved longer, curved blades.
“Bara aresh,” cried the leading rider. “This is a bone road. You will halt and pay a toll, or you will bleed.” He stopped himself when he caught sight of Anchor’s massive harness and the rope rising at a steep angle from his back. His thin horse reared, fetishes clicking in its mane. The rider controlled the beast easily, never taking his gaze from Anchor. He raised his dagger. “Corras?” he snapped. “Arramon?”
“I not understand this speech,” Anchor said. “You speak the language of the Seven, the New Gods? This I know.”
“Your gods,” the Heshette warrior said. “Not mine.”
The giant beamed. “I understand. Tell me, friend, where is the chained city? My guide…” He shrugged apologetically and gestured towards Caulker. “He is good man, but confused by the fog, I think. We walk forward and then later we walk back. Always forward and back. Is better to walk forward all of the time.”
Caulker’s brows rose. Anchor stopped to ask for directions? From these fucking savages? Had he no sense of the way of the world? That the Heshette had only asked for a toll was miraculous enough. Normally they just cut travelers’ throats and took everything.
The warrior’s dark eyes regarded the stranger through the slit in his head scarf.
“Northwest,” he said, pointing. “For two leagues, then the trail turns south and then west again. Why do you want to go there?” He glanced at the big man’s rope again. “There is nothing left but flames and poison.”
Anchor grinned. “I am…how you say? A traveler.”
“From the Riot Coast. You know of it? Good blue lobster and fishbeer. Best in all Pandemeria.”
The mounted warrior let out his laughter suddenly and freely. Behind him, his men joined in. “No, my friend,” he said. “I don’t know your homeland. But you are free to travel here in ours.” He sheathed his dagger, then cinched the reins around a knot tied in his mount’s mane, and dismounted. “You must share bread with us, and tell us, please, what this queer rope is.”
“Rope?” Anchor glanced behind him. “Ah, yes. Sometimes I forget. I show you after we eat. Is only a small thing.”
And so Caulker found himself squatting beside a dung campfire close to the caravan trail to share a feast of flatbread, camel milk, and goat meat with a group of savages. The horseman who had first addressed them-a tall, lean man named Harranel Ramnir-turned out to be their leader. In the clipped accent of the southern tribes, he introduced his men to Anchor and Caulker.
Caulker made a point of forgetting their names at once.
Under their head scarves Ramnir’s savages all looked the same: hard, tanned faces and ragged beards. At first their uneasy gazes kept returning to the giant’s rope, but as he did not seem inclined to speak about it, they did not press him. Soon the fire settled and the smell of roasted meat filled the air. Each of the Heshette had been pocked or scarred in some way by the poisons and diseases Deepgate’s military had used against the tribes, as they explained to John Anchor when the big man asked about their wounds.
“For three decades they warred with us,” Ramnir said. He was about ten years older than his men, with a thin black beard, a long nose, and intense dark eyes. “We are Mer-Heshette from south of the bone road.” He pointed with the piece of flatbread he was chewing. “The chained folk poisoned the springs, and drove us north into the nomad and Blood Heshette lands where there is little grazing. Bad years. Many families destroyed. Those of us who survived the poisons starved when our herds died.”
“It is an evil way to make war,” Anchor said, shaking his head. His deep voice was full of sadness. “Too cruel.”
A necessary way to make war, thought Caulker, as he ripped another piece of meat from a bone and chewed it slowly. Take out the women and children, and the savages couldn’t breed. These people preyed on civilians, after all, Deepgaters and Sandporters alike.
Watching them now, he felt nothing but disgust. He lifted his cup of camel’s milk and drained it, hoping it might wash away the foul taste in his mouth.
“Once we have a war on the RiotCoast,” Anchor said. “Many years ago now, before the Mesmerists come to Pandemeria. Brownslough is the land to the north of us-a lot of mud and coal. We trade with them, fine, but they have only land around them. Trade is not enough. They want our ports in Herrul and Oxos. So they come with an army.” He slammed his hands together, making the rope on his back quiver. “Brownslough people not cruel, just stupid. On the RiotCoast our babies crawl, then learn to fight, and then to walk. You understand? Big mistake for Brownslough. They learn a hard lesson, then go back north, and we trade with them again. All good.”
“So many lands…” Ramnir said wistfully. “I didn’t know the world was so large. We Heshette have become so insular, so focused on the destruction of the chained city and those who persecute us. They say there was a time when our people wandered far across the world, yet now our hate won’t let us look beyond the current conflict. If we opened our eyes, we’d see there’s nothing left here.”
“Hate is poison,” the giant said. “How many are you? All of your people together?”
The horseman sighed. “Less than a hundred and fifty tribes left now. Perhaps six thousand people.”
Anchor grunted. “It is not many,” he said. “Come to the Riot Coast. We have enough land. We have big party, for a month or more. Six thousand, eh?” He thought for a moment. “You can fish, no problem, make homes. My people will help you. If you want you can have an island. We have lots of islands. Good hunting, too-pigs, fowl, garren, and bears.”
Ramnir smiled. “A generous offer,” he said, “but I doubt your people would welcome so many.”
“You don’t know Riot Coasters,” Anchor replied, smiling again. “Very hospitable. If I’m not there, you tell them, John Anchor said it is fine for you to stay.”
Caulker felt physically sick. Was the black giant offering sanctuary to this rabble of scum? Surely Anchor must have another motive. Were the Riot Coasters cannibals? Would this month-long party involve a lot of fires and cauldrons? The cutthroat had heard of such things in his seafaring days.
The Heshette warrior clasped the giant’s shoulder, but said nothing.
Anchor was actually drawing a map now. Using his finger, he sketched out the outline of a coast in the hard sand. “This is your land here,” he said. “This is the SandSea, yes? The yellow waters. All this, all around.” A few feet away from this he drew some small round shapes. “These islands we call the Tail of Smoke. Big mountains there, bad smell.”
The Volcanic Isles. Caulker recognized them from charts he’d seen. Deepgate’s missionary ships had visited those islands.
“Now look here.” Anchor had drawn another coastline, at least twice as far away again as the Volcanic Isles, but on the opposite side. “This is Pandemeria. High Meria, here…Brownslough, and the RiotCoast.” He made lines in the sand, dividing up the continent. The last squiggle appeared to be a peninsula at the very southern tip of the land mass.
Caulker did some calculations. Pandemeria lay several hundred leagues beyond the furthest island to which missionary ships had sailed: on the far side of the StrakebreakerSea, as it had come to be known after the loss of so many expeditions. The waters were said to be so wild and empty that most salt sailors feared to venture near them. Yet new lands meant trade, and profit. And if John Anchor had crossed them…
How had he crossed them?
Had his own god’s airship carried him? Caulker wondered if Cospinol would accept another passenger, but the thought of begging a lift on such a gruesome mode of transportation made the cutthroat flinch. Boundless profit or not, he’d have to think about that one.
“You need ships,” Anchor said. “Strong ships. Very dangerous seas here and here.” He drew wiggles all across the StrakebreakerSea, almost dividing it in two. “One time there was a great battle here, many ships sunk. Then Iril opened a big door under the water and something escaped.”
“A monster?” Caulker asked. He had been so caught up in Anchor’s map, he had quite forgotten about the Heshette.
“No,” Anchor looked thoughtful, then frowned. “More like a piece of Hell, like something the Mesmerists would make.”
“The Mesmerists?” Anchor had mentioned them before. “These people who came to Pandemeria?”
“They come to Pandemeria, but they are not people. Big problem with them in the east. You’ll see them soon, I think. They will come here too now.” He looked sternly at Ramnir; his brow creased, and he stabbed his finger in the center of the first land mass he had drawn to indicate the Deadsands. “Big door to Hell opens, the Mesmerists come out. Same in Pandemeria, same in Deepgate. Much blood.”
The horseman met the giant’s gaze. “Why are you here, John Anchor? What is attached to the other end of that rope?”
Anchor gave a deep sigh. “I go to Deepgate for two reasons,” he said. “One: I kill someone. Maybe she is an angel, maybe a demigod, no matter. This part is easy. The other task…” He flexed his shoulders. “This part is not so easy.”
Over the next hour he explained about the god whose skyship he dragged behind him.
“Cospinol will try to seal the breach under Deepgate. Many things to consider, many dangers. It is a problem for you if my master fails. You have no other gods here, no great armies to fight the Mesmerists. Much of this land will become Hell, I think.” He nodded his head and stabbed his finger into the sand again, pointing to the distant land he’d drawn across the StrakebreakerSea. “I
f I don’t come back from Deepgate, it is safer for you to find ships and go here.”
Poison and acid fell from the sky. The greasy, colourful rain spattered the Deadsands, hissing and smoking wherever it fell. It pummeled the clumps of blue and green ash, reducing them to smouldering mud, and it struck the top of the leaning groyne under which Rachel and Trench were trying to hide. But while there was just enough space under the narrow shelter for the assassin to keep all but a few drops from striking her knees, it was a different matter for Trench.
Rachel tried to pull him as much under the iron overhang as she could, but it was useless. His wings were too large. There simply wasn’t space for them under the metal canopy.
He continued to scream as the lethal rain burned his feathers and tendons.
“Lie down!” Rachel yelled. “There isn’t room! We’ll cover your wings with sand.”
The assassin tried to push Trench down while she scooped up sand and threw it over him, but he struggled against her. He was panicking, fighting her, oblivious to everything but his own pain. In blind terror, he shoved her out from under the groyne and tried to squeeze himself further into the gap where she had been. Even then he could not fit his wings in fully behind him. He wheeled around and tried to back up against the tilting barricade, but now his head and neck were exposed.
He screamed again.
Lying outside where Trench had shoved her, Rachel was fully exposed to the caustic downpour. Drops pattered against her armour, and the smell of singed leather filled her nostrils. She scrambled back under cover. A heartbeat later the piercing pains in her back and thighs told her where acid had eaten through to her flesh. She rolled on the ground, and shoveled sand over her thighs.
By the time the rain stopped, the stench of seared flesh and feathers hung thickly in the air. Trench lay on the steaming ground, hissing quietly through his teeth. His wings-Dill’s wings, Rachel reminded herself-now looked like black mulch. All of his feathers had burned away, leaving tattered skin full of black-rimed holes and glistening white bone.
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