Scar Night

26

Attacked

Rags, he’d instructed, and rags they fetched. There was no shortage of rags in this godforsaken hole. They tore strips from blankets and strips from gabardines, soaked them in mud, and set to work stuffing them into every vent in the Tooth’s enormous hull. This would minimize the effect of the gas the armada was sure to use on them. Scarves were also collected and set aside, ready to dip in urine and then cover their faces. The Heshette women were already gathering buckets of the stuff. The urine, Devon had explained, would help counter the poisons they might breathe.

It wouldn’t, of course, but the opportunity to have these savages breathe their own piss was too good to miss.

Bataba oversaw the operation with stern diligence, while a dozen sour-faced Heshette escorted Devon outside. All carried spades. Devon clutched a lamp, a hammer, a nail, and a stub of a candle in his one hand.

“Only twelve of you,” he said as they stepped through the door and into the blinding force of the desert sun.

“Wouldn’t want you to leave before the fun starts,” Mochet snarled. He wrapped his scarf around his head.

Devon huffed. “As if it were possible to man the engines and simultaneously navigate! An airship cannot be flown single-handed.” He cringed at his own feeble joke. “And I feel hurt that you would expect me to flee such fine company.”

“I expect you to shut up.”

Devon squinted through his own scarf, one he imagined was full of lice. The stained gabardine Bataba had given him smelled of smoke and dung.

Deepgate’s advance armada had arrived at a position to the south of them, almost five hours ago. Since then they had been massing, stretching their communication line, bringing more ships forward for a concentrated assault. Seventeen warships now, with more on the way. When it became apparent they were in no hurry to attack, Devon had decided to use the extra time to his advantage.

Sightglasses flashed on the warship decks, but from that distance the aeronaut spotters would be unlikely to make out much detail. Devon kept his stump hidden in the sleeve of his gabardine nevertheless.

They think we’ve merely crashed. Once their advance force is ready, they’ll dump lime-gas and incendiaries all around the Tooth, smoke out as many of these savages as possible for their crossbows to pick off. The Poisoner nodded to himself, satisfied.They think they have all the time in the world. Which means they think Sypes is already dead.

Flanked by Heshette, Devon slipped and skidded his way down the sand drift before passing into the shade underneath the Tooth’s hull. Vast, earth-clotted tracks loomed over him, large enough to allow the group to clamber between their cogged wheels and reach the remains of the animal pens and the stricken warship on the far side. Goats had been crowded into a makeshift corral to one side where they bleated and pushed each other. Bells tinkled.

The Birkita ’s gondola had been totally stripped. Looters had ripped teak planks from the aft deck and stacked them in piles. Rope and cable lay in coils beside heaps of pots and pans and kitchen utensils. Furniture was strewn everywhere. Plush chairs, richly veneered cabinets, tables and bookcases listed in the sand. Four Heshette warriors had found the captain’s drinks cabinet and now squatted in the sand, wasting fine wines down their bearded throats.

Inside, Devon almost lost his balance when he reached out with his stump to grab the doorframe. Cursing, he made his way along the corridor towards the engine room. Sand mounded the decks and—ridiculous as the notion was—he wished that Fogwill could have been present to comment on the mess. It would have been the last complaint that giddy plum ever made.

They found the tanks of liftgas stored in a cage in the engine room. Pipes from two of them led up to valves accessing the envelope above. Twin axles protruded from the rear of the engine, through gearboxes, to the propellers on the aft deck. Oil glistened like sweat; hydraulic tubing veined the walls. A network of further pipes spread from vents in the engine and disappeared into channels on either side of the room, to feed the airship’s ribs with hot air. Devon set down his equipment and breathed a sigh of relief; everything appeared to be intact.

“Find some tubing,” he said to Mochet. “As much of it as you can. You can strip these, and these. Drain the fluid and run lines from these other tanks into the hot-air pipes. Here, here, and here, as many as you can. Just cut the metal and wrap the joins tightly. It doesn’t have to be perfect.” He surveyed the room. “We’ll need strips of cloth, lots of them. And as much ballast as you can shovel aboard. Sand and rock will do; anything heavy.” He looked Mochet up and down. “How much would you say you weigh?”

Discoloured teeth split Mochet’s beard. He threw his spade at Devon’s feet. “Dig, Poisoner.”

So Devon shovelled sand into the port corridor along with eight of the Heshette, while Mochet and the others laboured inside. One-handed, the work was awkward for Devon. Most of the sand ended up in the faces of his comrades. Occasionally he waved his stump at them in apology. He was a cripple, couldn’t they see? The sun blazed directly overhead, falling between the Tooth and the quarry wall, ruthlessly devouring any shade and cooking the sand under his ill-fitting moccasins. Through the gauze of his scarf he peered into the white-hot sky, expecting the armada to appear above the upper edges of the Tooth any minute. But there had so far been no calls from the Heshette lookouts.

Grudgingly, Devon went back to work. When he’d put aboard as much ballast as he could stomach, he hopped back into the gondola to check on the progress inside. Two of the Heshette diggers exchanged a glance, then threw down their spades and followed him.

“Don’t worry,” Devon said as they muscled up beside him. “I’m sure Mochet can take care of himself.”

They followed him anyway.

The men inside had almost finished connecting the tubes to the hot-air pipes. Mochet leaned against a support strut and toyed with his knife while he watched the progress with hooded eyes.

“Busy?” Devon asked.

Mochet grunted. “Push me harder, Poisoner, and my knife will test the limits of your blood’s endurance. Your very existence is an insult to Ayen.”

“You speak for your goddess, then? Is your shaman aware of that?”

The warrior bared his teeth, but did not reply.

Devon gathered up the equipment he had assembled from the Tooth and stepped back outside the engine room into the midship companionway, with Mochet hounding him.

“Hold this to the deck while I hammer,” he said, giving the nail to Mochet. “At an angle—like this.”

Mochet obeyed. “Miss your aim, Poisoner, and I’ll use the hammer on you.”

Devon struck the nail partway into the wood, then pushed the candle on top of it so that it stuck out at a shallow angle from the floor. Then he opened the lamp and eased oil over the wax, just an inch from the wick. Next he took the strips of cloth the Heshette had found, soaked them in lamp oil, and made a long fuse, which he fed back into the engine room. He doused the floor and walls around the fuse with the last of the oil.

When he was satisfied, he turned to Mochet’s men. “We need to open the valves now, gently. Let the gas flood the ribs. Open all of the tanks, but not too much. Just a few turns, until you hear the hiss.”

All of the Heshette heard him clearly, but Mochet relayed the instructions regardless. They twisted open the valves on the liftgas tanks and withdrew into the companionway.

“Now,” the Poisoner said, “light the candle.” He handed Mochet a pouch of flints. “I’ll wait outside.”

The warrior seized his arm. “No, Poisoner. You’ll stay until it’s done.”

Five minutes later Devon glanced back at theBirkita from the shadow of the Tooth’s hull. Her ribs were slowly filling out; he hoped it was fast enough.

Bataba met them inside. A wet scarf covered his face, and he offered another damp rag to Devon.

Devon sniffed it. “You have enough of these for everyone?”

“We do.”

“And one for Sypes?”

Bataba nodded.

“Excellent.” The Poisoner rubbed hand and stump together. “You can keep that one. I’ll risk the gas.”

* * * *

Chalk-faced, Fogwill gripped the control panel on the bridge of theAdraki, fixed his eyes on the tilting horizon, and concentrated on keeping what was left in his stomach still in his stomach. His throat felt raw. How could there be anything left? He had already vomited far more than he remembered having eaten, and even brought up things he wasn’t convinced he had eaten. Abruptly, his insides lurched and something rumbled further down.

The airship captain glared at him, a veteran whose eyes held no sympathy for the Adjunct’s delicate condition. Fogwill tried to smile back. He wasn’t keen to use the ship’s commode unless there was no alternative. Mark Hael had taken some delight in informing him how it worked.

Blackthrone baked under a parched sky. Eighteen warships had now gathered above the Tooth, turning slowly to the west as the wind changed. Vents above the bridge windows blew a hot, metallic breeze that failed to dry the sweat from Fogwill’s brow. Engines droned on all sides like persistent flies. At the sound of a whistle, Hael put his ear to one of the com-trumpets on the wall.

After a moment he said, “We’re now approaching the Birkita . She’s been stripped. A group of Heshette were spotted fleeing back inside the Tooth.”

“The Presbyter?” Fogwill ventured.

The commander relayed this question and waited for the reply: “Too far away to tell.” He turned to the captain. “Flag the armada to hold steady above the Birkita at four hundred feet windward, maintain formation, and keep us within signal distance. I want two-thirds payloads of lime-gas fused and ready to drop at my command, full complements of crossbowmen in position, and incendiaries primed for a cook-up when the bastards split. Keep me informed of changes in wind direction and speed.”

Fogwill swallowed. “This gas…is fatal?”

“Depends how much of it is breathed,” Hael said.

“Then I’m afraid I can’t allow you to use it.”

The commander shrugged. “It’s the best way to flush them out. That thing down there looks too solid for incendiaries.”

The Tooth did look impenetrable. Fogwill had heard of the machine, but had not seen it until now. Few people had. It towered over the quarry cliffs behind it, shimmering in the harsh light. Dark holes pocked its dazzling-white hull; sand drifts smothered its base on the nearest side; smoke-scorched funnels crowned its tapering summit. Skeletal arms at the front held massive columns of cutting wheels over a huge, dusty scoop.

Fogwill studied it with awe. This vast machine was in truth a holy relic, abandoned by Callis nearly three thousand years ago after construction of the foundation chains. It had last moved under the direction of Ulcis’s Herald himself. He remembered that crippled angel locked in the temple dungeon, and swallowed hard. Three thousand years. How many souls since?

Missionaries who had seen the machine spread fervent rumours that it possessed some vestige of divine awareness. Looking at it now, Fogwill found it hard to give credence to those rumours. The Tooth was impressive, yes. But sentient? Hardly. And yet the machine did seem to evince some latent power, as though it was waiting, watching from those openings in its hull.

My imagination. It is the Heshette who are watching us.

The Adjunct shuddered, but was unable to shake off his unease. Something else was bothering him. The Tooth looked altogether too…complete. Too unmarked.

Too ready.

“Why would Devon come here?” He spoke his thoughts aloud unintentionally.

“Water. It’s one of the few oases in this region we haven’t poisoned.” Hael sneered. “A holy site.”

“But he would easily have been able to reach the Coyle, taken a skiff downriver. Why would he fly against a headwind, and straight to the heathens?”

“He was avoiding the Coyle garrisons. Sandport, Racha, Clune are inimical ports for a fugitive. No doubt he expected to find the Tooth unoccupied. The Heshette are nomadic, and infrequent visitors to Blackthrone.”

Fogwill shook his head. Devon wasn’t stupid. There had to be another reason. He looked down at the Tooth, at the massive blades that had cut sapperbane from the mountain so long ago. Thousands of tons stripped from the mountain, processed, and forged into chains. Abruptly his unease grew to fear. “Would your gases and incendiaries be able to stop that thing if it was moving?”

The aeronaut commander turned slowly. He appeared to consider this for a moment, then shook his head. “He wouldn’t be able to operate it.”

“This is Devon we’re talking about, remember?”

Hael grunted. “The Poisoner missed his one good chance to flee. He’s a fool—or already insane.”

“A fool who evaded a citywide manhunt, kidnapped the Presbyter, and stole an airship from under your nose.”

Evidently the commander did not like to be reminded in front of his men. “We have him now,” he growled.

Fogwill couldn’t tear his gaze from the machine’s cutters—sharpened cogs powerful enough to shred sapperbane. And chains? Darkness take me, I know what you are planning, Devon. Sypes…forgive me, you would understand what I must do . He turned to the warship’s captain. “Start the attack now.”

“Belay that order,” Hael said. “Do not presume, Adjunct, to issue commands aboard my ship.”

Fogwill hitched himself up straighter on his stool. “I am your superior in the service of the Church, Commander.”

“Not aboard this vessel.”

“Then,” Fogwill lowered his voice, “I humbly request that you relay a message for me back to Deepgate. I believe thatis within my rights aboard this vessel.” He didn’t wait for Hael to acknowledge him. “Tell Clay to wake up the regulars and sober up the reservists. I want every last one of them dragged naked from the whorehouses if need be, and as many more volunteers or conscripts as he can find. They are to be armed and ready for a ground assault against the city. The cavalry divisions are to be re-formed, every ex-military beast that’s lugging coal is to be found and requisitioned. Then I want him to scour the Poison Kitchens for whatever those chemists are hoarding, and have the lot brought to the abyss perimeter and scattered in piles, ready for deployment. I want the sappers brought out of retirement—pay those bastards whatever it takes—and I want them undermining the Deadsands towards Blackthrone as though they were digging another abyss. And then I expect the city’s carpenters and smiths to drop everything and to undertake new contracts for the temple. We need heavy offensive ordnance, mangonels, scorpions, siege engines, whatever they can come up with. Tell them I want weapons powerful enough to stop a god.”

“Siege engines? Mangonels? Scorpions?” Hael’s tone had become mocking. “Words from old men’s tales—how are they to build such things?”

“Our history,” Fogwill said. “We warred before. A hundred years ago, two hundred. With the river towns, bandit strongholds, on the fringes of the Deadsands.”

“History?” Hael snapped. “Deepgate has no history. Sypes has it all locked up in his damn books.”

“Then they can use their brains for once. Just look at that thing. We’ll need to breach it like a citadel. Instruct Clay to get everyone working right now, day and night. I don’t care what the cost is. We have a war on our hands.”

Grudgingly, Mark Hael relayed the message through a trumpet to the signalman.

“Now, Commander Hael.” A hollow ache had taken root in Fogwill’s chest. The Presbyter would understand, approve, but still…I’m sorry, Sypes. “When do you suggest we attack?”

The commander got no chance to reply.

“Sir!” the captain said. “The Birkita ’s lifting. She’s running.”

Fogwill leaned across the control panel to see the warship rise from behind the Tooth.

“She’s coming up fast,” Hael said. “He’s flooded the ribs with liftgas. Close on her. Instruct the men to ready grapples, and flag the other ships to burn high, staggered to strike if we miss.” He sprinted towards the port companionway door, turned back once, and spat, “So much for your war.”

The Birkita had cleared the funnels of the Tooth and was rising close below them. Streams of ballast sand poured from her gondola. She was turning as though out of control.

This is wrong.

Fogwill shot a questioning glance at the captain and navigator, but both men were too busy to speak to him. So he stumbled after Hael, still clutching his rumbling belly.

What was the worst that could happen?

Outside, the wind tore at Fogwill’s robes. The Adraki ’s engines thundered. Hael’s aeronauts were cranking tension into the grapple gun springs at each corner of the aft deck, fitting barbed iron shafts into the barrels, adjusting sights, and oiling spools of cable. Propellers hacked the air and massive rudders slammed sideways as theAdraki turned to intercept the Poisoner’s ship. Air rushed into the warship’s ribs and abruptly the deck lurched. Fogwill was caught by surprise. He staggered towards the port rail, arms flailing. One of his slippers fell off. The rail rushed closer, a white void beyond.

Hael caught him by the neck of his robe. “Get inside,” he growled, “before you kill yourself.”

Fogwill’s knees were shaking. “Let that ship go,” he cried. “Devon isn’t aboard. It’s a trap.”

Then his head swam and he retched.

Mark Hael grimaced and stepped away, releasing him. Fogwill slumped to the deck as the commander strode over to the rail. Two granite-faced aeronauts scowled at him from their positions at the grapple guns.

“Ready port grapples,” Hael called out. “Bow gun, target the aft deck. Put a line across it if you can. Aft, get ready if he misses—go for the envelope. On my mark.”

Fogwill saw theBirkita rise above the deck rail, a hundred yards away.

“Fire.”

With a loud crack, the bow grapple shot from the gun and arced across the space between the airships. Cable fizzed from its spool.

The grapple struck the Birkita ’s aft deck and lodged in the wood.

“Contact!”

“Winch!”

Two aeronauts pumped hard at the winch behind the gun, red-faced, muscles straining. The cable began to lose slack.

Mark Hael was nodding sternly. “Bow gun ready! Aim low in the envelope. Let’s steal a little of her breath. And…. fire!”

A second crack sent the bow grapple lancing through the air. It missed its mark and shattered a window in the Birkita ’s gondola.

“Contact. Low from target.”

“Winch.”

Aeronauts cranked the second winch. Both lines became taut.

Hael plucked a com-trumpet from the gondola’s rear wall. “Bring us parallel. Swing ballast arm portside, spill sand, and purge ribs on stress. We’re going to pitch. Prepare to tow.” He turned back to his men on the deck. “Lance those lines and bring her in.”

The starboard winchmen rushed to the port side and unstrapped long poles from the deck rail. The poles were ten yards long and hooked at one end. They snagged both lines and pushed. Cable groaned.

“Slack!” one shouted. The winchmen released pressure. When the poles were horizontal, they bolted the ends to fixtures in the deck.

“Winch!”

The cables strained taut again. TheBirkita bobbed as they drew her closer. Mark Hael glanced down at Fogwill sitting on the deck and explained, “To stop the lines cutting our envelope when she rises above us.” He grinned. “We’ve got her.”

The Birkita exploded.

Fogwill saw the aeronaut commander turn slowly against a sky of flame. Something knocked Fogwill sideways and everything went dark.

* * * *

Someone was screaming quietly behind the ringing in Fogwill’s ears. “Down! Down! Down!”

Iron pressed into Fogwill’s cheek. A rail? Sand beyond. Pressure crushed his shoulder. The Deadsands reeled beneath him.

Distant voices.

“Holed!”

“I don’t care, I don’t care.”

“The cable!”

“Portside.”

“Where?”

“His leg—stop the bleeding.”

“I don’t know.”

“Bow.”

“Where?”

“Leave it!”

“No. It’s all gone. All of it.”

Fogwill gripped the rail. Sand and rocks and brass and white sky swung all around him. The deck moaned and shuddered.

“Cut—just bloody cut it!”

He looked at his hand. Blood spattered his powdered skin. How white his skin looked against the blood. This was wrong. He didn’t like this dream. Blood smeared his rings too. Their gold and gems were filthy. He would have to wash them when he got up. He turned his head, pain shooting through his neck. Planks of teak sloped at a steep angle, pinning him to the rail. More blood ran over the wood in little trickles towards him, towards the hem of his robe. He tried to move, but his hands stung. His muscles gave up; he was too heavy. The approaching blood was going to soak his robe, ruin it. A propeller screamed nearby. Wind whipped at him.

“Both of them. Now .”

Fogwill sought the voice. Mark Hael lay on his back, gripping the port hatch, eyes frantic. Blood there too. It soaked the aeronaut commander’s white uniform utterly. No way for an officer to be seen. Whatever would Fogwill’s mother have said? And what was wrong with Hael’s belly? A metal barb jutted from the wet cloth there. A grapple? That shouldn’t be there, Fogwill thought with a kind of detached curiosity. He ought to say something to the commander, tell him about the grapple. He tried to speak, but the howling wind stole his words.

He examined his rings again; the seastones and rubies glinted under the blood. He rubbed at the gold. It would clean: soap and water would do the trick. The captain would have some handy inside. But the hatch was far up the sloping deck. He would have to crawl over all the blood to reach it.

“I can’t stop it. The port propeller’s gone.”

Fogwill wished the aeronauts would stop yelling. Their shouts and the rip of the wind and the buzzing of the propellers were giving him an awful headache.

Pinned by the grapple, Mark Hael was trying to see inside the hatch. Iron barbs protruded absurdly from his belly. “Cut the stern,” he rasped. “Pull the f*cking tubes out.”

There weren’t any tubes. Just a grapple. Surely the commander could see that? But he wasn’t looking at his belly. He was still twisted round, peering inside the airship.

Sand stung Fogwill’s eyes and he blinked. He looked back beyond the rail. Dunes were rising towards them fast. Too fast. They ought to slow down.

“Slow down,” Fogwill whispered. Nobody heard him. Mark Hael’s attention was elsewhere. They were really going to have to slow down. He had to tell the captain that. He pushed at the rail digging into him, but it was useless. He was too tired. His shoulder throbbed. His hands felt badly swollen. He blinked again, trying to clear sand from his eyes. Stinging tears flowed over his cheeks. His slippers. Where were his slippers? He searched around frantically. The desert rushed closer. Sand and rock surged toward him. He couldn’t see his slippers anywhere.

* * * *

The dead crept from the darkness and surged up the mountain of bones. The lights that Dill had first taken to be souls were instead licks of flame curling around tapers clutched in bony fists. These were not ghosts; they were men and women. Some looked as thin as the skeletons beneath their feet; others were tumescent, their flesh shades of grey and blue. All wore rags. All looked hungry.

An army of them.

Dill dimmed his lantern.

“Too late,” Carnival hissed. “They’ve seen you.”

More were coming. They flooded out onto the bone mountain behind the others, and as Dill’s eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he realized from where.

The city of Deep had been hacked out of the abyss wall, where torrents of dark sculpture rose to staggering heights, façades of writhing figures and tormented faces. The lower third of the city swarmed with distant lights. Flames moved behind carved muscle and sinew; they crossed arched spinal bridges, crept down stairs like spirals of black bone and out onto the slopes composed of human remains. Walls of skulls screamed silently from the rock-face. Tapers winked through eye sockets and tooth-framed doors as figures slipped behind. Fluted pillars supported great stone spheres cut into impossible orgies of flesh, wings, teeth, and bones, representations of countless angels feasting.

Deep shuddered to the pounding of metal.

Rachel was at Dill’s side. “There,” she pointed. “The sounds are coming from there.”

Flames glowed deep within the dark city. Silhouettes of figures working. Red-hot metal and flashes of steel.

“Forges,” she said. “They’re making weapons.”

A tide of torchlight poured out from the city and scaled the bone mountain. They moved lithely, disturbing little, shadowed eyes fixed on the three interlopers. Tongues darted between bloodless lips as if tasting the air. White, grey, and blue flesh slid beneath grease-stained rags. Knives and swords glinted.

In awful silence, the horde climbed closer.

“What are they?” Dill breathed.

“I think they’re dead,” Rachel said. “Or were.”

“We should leave.”

“Not yet.” She had a distant look about her. “Remember what we came for.”

Carnival picked up a skull, examined it, then tossed it away with a grunt of indifference. The skull bounced and tumbled down the slope, where it landed a few feet from the nearest of the advancing army. The line of men and women paused, then began to climb again, faces now twisting into snarls.

“Great,” Rachel said. “You’ve pissed them off.”

“So?”

“So, there’s an army of them, and three of us.”

Carnival shrugged. “As armies go,” she said, “it’s not so big.”

Ten yards below, one man raised a hand, and the closest of the horde, thirty or so ragged figures, halted behind him. They fixed their tapers among the bones at their feet with slow deliberation, never shifting their gaze from the intruders. All had produced bone-handled blades. Hundreds more climbed the slopes behind, fanned out to flank them in a wash of fire and steel.

Dill caught the scent of burning fat. From the corner of his eye he saw Rachel stiffen.

The man who’d raised his hand focused milky eyes on Dill and spat, “What you want here?” His voice was a wheezing rasp, as though his throat had been punctured. His teeth had been filed to points.

“Who are you?” Rachel asked.

He gave her a cursory glance, then returned his attention to the angel. “What you want here?” Behind him, the others were still spreading out, unhurried and silent, blanketing the slope as far as Dill could see.

Dill’s knees weakened. He knew his eyes would be as pale as those of the man who’d addressed him. Had any reply come to mind then, it would have been unable to escape his constricted throat.

“None of your damn business,” Carnival said.

Rachel flinched.

The man bared his needle-sharp teeth. His gums were swollen and bleeding, but the blood looked old, black. The knife in his hand came up, and for a heartbeat Dill thought he was going to throw it.

Dill would have taken flight then if his muscles weren’t quivering so, but he forced his leaden legs to move and he shifted position to stand between the needle-toothed man and Rachel. She stopped him with a hand and the faintest shake of her head, the muscles at the corners of her eyes tightening.

The knife wasn’t thrown.

Carnival wiped her hands on her leather trousers. “That’s not pitch they’re burning.”

Needle-tooth’s cloudy gaze slid towards her. He barked a command back to his followers in a language Dill didn’t understand. The army stirred behind him. A series of calls bounced back through the masses, and faded like echoes.

“Outcast,” Needle-tooth said to Carnival. “Scarred bitch. He knows you’re here. Wants you alive.”

Carnival smiled dangerously.

“Do I need to remind you,” Rachel murmured, “we are outnumbered?”

“You might be,” Carnival said.

Dill tried to ease himself in front of Rachel. Again she stopped him. A bone beneath his foot snapped and he swayed while catching his balance. Further down the slope, there was movement. Items were being passed forward. Nets?

Needle-tooth sneered at Carnival. “Freak.”

Carnival’s scars darkened. Her wings snapped out, lightning-quick. She snatched the fork from her belt—

—and charged into the army.

Dill didn’t see the net until it was almost upon her. Carnival, however, was quicker. She veered, with astonishing speed, and dived.

Needle-tooth was catapulted back, black blood geysering from his now truly punctured throat. He crashed into three followers with the force of a battering ram, and all four fell into the ranks behind. Two dozen men toppled. The net, meanwhile, landed on bones, sixty feet beyond Carnival.

She crouched, hissed.

Rachel was eyeing Needle-tooth’s body. “He isn’t getting up,” she whispered to Dill. “He’s just been killed—again.”

Carnival pounced. And there was a storm of blood.

Dill had never seen anyone, human or angel, move so fast. Carnival leapt, spun, wings extended flat above her, legs windmilling. Blood flew in arcs from three more throats before she landed. Crouching again, she paused for half a heartbeat, then, like a crossbow bolt, plunged into the nearest knot of opponents. Knives flashed. Carnival ducked inside one, two, three strikes…snaked through a flurry of limbs, her fork flickering…and suddenly there was open space around her.

A ring of fresh corpses crumpled onto the bones.

“Shit,” Rachel said, “she’s just warming up.”

Figures kept massing around Carnival, but she was already moving again. She flitted over the powdery slope as though she weighed nothing. She leapt again, punched her fork upwards between ribs and into the heart of a wild-eyed woman, then withdrew it at once so as to catch a savage down-cut from a man to her left, stopping his knife between the iron prongs. An elbow shattered his face; then the fork licked out and he recoiled, screaming.

The horde roared with bloodlust. Scores of frenzied men and women pressed closer, clawed towards her over the corpses of their fallen, snarling, hungry. Carnival wove among them, a dark whisper, and killed with a speed that continued to leave Dill stunned. Steel clashed with iron, again, again, again. Flesh ripped, blood sprayed, and howls filled the abyss.

And still they came, relentlessly, in savage waves. They threw themselves against Carnival’s fury, only to be cut down. Carnival did not falter or slow. She whirled and spun like a fever nightmare. Lines of blood trailed behind her fork. Her hair flew wildly about the scars on her face. Blades sparked and clashed. Her dance was measured, precise; a methodical slaughter that Dill found abhorrent to watch. She didn’t bother to fly; she didn’t have to. None were her match in speed or strength. Corpses fell on corpses, and soon the mountain of bones was strewn with the dead and the dying.

Now the horde began to hold back, uncertain, while Carnival stood on the summit of a pile of twitching corpses. Her wings unfurled suddenly like thunderheads, and her night-eyes thinned. She licked blood from one scarred arm and spat. “Dead!” she roared. “No souls!”

Dill had never seen an army flinch before.

Carnival beckoned them closer. They hesitated.

“We have to get out of here,” Dill said.“Now.”

“No,” Rachel said. “Look at this place. Dill! The bones, the forges, the path up to the surface. And look at them ! Fogwill risked everything to buy Carnival’s help, and now I know why. Don’t you see, these aren’t the ghosts in your Codex stories. These things have no souls. This is wrong, evil . It isn’t supposed to be like this. This is hell.”

“You can’t stand against her. Nothing can stand against that .”

“Not in a fair fight.”

A guttural call went up from somewhere below and suddenly the air around Carnival was full of knives.

The scarred angel seemed to flex, sidestep, twist. Her fork still moved so fast Dill couldn’t see it. Sparks showered around her: a hundred rapid steel concussions. The onslaught drove her to her knees, but her fork was still blurring, sparking, batting away the knives.

Silence suddenly.

Carnival stood.

She was wounded. Two of the knives had found their mark. One lodged in her thigh, the other beneath her armpit. Blood welled, trickled down her side, spattering the bones under her feet.

She grinned.

The army charged in triumph. A visceral howl, and they surged forward as one.

Dill moved to help her.

“No.” Rachel gripped his shoulder. “Don’t go near her when she’s like this. She’ll kill anything that gets close.”

Once more Carnival sprang to meet the oncoming horde. A vicious swipe sent the nearest two warriors reeling, ripped open. She drove her fist into a third one’s face. His head snapped back and he collapsed at her feet.

More rushed in to flank her. Carnival dived beneath another net cast towards her. A withered, grey-skinned man snagged his foot in a rib cage. Carnival tore past him, slashed him open from groin to neck. She rolled, grabbed a skull, and shattered it against the forehead of another assailant.

A score of knives flashed through the air. Metal clashed as Carnival’s fork knocked them away. All but one, which lodged deep in the nape of her neck. She staggered back, roaring in pain.

And then they were all over her, pressing forward recklessly like wild beasts, punching and kicking and clawing at each other to get to her.

Still she cut them down. She whirled among them, stabbing, slashing. Bodies sank all around her, or fell away screaming, clutching severed veins. But yet more poured in, wave upon wave—a frenzied howling mob, scrambling over the dead and wounded.

Carnival was about to be engulfed by sheer weight of numbers, when she took to the air and kicked skywards. But a net snagged her wing. She shrieked in anger, twisted to tear it away, lost height. Another net engulfed her. A rope jerked back and the net closed tight. Trapped, she landed hard among the bones.

Her wings thrashed inside the net. She attacked the thick rope with her fork, but it would not yield to the blunt iron. A white-haired warrior drove his knife in towards her. Carnival’s fork turned it aside, then ripped back up along the blade into his fingers. He screamed, and the knife withdrew. A fist slammed down. Carnival’s fist slammed back and the man toppled, gurgling, his jaw smashed open. Then they had the net surrounded, kicking, pummelling. Too many now. Those behind snatched up bones from the remains on the slope and moved forward.

They were still beating her long after she’d stopped moving.

Dill cast his eye over the mounds of fresh dead. The mountain of bones had acquired a new summit. Blood covered everything.

“Can you still fly?” Rachel murmured.

“We can’t leave her here,” Dill said.

At the sound of his voice, men turned; all bruised and bloody skin with shattered teeth. Blades shifted in knuckled fists. Sinewy muscles bunched under rags. Sneering, they began to climb towards him.

Rachel shook him. “Dill! We have to go, now !”

For a moment he stared at her, confused. Carnival was still down there, helpless. She didn’t deserve to die like this. He was weak, terrified, but he was still a temple archon. He had to do something. His hand closed around the handle of his sword.

“Dill!”

“I—”

Something punched him hard in the chest. He staggered back, winded, and collapsed. “Wha—? Rachel?”

Her face had paled, her eyes wide open, staring. “Oh my God. Dill? Oh my God.”

Dill looked down, to see his old chain mail had split open like paper. A knife was buried to the hilt in his chest. He reached for it.

“No!” Rachel screamed.

But the blood was already spurting from his heart, dark as death. It was the last thing he saw before he died.