Scar Night (41 page)

Mr. Nettle joined them. He scowled at the nearby cauldrons, but did not appear interested in their contents.

He can’t face the truth. His mind isn’t capable of accepting it. Or maybe he’s just too damn stubborn
. She wondered how long he’d already been down here, and what he’d eaten to stay alive.

Two stout doors led out of the opposite end of the cavern. One of them would doubtless be the cold room. Rachel studied the floor and saw grooves in the dirt suggesting that a number of heavy objects had been dragged through the smaller of the two doors.

Carnival approached this same door.

“Wait!”

But just as Rachel reached out to stop her, the larger door opened. And
something
clambered through.

The thing had to stoop low to squeeze its wings through the doorframe, moving its fleshless limbs in a series of crooked jerks. When it saw them, it dropped the bone it had been gnawing, straightened its misshapen body somewhat, and narrowed sulphurous yellow eyes. One side of its mouth drooped open to reveal a single pointed tooth. Between its white lips, a sliver of a tongue lolled like a bloodworm. Even here, in this already fetid air, the stink from the creature was overwhelming. Whatever it was, it was
rotting
.

Rachel then realized it was an angel—or had been once.

30

THE PALACE OF CHAINS

A
THOUSAND CAMPFIRES
shivered under Scar Night’s dark moon. Dunes extended in frozen waves before them, till it seemed to Devon that he was looking at a city built on the distant shore of a sea. He eased the throttle of the Tooth and let the machine rumble to a halt. Sand showered down past the bridge windows.

So many fires. Every legion of Deepgate’s regulars and reservists warmed themselves in readiness for the onslaught. Unseen, he realized, the seventh and ninth cavalry divisions would be off to the sides, moving into a position to outflank them. And up there the warships. Devon counted more than thirty, burning like comets among the stars. The
Whisperer
had emptied its payload. Somewhere overhead, it would be flying back to Deepgate to rearm.

Bataba kept squinting through the forward windows, alternately scratching the scar of his right eye and tugging at the fetishes in his beard. “We are Ayen’s fist,” he grumbled. “This war should be fought under her light.”

“Not much we can do about that,” Devon said. “Unless your goddess sees fit to raise the sun early.”

The shaman grunted.

“How do you want to do this?” the Poisoner asked.

“Just mow them down.”

Devon feigned surprise. “I thought the Heshette looked their enemies in the face when they killed them.”

“In daylight, yes. But this fight is on the outcasts’ terms.”

“They’ll send someone out to parley.”

Bataba continued to eye the horizon.

Devon stifled a yawn. “As you wish.” He hitched a lever and the Tooth lurched forward to meet the assembled armies.

Bataba turned his back on the night as the Tooth eased over into a dip. “What can we expect?” he asked.

“A bumpy ride.”

“Anything else we should know about?”

“The third through fifth divisions, the sappers, they’ll have undermined the ground between. Tunnels, trenches of pitch, that sort of thing. Expect more explosions, but I doubt they’ve had time for any serious excavation. So that shouldn’t be a problem. They’ll have cobbled up some siege-towers, heavy ballistics and such, but nothing powerful enough to stop us. As long as we keep moving, they’ll have a hard time breaching our hull in significant numbers. We should be safe until we reach the abyss. Their reservists, for all their zeal, haven’t fought or trained in a decade.” He paused. “My main concern is Spine saboteurs. Ichin Tell will have assassins hidden here and there in the sand, whose job will be to get inside while our attention is diverted. Look out for grapples from below.”

“I will post lookouts.”

“Better to set an ambush for them,” Devon said. “Allow them an opening and let them come in. But be ready to close it again on them quickly.”

“Don’t tell me how to fight, Poisoner. We’ve beaten their likes before.”

“In desert skirmishes,” Devon agreed, “but you’ve never faced numbers like this. Almost every living man who ever held a sword for Deepgate is out there now.”

Bataba seemed not to hear him. He turned away as the Tooth began to climb out of the depression. “I’ll fetch the council,” he said, and then left the bridge.

When they reached the crest of the next dune, Devon saw a group of horsemen riding out to meet them, the temple standard rippling gold and black in the light of a dozen brands. A trumpet sounded shrill beneath the roar of the Tooth’s churning engines. Devon kept the same course and fed power into the cutting arms. Cogs of the weird metal spun and sang, and threw off arcs of sand. The approaching riders broke formation and skirted the huge machine. As the trumpet blared again, Devon jammed the throttle forward in response.

Deepgate still lay hidden below the horizon, but huge fleshy columns of smoke rose from the city, as though every furnace was ablaze in forging weapons. The sky above was painted in colours of oil and coal and fire. Churchships dotted the billowing smoke like red blisters.

A last line of defence, perhaps? Had Clay armed the temple armada too? The Poisoner wasn’t overly concerned. By the time the churchships engaged him, the city itself would already be lost.

After half a league, the horsemen regrouped and rode back towards the waiting army.

Presently the council arrived on the bridge. They were in no better mood than Bataba, at least half of them with fresh burns from the
Whisperer
’s attack. None concealed their contempt for the Poisoner. They gathered around, brandishing their tribal knives in plain view, until their scowls were drawn to the distant lights.

“We’ve set bowmen at the vents on both sides,” Bataba explained. “Barrels of tar from the wrecked skyships stand ready in dawn and dusk corridors. These saboteurs will find scaling our walls no easy task.”

Devon wasn’t convinced, but he left his concerns unvoiced. “Just keep one eye on the sky,” he reminded him.

Bataba ignored the jibe. He was studying the landscape before them. The Poisoner turned to follow his gaze. They were closer now, close enough to see units of troops clustered around the campfires, and mounted soldiers milling behind. Armour and shields flashed. On higher ground to the southeast and southwest the skeletal silhouettes of wooden towers, mangonels, and scorpions waited before the abyss.

“The outriders have returned,” Bataba said.

The horsemen had broken through the infantry and reined in before a group of command tents situated behind the bulk of the army.

“At least we know where Clay is,” Devon observed, “or wants us to think he is.”

They didn’t have long to wait after the outriders had delivered their report. Buglers echoed commands through the lines of troops, and the armies of Deepgate rippled into motion.

Hundreds of banners split aside and streamed to east or west. Rear cavalry units moved into flanking positions. Reservist infantry assembled into blocks between them, bristling with spears and pikes. Lines of pitch fire tore through the sand before ranks of archers and arbalests. Aether-lights flared in unison high above, and Deepgate’s warships started to converge, moving into position for a concentrated assault.

The plain before them now levelled. Rocks popped and crumbled beneath the Tooth’s tracks, reduced to dust in the face of the great machine. Engines thundered. But to Devon these noises seemed distant, blanketed by a heavy silence in his mind.

He waited. The Tooth rocked and juddered, slowly building speed, flattening everything in its path. Caravan tracks crisscrossed the desolate ground before them like old wounds. The stars seemed to wink in approval. Deepgate’s fire-lit trunks of smoke grew nearer.

Still he waited.

Soon enough the warships arrived, and the battle began.

A colossal boom like a thunderclap sounded overhead, followed by a prolonged crackling. The desert flickered orange and red. Gouts of flame fizzed past the bridge windows and blackened the glass. Phosphor smoke seethed in their wake. But the Tooth shrugged off this attack as though it were summer rain.

Boom, crackle, fizz.

Two hundred yards ahead, a second shower of fire fell from the night sky.

“They have missed,” the shaman said.

“No.” Devon knew what was coming.

All at once, the Deadsands burst into flame. For a quarter of a league to either side there was nothing but a lake of fire.

“The ground is on fire!” Bataba cried. “Go around! Go around!” He groped for the control levers.

Devon elbowed him aside, and maintained his course, driving the Tooth straight for the flames. “Calm yourself. They want us to hesitate here. They want to steer us aside. Spine will then try to board.”

The shaman’s face had paled. Sweat beaded his furrowed brow and trickled down across his tattoos. He rubbed at the scar around his missing eye as if it were a fresh wound.

“Afraid of fire, shaman?” Devon shouted over the mountainous rumble of the tracks and the roar of approaching flames.

“We’ll roast alive!”

“Only if we stop.”

The Tooth ploughed on into the inferno. Smoke churned and boiled beyond the bridge’s forward windows. Embers streamed upwards in spiralling torrents. There was a
snap,
and one of the windowpanes cracked from side to side.

“This is madness,” the shaman hissed.

“Keep calm!”

But smoke was now pouring through the cracked window, billowing across the ceiling. Bataba hunched beside Devon and breathed frantically through his headscarf. Tears streamed from his remaining eye. The Heshette councillors retreated, coughing, to the rear of the bridge.

“Seal that crack!” Devon yelled. “If they drop gas now…”

Bataba relayed the order to a runner waiting by the door. Moments later a tribesman appeared with a tub of thick, grey bone-gum. Flinching back from the heat, he set to work sealing the damaged window.

The Tooth surged on, even deeper into the flames.

Devon started to sweat as the temperature rose, the throttle feeling slick in his palm. His lungs rejected the poisonous air, and he vomited, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Men were barking orders in the corridors behind them. After plugging the window the tribesman staggered back, gabardine smoking. A runner appeared, muttered something quickly to the shaman, and disappeared. “A unit of Spine has landed on the roof,” Bataba said. “They tried to get in through the rear stairwell. They have been repelled.”

A frantic tapping sound came from somewhere behind, then a shout: “Bolts!”

Steel barbs rattled against the forward grille like sheeting hail. Further explosions shook the bridge as the warships renewed their bombardment.

Boom, crackle, fizz.

Smoke blotted the view of the Deadsands completely. Tongues of flame licked the scorched glass. The heat grew intolerable. Devon kept the throttle hard forward, squeezing every ounce of power from the Tooth’s labouring engines.

Bataba was on his knees, gasping. “We’re burning.”

“The tar they dropped on our hull is burning,” Devon replied. “It will burn itself out soon.”

But the shaman had a fevered look in his eye. “We have to turn back,” he cried. “Try another path.”

“No,” Devon said. “We’re not stopping. We’re almost through.”

“Turn back!”

“Control yourself. Look!”

Through a break in the smoke they saw Deepgate’s army marching. A forest of spears. Armour and shields flowed towards them like a tide of molten metal. The blackened bones of mangonels and scorpions stood out against the fire-lit smog behind. Even now, siege engineers were igniting the payloads on the mangonels, winding tension into the great bows of the scorpions. Closer, riders surged in from the flanks and loosed crossbow bolts that pinged and shattered against the window grille.

And then they were out of the fire, and into cool, dark sand. Drums began to beat a low, steady rhythm.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

A bugle piped. The scorpions unleashed their spines. Iron-tipped shafts smashed against the hull a heartbeat later. Devon felt the throttle shudder in his grip.

“Runner!” Bataba yelled.

“Dawnside breach,” came the frantic reply. “The hatch is off.”

“Fix it!”

“Don’t touch those shafts,” Devon shouted above the din. “If they aren’t on fire, they’re saturated with poison.”

The shaman shouted the order but a second barrage from the scorpions drowned out any acknowledgement. Drums pounded; deeper, faster.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The tar on the hull had almost burned away. Through the charred glass Devon saw a boiling sea of armour, of spiked and visored helms, glittering swords and shields. Spears rippled as far as the horizon. Banners of black and gold snapped in the wind. Warships lit the sky with frenzied flashes of aether-light.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

At another cry from the bugle, a battery of mangonel arms came up with a thunk. Burning barrels and huge clay pots arced upwards, trailing smoke and tails of flame. A sound like a sigh filled the air. From the corner of his eye Devon saw Bataba back away.

“Grab hold of something,” he warned.

He didn’t turn to see if the shaman obeyed. Suddenly pitch and phosphor exploded ahead of them and bleached the forward windows. The bridge shuddered.

Devon felt the engines skip a beat. He eased the throttle, then pushed forward hard. Bataba shot him a stern glance. Devon returned it warily. The Tooth juddered and lurched, then resumed its steady, rumbling progress. But something was wrong: the engine sound was coarser now, stuttering.

Teams of engineers were using hoists to reload the scorpions and mangonels, ratcheting the range adjusters, igniting heavy drums with dripping torches. A thousand silhouetted figures crowded the ridge before the city, black against the burning horizon. Behind the marching infantry, strings of bowmen dipped arrows into trenches of flaming pitch, raised them high, and loosed them. Countless yellow arcs cut through the sky and fell, whining, before exploding against the Tooth’s hull.

The engines stuttered again, seemed to pause, then lurched back to something less than full power.

“What’s wrong?” Bataba demanded.

“The engine is overheating.”

“Can you fix it?”

“No time.”

Crackle
. The scorpions discharged their spines once more, and moments later the heavy shafts pummelled the huge machine.
Crack, crack, crack
. Devon flinched at the successive impacts. Panicked shouting came from the corridors behind, then screams of agony. The Heshette had found and touched the poisoned, serrated spines.

“I told you to keep them away from those things,” Devon growled.

“They’ve breached through to the inner walls. The corridors are blocked!”

“Then cover them before you try to remove them!”

Ssssssss.

A second volley of flaming arrows swept up, arced, and fell like a shower of stars. Then the archers withdrew and broke aside to the east and west. Hundreds more infantry poured forward from behind. They were pushing siege-towers. To the sides, heavy cavalry raced to join the advance cavalry. A barrage of crossbow bolts lanced up from both units. Devon could hear the infantry now, the crunch of armoured boots, the rumble of massive siege-tower wheels.