Alan Campbell - God of Clocks

“Time moves at different speeds here,” Harper said. “A century here might pass as a day on earth, or an eon. But you're right about finding the right direction.” She plucked one of the many silver and crystal Mesmerist devices from her belt and studied it. After a moment she looked up and nodded towards a point on the horizon, lying beyond endless whorls of black stone, broken temples, and conical ziggurats. “The Ninth Citadel lies over there.”

“Then let's go.” Anchor flexed his huge shoulders against the rope. “Breaking the portal gave us a good advantage, eh? King Menoa cannot even be sure we made it into Hell.” He grinned. “We can catch him with his trousers down.” He made to climb down the side of the Midden.

Harper stopped him. “John.” She inclined her head to some point beyond him.

Anchor turned.

The Rotsward filled the entire sky above, like an impossible wooden city, a vast crosshatched nest of rotting timber and ropes woven around the dark heart of the skyship's hull. Cospinol's gallowsmen hung there in the thousands, their queer assortment of armour shining dully in the riotous crimson light. Many had been slain by the Failed, and some ropes held naught but heads or torsos or pieces of unidentifiable flesh. Those few hundred who had been cut loose and survived the battle in the portal now clambered amidst the joists or hung onto upright beams to keep themselves from being blown clear. The Non Morai gales formed a vortex around the mountainous vessel, a raging torrent of air that seemed to be full of fleeting shadows.

“Not what I would call relying on the element of surprise,” Harper observed.

Anchor frowned. It was true-Menoa would see the Rotsward coming from some considerable distance away. After a moment he shrugged. “Ah… well,” he said. “Let the king prepare his resistance in advance. I suppose it is only fair.”

The rope at Anchor's back trembled, and he heard Cospinol's voice. Ask Harper how deep that funnel is likely to go. Could it lead us down to the River of the Failed?

The tethered man passed the question on to the engineer.

Harper avoided his eye, perhaps trying to hide something in her expression. “The River of the Failed flows underneath Hell,” she admitted, “and any pit is going to take us nearer.”

So be it, Cospinol said. John, take the Rotsward underground. We're going to parley with a river.

Anchor looked down into the gulping funnel. “It's going to be a tight fit,” he said. “Much destruction in our wake.” He slapped his big hands together and beamed.

Cospinol sighed in his servant's mind.

Harper slammed her Mesmerist device into her tool belt, then gestured angrily towards the surface of the Maze. “Hell is alive, John,” she said. “You'll destroy thousands of souls if you try to drag Cospinol's ship through its very fabric. Assuming such a feat is even possible. ”

Anchor frowned. “Possible?” he muttered. “Strength is merely will. Anything is possible.” He gave a grunt of decision. “And if Hell is alive, then it can get itself out of my way.”

He leapt from the side of the Midden, dragging the great skyship down towards the funnel, and the living, thinking interior of Hell.

Oran ordered his militiamen out of the Rusty Saw tavern, but most were already drunk, and some were off whoring and could not be found.

Oran regained order through threats and violence. He raged at them. He fought with two and broke one man's nose. His shouts of anger finally silenced the ruckus in the saloon.

“It is Lord Rys himself who commands you to stand and fight here tonight,” he yelled. “I have his authority in this and all matters.”

Rachel sensed resistance amongst the militiamen. Veiled glances and muttered curses passed amongst them. They had heard this speech, but clearly they did not fully accept his authority.

But they had even less liking for Rachel-and no respect. Their dark gazes evinced contempt for the assassin. After all, she had brought Menoa's Twelve upon them.

In a quiet voice Oran said to her, “They know this battle cannot be won. All of them expect to die tonight, so they would rather spend their new-won credit on whisky and whores.”

They're afraid. But Rachel chose not to voice her thoughts.

The men now assembled on that cold overcrowded strip of earth outside the log building. All were armed. A few had taken up coils of ropes and the iron hooks used to scale mundane defenses, palisades and the like, but these implements did not rest comfortably in their hands. Many still drank from bottles or simply stood in the glow of the upstairs windows, gazing mutely at their own shadows.

Mina came out of the inn a moment later, clutching her dog to her chest and stroking its ears. The troubled expression on her face was enough to tell Rachel the result of her latest consultation with Basilis.

“No great plan, Mina?”

Mina shook her head. “Basilis has no power to influence this thing. Its soul is hidden from us.” She hesitated, then set her dog down on the ground. “Menoa tricked us at Larnaig. We managed to free Dill because the Lord of the Maze wished us to do so-and now we face the consequences of our actions.” She sighed. “He used us like puppets, Rachel. Basilis is furious about it, and yet he's reluctant to commit himself to a fixed plan of action until he understands the king's motives. My master does not want to be fooled again.”

“What do you think?”

“I think we don't have a choice. If Menoa is steering our actions, then we risk helping him in whatever we do. But if we do nothing at all, we die.”

Dill carried them onwards, the tiny island of humanity cradled in his dead hands. The smell of Maze-forged bones and metal filled the night. His gait spanned swaths of dark forest, heels pounding the earth, a deep rhythm that seemed to stir an unspoken presage in the hearts of the waiting militiamen.

Doom, doom … Doom, doom.

Now Rachel could hear the noise of the pursuing arconite clearly. She turned to Mina. “We'll make a stand now. I'll tell Dill to set us down.”

“Wait.” Mina bit her lip. “Rachel, I think there's a way we can beat this thing. I just need to get inside its head.”

“In what way?”

“Physically!”

Rachel understood. If the construction of Menoa's arconite mirrored Dill's, then they would find within it a chamber containing the trapped soul of an angel. “Shit, Mina, we'll have to get inside its jaw.”

But by then they had run out of time, for Menoa's arconite was already upon them.

The automaton came crashing out of the fog. In its Maze-forged armour it was far bulkier than Dill. Dull green soul lights lingered around the edges of its bracers, cuisses, and greaves, like the remnants of some queer electric storm. It moved stiffly and unnaturally, issuing gouts of steam from its shoulder joints. Its ironclad limbs were darkly spattered with human and Mesmerist gore from the killing field at Larnaig. Half of its skull had been burned black by some unknown inferno. In one massive gauntlet it held a steel cleaver the extent of a city wall.

Oran's men fell back cursing and gasping as the stink of the creature fell upon them: an odour of the dead, of those tens of thousands slain at Larnaig and Coreollis. The arconite brought with it the stench of war.

“Dill,” Rachel cried, “set us down.”

Dill turned and stooped and set the inn down roughly upon the forest track. The Rusty Saw's timbers creaked in protest. One corner of the building tilted and sank into its now-crumbling island, forcing great clumps of earth aside. Oran's militiamen leapt down, carrying ropes and axes, and spread out into the trees on either side.