Alan Campbell - God of Clocks

From somewhere behind came the long low drone of horns. Rachel urged the horse on faster and, to her surprise, it responded. Perhaps that hunting call had finally given the beast the wits to share its rider's urgency, for it now thundered along the track like the true Heshette warhorse it once must have been.

They leapt over a collapsed tree clad in plates of white fungi, like the armour of a fallen Icarate. Rachel felt herself begin to slip from the saddle. She clung to the steaming animal's neck. The rich odour of its hide filled her nostrils. Its breathing came in hot quick gusts. But, rather than bucking, the horse eased up a little and allowed the assassin to drag herself back upright in the saddle.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

The beast surged forward again, almost throwing her a second time. She gritted her teeth.

The track skirted a huge lichen-spattered boulder and then opened into a glade of beer-coloured ferns, young hazel and grass flourishing amongst granite outcroppings. Rachel heard singing. She reined in.

John Anchor was sitting on a rock in the center of the clearing, muttering a tune while he sharpened a stick with a short sword that, in his big hands, looked to be no larger than a simple knife. In the forest gloom he looked like a huge black bear.

The great hemp rope that tethered him to his master's airship rose skywards from the harness on his back, but otherwise there was no evidence of the Rotsward's presence here, nor of the many passengers floating in the fog above him. He was quite alone. He looked up and grinned.

“Rachel Hael.”

“I thought you abhorred blades,” she said with a glance at his handiwork.

“Only when they are used in battle,” he replied. “The Heshette gave me this weapon as a parting gift. It belonged to Ramnir's father and his father's father, and so on. It is very useful, as you see.”

“What are you making?”

“I had not thought that far ahead,” he replied. “Kindling, perhaps.” He stood up and peered into the gloom behind her. “The Twelve are in pursuit of us now, yes?”

She nodded.

He waited a moment, his ear cocked to the heavens. The rope on his back gave a sudden vibration. “Cospinol asks if Lord Rys attempted to sell out his brothers.”

“Naturally.”

“And what has become of him now?”

Rachel described how the palace had fallen to dust. John Anchor listened carefully, and then waited. After a long moment he inclined his head towards the sky. “Now they are arguing,” he said. “This may take some time.” He went back to sharpening his stick.

The former assassin shrugged. “Take your time, Cospinol,” she muttered. “We only have twelve arconites moving this way.” She dismounted. The horse huffed and began to graze. She patted it, uncertainly, and then scanned the fog for signs of Dill. Despite his vast size, she saw nothing in that bleak greyness but the merest sketched outlines of trees. Cospinol's mist enveloped him as thoroughly as it would shroud a mountain.

A horn lowed in the west; it sounded close. Rachel dug out another couple of apples from her satchel and handed one to Anchor. “They're moving quickly,” she warned, taking a bite. Her gaze lingered on the tethered man's harness, on the bulwarks of muscles covering his broad chest. The rope above him thrummed again. Rachel slung her satchel back over her shoulder, then tossed the apple core to her horse and wiped her hands on her leather breeches. “How fast can you drag that thing?”

“I can run with the Rotsward when Cospinol needs me to,” Anchor said, chewing. “But now your Deepgate thaumaturge has extended the reach of the fog. The land is completely hidden, yes? All cloaked in mist from earth to sky. There is no need for me to run, and with luck we can reach Coreollis by stealth.”

“Coreollis?” She looked at him, and then back over her shoulder. “What do you mean, Coreollis ? John, that's where they're coming from. ”

John Anchor slid his sword into a gap in his wooden harness, examined the stick he had been sharpening, and then put that away, too. Then he said, “Menoa's arconites do not tire, nor can they be killed. So we must go to Hell and slay the priests who control them, yes?”

Rachel just stared at him.

“It is fortuitous that the portal leads directly to King Menoa's citadel.” The big man beamed. “So we do not have to walk far.”

“Surely you're not going to take the Rotsward, and everyone aboard her, into Hell?”

“Not everyone,” Anchor said. “Alice Harper will lead Cospinol and me to the Ninth Citadel, since she knows Hell so intimately, but your thaumaturge stays here with you.”

Rachel had met Harper briefly on the Larnaig battlefield, a dead woman who had seemed more at ease amongst the remains of Mesmerist demons than she had amongst the living. Since then Harper had kept herself hidden in one of the Rotsward's cabins, choosing to have little involvement in the ensuing arguments and decisions. “Harper agreed to go back to Hell?”

Anchor nodded. “She's dead. She belongs there.” His eyes brimmed with mirth. “But Mina Greene has devised another mission for those who choose to remain here. Cospinol agreed-how you say…? ‘Whole-headedly’?-with the thaumaturge's idea. We must divide our party. Cospinol has decided to declare war against both Hell and Heaven.”

In the last moments of twilight a heavy gloom settled upon the forest. An owl hooted, and was answered by a distant cry from deep in the fog. Rachel waited beside John Anchor, and yet in this darkness she could discern little of the giant but the whites of his eyes. He remained as still and as darkly imposing as the oaks around him. They had moved a quarter league further north, to rendezvous with Dill. The bone-and-metal angel was somewhere nearby, but Rachel could not have said where exactly. He might have been standing just ten yards away.

She heard the Rotsward's elevator creaking before she saw it descend out of the murk, materializing amidst the forest canopy overhead. It was a simple basket suspended from ropes, hauled by slaves on the midships deck. The elevator's two occupants, Mina Greene and Hasp, looked like a strange pair of heavenly ambassadors in their grey cowled robes, their bloody glass-scaled hands clasped before them.

The basket landed with a soft thud. Hasp leapt out, seemingly unconcerned that a single crack in that Maze-forged armour would have spilled his lifeblood and returned his soul to Hell. Rachel realized she was staring. She looked away. Mina lifted out her demonic little dog, Basilis, and set him on the ground before cautiously climbing out after Hasp.

The pup sniffed at Anchor's feet and then bounded off into the shadows.

“Cospinol's slaves have transferred provisions and gold from the Rotsward,” Mina said. “Our friendly arconite made an impressive packhorse. They've stored tons of wheat and dried fish inside his ribs, and caskets of coins in his jaw.” She smiled. “Cospinol wasn't happy to see that gold go. His mood now suits this sorcerous weather.”

Rachel glanced at Hasp. The Lord of the First Citadel scowled, lifted his hand inside his cowl, and pressed it firmly against the side of his glass helm as though a sudden headache had gripped him. His red eyes flinched, and he bared his teeth.

“Hasp?” Rachel ventured.

He ignored her.

Hasp had become increasingly irritable and sullen since King Menoa had implanted a parasite inside his skull. A tiny demon of brass and flesh, it compelled the Lord of the First Citadel to obey Mesmerist orders. And poor Hasp, who had once stood alone against Hell's armies, had already been abused by the weakest of Menoa's servants.