passed. The bodies of the slain dragons became a mountain that the attackers had to climb to reach their remaining foes.
Rising atop this mountain of flesh was Ragnar, his beard and hair caked with gore, his body a network of cuts and gashes. He fought with twin scimitars, his eyes flashing with holy fury as he hacked at every dragon that climbed up the mound toward him. The dragons seemed to understand that killing him was their last hope of holding the city. They kept climbing up, and only the slipperiness of the slope and Ragnar's superior position were keeping him alive. Ragnar slashed savagely at two dragons who climbed before him, but seemed unaware of a third to his back. Pet drew his bow and took careful aim. The dragon was partially blocked by Ragnar. If he was off by inches, he'd kill the prophet instead of the dragon. He imagined the arrow sticking out of the dragon's throat, in the gap between its breast-plate and its helmet. He let the arrow fly.
He didn't even see it hit, but the dragon suddenly toppled backwards. Ragnar was safe. Again and again, Pet placed the arrows in his quiver against the bowstring and imagined a dragon dying.
Moments later, his quiver was empty and the battle was over. The armored dragons who'd made the final stand were dead. Ragnar's men spread out, going from door to door, hunting for any dragons who might still be cowering within.
Ragnar fell to his knees atop the mountain of corpses. At first, Pet thought the hairy man he was succumbing to his wounds. The prophet instead pressed his palms together and closed his eyes, giving thanks to his unseen Lord for the victory they had achieved this night.
Pet joined with a small band of warriors who kicked in the door of a nearby house and barged within. It was some sort of mess hall, with rows of tables and chairs that the warriors knocked over as they searched for more victims. The air took on the cabbage and chili stench of goom as someone smashed a barrel at the back of the room. Pet had never been able to stomach the stuff, so this was no great loss.
Pet found stairs leading down into a cellar. He discovered a small lantern next to the stairs, the wick showing only the barest blue flame. He let the wick out until it glowed brightly, then headed down the steps. He had a fantasy that he would find a well-stocked wine cellar below; sun-dragons were fond of wine, so perhaps earth- dragons kept it around as well. After the events of the night, Pet had a powerful thirst.
To his relief, he saw rows and rows of bottles. To his sorrow he saw they weren't wine, but mostly preserved foods. Unlike the omnivorous winged dragons, earth-dragons ate meat almost exclusively. The bottles were filled with foods Pet recognized: picked ham-hocks, brined eggs, and red sausages preserved in vinegar. He'd had this type of sausage before and liked them, but right now he had no appetite.
There were other things in bottles Pet didn't recognize, or at least hoped he didn't. Was this jar full of brains? Were these pickled eye-balls? He moved to the next row, still hoping there might be wine.
He paused before a bottle with contents that caught his eye. Hands. Human hands. Female, to judge from the size, though it was difficult to say. The fingers were bloated and wrinkled by the pickling brine. The flesh was a disturbing shade of pink, colored by the red chilies that floated in the jar. His stomach twisted into a knot. He was grateful he hadn't eaten anything in several hours.
Then his eyes caught sight of another bottle full of small lizards. Pet drew closer, in sickened fascination. He wasn't sure what kind of lizards these were. They had heads like turtles, but their hands were more like earth- dragon's and… Pet suddenly knew. The earth-dragons pickled and ate their own young. Something inside him snapped.
Pet marched back up the cellar stairs, to go back out among the gleaner mounds to hunt for survivors be they dragon or human. Burke was right. Anyone who had aided the dragons was part of a vast engine of death. In his old life as the pet of a sun-dragon, he owed every luxury he'd ever enjoyed to this system. Every silk pillow he'd slept upon, every golden cup he'd drunk from, every ivory comb he'd ever pulled through his locks-all were the product of an economy of enslavement. All the fine things he'd ever enjoyed, he now knew, were the gifts of monsters.
Chapter Twenty-Six:
You Know What I Have Done
The damp, smoky, slaughter-scented air of the Nest gave way to warm floral breezes as Bitterwood stepped from the rainbow. The false sky overhead was still a nightscape dotted with stars and a moon. The light was bright enough to illuminate the footprints of the fallen angel that had preceded Bitterwood through the gate. He studied the shapes in the crushed grass; these weren't the prints of a living thing. The prints had hard, crisp edges that told him that what he'd glimpsed as the angel had vanished into the gate was true. Gabriel was a clockwork man, as Hezekiah had been.
Bitterwood followed the trail of bent blades, though he instinctively knew where they led-the temple. Gabriel only had a few minutes lead. Bitterwood could tell from the trail that the machine man was limping, injured from battle. Bitterwood, on the other hand, felt energized after his murder of Blasphet. His fever dreams, his visions of Recanna, all the omens and portents suddenly seemed clear. For twenty years, the hatred of dragons had given him reason to rise in the mornings. He'd been full of righteous anger at the thoughts of how dragons held power over the lives of men, power they'd used unjustly. Yet, what of the power of gods? He didn't know if his hatred could drive an arrow through the heart of the goddess. He was keen to find out.
He hoped his bruskness had been sufficient to dissuade Jandra from following him. If he died in pursuit of this task, it mattered little. He saw no reason for the girl to risk her life, however.
He caught up to Gabriel as the winged man climbed the steps of the temple. The angel was exposed for what he truly was, a mockery of a man made of steel bones and wet-clay muscles. Bitterwood dropped Blasphet's severed tongue to the grass. From a hundred feet away, he took aim at Gabriel's skull and let his arrow fly.
Sound, however, flies more swiftly than arrows. Gabriel spun in response to the twang of Bitterwood's bow and swatted the arrow from its flight with skeletal fingers.
'Oh, it's you,' Gabriel said. The angel drew his flaming sword from its scabbard. 'I've known since you arrived you were an ungrateful guest. Put down your bow, human. You failed to kill me while my back was to you. You have no chance of victory now that I'm aware of your presence.'
Bitterwood placed a second arrow against his bowstring and stepped forward. 'I've just come from killing a god,' he said. 'An angel is no challenge.'
Gabriel spread his legs into a fighting stance, holding his sword with both hands.
'Bant Bitterwood, you owe me gratitude, not anger. I saved the life of your son. He's grown into a valued servant of the goddess. It will cause him tremendous grief to know you died at my hands. For his sake, put down your bow.'
Bitterwood continued to close the gap. Twenty feet away was close enough for him to feel the heat of the flaming sword against his cheeks. He knew what this being was capable of. He'd witnessed Hezekiah survive far worse injuries than anything his bow could inflict. The machine man's strength, even injured, was ten times his own. But he also knew one further thing that this angel didn't know-he'd watched Vendevorex disable Hezekiah in the Free City. He knew this creature's vulnerable spot.
He released the bow string. The arrow crossed the gap between man and angel in a time too fast to measure, yet the angel swung his sword swiftly enough to knock the arrow aside. He then raised the flaming weapon high overhead, and lunged. Bitterwood had anticipated this gambit. He charged forward with all his speed, coming in low under Gabriel's racing weapon, tackling the angel's torso with his full weight.
As with Hezekiah, it wasn't enough. Throwing himself against Gabriel was like throwing himself against stone. He found his footing and rose up, in the embrace of the angel, until his face was staring into Gabriel's steely skull. He could see his own eyes reflected in the angel's gleaming teeth. Gabriel calmly folded his arms around Bitterwood in a bear hug. Bitterwood reached around the machine man's back, feeling his way up the mechanical spine to the base of the neck. He smelled burnt hair from Gabriel's sword being so near his face; his ribs were on the verge of breaking. There was no way for him to draw a breath in the angel's death grip.
Bitterwood found the small, smooth orb that sat at the base of the angel's skull. He wrapped his fist around it and yanked as spots danced before his eyes. Suddenly, Gabriel dropped his sword. His clasped arms around Bitterwood didn't slacken, but they also didn't grow any tighter.
Bitterwood exhaled fully, creating tiny amounts of slack. He slipped down the angel's rib cage, twisting his shoulders to free himself. He staggered backwards with a shiny silver marble in his hands. Vendevorex had called this sphere a homunculus-the machine soul that animated the artificial man. Gabriel was still now, save for a trio of wires that snaked from his back and floated toward Bitterwood like tentacles of a jellyfish. Bitterwood dived
