shot through in no time like this, smoke or no smoke. But he could hear shouts from the loopholes now, and guards yelling in panic. The rats had reached them.
His master's gruff voice could be heard above the gunfire: 'We need to use more,' he was shouting. 'We need to use both casks.'
Ash wasn't listening, though. He laid the wooden cask by the gate, soaked its fuse with water, scurried away.
'Clear away!' hollered Baracha, and all three jumped down from either side of the bridge on to the concrete foundations beneath it.
The fuse was a short one, though it seemed an eternity as they waited for it to soak through. The blackpowder cask was constructed from a single piece of wood, with a finger-wide hole at its top filled with thick, semi-hardened tar. The fuse poked through this, and when it sucked the water to the contents within, it would ignite from the sudden contact with moisture.
It exploded suddenly. An ear-jarring rush of air crashed overhead, followed by reeking black smoke and portions of wood and rat that splashed into the water of the moat in a brief shower of debris. Coughing, they poked their heads back up. The gate was still intact.
Baracha yelled as he jumped back on to the bridge. He waved his arms at the gate. A shot raced past his head, though he didn't flinch. Instead he straightened and looked up with a scowl.
Ash leaped up, too, and helped Aleas back on to the remnants of the bridge. Aleas's ears were still ringing from the explosion. No time to think, though. Through the smoke he could see that planks of the bridge had blown away to leave only the concrete foundation, exposed and blackened; the gates too were blackened, badly buckled, but seemingly intact. Before them Ash stood stroking the scabbard of his sword. He exchanged a glance with Aleas, his eyebrow raised. Aleas bent to reload his crossbow. More shots crashed out. One took the skin from Baracha's shoulder, before it skipped off the concrete, sailing past Aleas's right knee.
'By all that is holy!' Baracha bellowed up in rage. 'Will you aim at someone else, just this once!' He snatched the crossbow from Aleas and aimed at a loophole still boasting a cloud of drifting smoke. He fired twice. A shout of pain rang out. He tossed the piece back to his apprentice.
'Now what?' he demanded, rounding on Ash. 'I told you we needed to use both casks.'
Ash held a finger to his lips, attempting to hush the big man. He stepped through the clearing smoke and placed a palm against the smaller door set into the gate, which was now warped and partly ajar. He tilted himself forwards, pressing hard.
The door fell inwards. It clanged to the ground without any hint of a bounce. Within lay only smoke and darkness.
The pair of them swept through. Behind, Aleas hobbled under his load. An Acolyte lay writhing on the ground, smothered in a carpet of rats. They trod a path around him, not looking.
A wide entranceway lined with murder holes. Another gate at its end. But it lay open.
Beyond was a large, starkly gas-lit chamber, where several riding zels stood with their reins tied to posts, and next to them a few empty carts. Troughs of water lined two walls and a stable was close at hand, if the smell was anything to go by. Passages led off from the open space. The Rshun chose the one directly ahead, Ash going in front, Aleas taking the rear.
This passage led into the lower sanctum of the Temple of Whispers, the largest open area to be found within the tower. The walls of the space were the same colour as exposed flesh; a sacrificial altar, of pure white stone, stood at its far end in a pool of gaslight turned low. Columns of pink marble ran in two rows the entire length of the sanctum, rising into the dimness of a ceiling arching high overhead, which was covered entirely in friezes of Mann – images that reflected much of the chaos to be found on the floor below.
The chaos was one of panic: a desperation to escape the torrent of crazed vermin now converging on everything that moved. Acolytes struggled across the open space as though they were on fire, each enveloped in a mass of writhing fur. Some rolled on the floor, trying to crush their attackers. Yet the three Rshun stood amongst it all, unmolested.
'I did not expect this to be so easy,' quipped Baracha, which only an Alhazii could say while his ear dangled loose from his head.
The rats cleared a path for them as they trod through the mayhem. An enclosed spiralling stairwell occupied each corner of the temple space, three of them leading upwards. The nearest one, on their right, led downwards, however. The Rshun hovered next to it, peering into the gloom below.
'Slave quarters,' announced Ash.
'How can you tell?'
'The stink.'
The Rshun converged on the far end of the sanctum, before a shallow pool of water that extended across the entire floor, and separated the rest of the temple from the altar. They stopped to confer.
'You think Kirkus is still in the Storm Chamber?' Baracha asked, as an Acolyte charged past him and dived into the water. They all ignored him.
'We have no choice but to assume so.'
'There should be a climbing box,' said Baracha. 'All of these towers have one. Can you spot it?'
'There,' said Aleas, motioning to a door he could just discern in the wall behind the altar.
'We try the climbing box, then,' said Baracha. 'We'll never make it if we have to fight our way through every floor to get to the top.'
'Agreed.'
Ash mounted the thin bridge that vaulted the pool, his sword, even now, still in its sheath. Baracha stepped straight into the water and waded across. Aleas chose the bridge.
The twin doors of the climbing box were small, cast-iron, and firmly shut. There appeared to be no hole for a key, or any other obvious way in which it could be opened. 'Crowbar,' demanded Baracha with a snap of his fingers, hand outstretched.
Aleas began fumbling within his robe, till Baracha impatiently tore the front of the garment open to expose the harness. He snatched the crowbar from it, and set to working on the doors.
Still, they wouldn't open.
'We need to blow them,' he grunted, handing back the crowbar. Ash consented, and they took the remaining keg of blackpowder, set it against the door, soaked the fuse.
'Clear away!' bellowed Baracha as they scurried for cover. This time they had the good sense to cover their ears.
As the smoke cleared, a shaft was revealed through the blasted doorway. It soared straight upwards through blackness, as did the metal cable hanging taut to one side, and an iron ladder next to it.
'I was rather hoping we could hitch a ride,' observed Aleas drily.
'We climb,' rumbled Baracha.
*
Aleas went last, and he gritted his teeth with effort as he hauled his weight, hand, by hand up the rungs of the ladder. The shaft was illuminated partway by the light from below, but already he had lost sight of Ash in the murk above him, leading the way with Baracha some distance behind, climbing more slowly, because of his bulk. The shaft reeked of grease and was full of dust, so that Aleas stopped to sneeze more than once.
After a time, he was forced to stop and rest. The air rattled in his throat. His lungs were burning. He wiped his nose clean on his sleeve, and then crooked an elbow around a rung and locked himself in position by clasping both hands together. Aleas was strong and fit, but he wondered whether he could finish this climb. They were too far up now for the light penetrating the open door below to reach them, but his eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and he could see his master vanishing up ahead.
He had no choice but to follow, so he began to climb again.
It took him another four rests, with a great deal of hauling in between, before he rejoined his master. Baracha hung on the ladder in the dimness, waiting for him.
'What took you so long?' he hissed down.
'I was enjoying the sights,' said Aleas. 'And then, for the fun of it, I got to talking with a pretty girl from Exanse. Or was it Palo-Valetta? You know, I don't recall.'
'Pass the crowbar,' mumbled Baracha's voice.
