“This was mine,” Minox said.
“I know.”
“There were two.”
The Thorn looked sheepish for a moment. “I did save you.”
After a moment, Minox nodded. “Fair.”
“Last part of the plan?” Jerinne snapped.
“Right,” the Thorn said, helping Minox to his feet. “I’m guessing a bunch of angry zealots are coming this way.”
“Worse,” Asti said, looking out over the room.
Dayne looked back to the machine, where Crenaxin was screaming.
“They’ve been taken! Taken to the surface! Taken to the sky!”
Senek looked up at Dayne and the others, and smirked. “Then we will do the same. Reclaim our prizes, our fuel!”
“Yes, now!” Crenaxin shouted. “Now this city will see!”
“Now!” the zealots and beasts shouted. “Now!”
Senek laughed and raised his arms high. “Rise. Rise! RISE!”
The ground beneath their feet shook, and the floor of the chamber cracked. Then the ceiling split open above them, revealing the bright blue sky. The sudden burst of light stabbed through Dayne’s eyes, and he winced, looking away.
Then everything in the chamber—the floor, the machine, Senek, the zealots and beasts—all rose higher and higher. The stone floor rushed up at them, pipes cracking as it came, shooting steam at everyone. The Thorn’s rope coiled around Dayne and Asti and pulled them out of harm’s way.
“Saints,” Jerinne said. “They just went to the surface. Where?”
“Saint Bridget’s Square,” Asti said, horrified. “We have to get up there. Now.”
He was already running, and the Thorn and Minox were right behind him.
“Time to hold back death,” Jerinne said, running after.
“Sword in hand and shield on arm,” Dayne said to no one, following behind them all. He had never seen anything like this atrocity, and he feared that he and the other four would not be enough to stop it.
Lin was still on the ground, crying over Maresh. He wanted to weep with her, Maresh deserved to be properly mourned, but this was not the moment. He scooped up Maresh’s misshapen body.
“Can you walk?” he asked Lin.
She nodded. “If nothing else.”
“Then come on. We’re going to get out of here.”
A juggernaut of metal emerged from the wide gap that split in the cobblestone, rising up to blot the sun out in the square. Satrine barely had time to pull Verci Rynax out of harm’s way from its ascent, and she lost sight of Delmin and Kaiana, as well as Hemmit and the children.
Verci found his footing quickly, jumping back perching on the low stone wall that enclosed the square. Satrine instinctively blasted a Riot Call as the thing continued to rise, gripping her handstick in her off hand. Now she could see the whole thing. Copper and steel intertwined and connected as massive rings spun at impossible speeds around it. Huge spherical cages sat in the center, with a raised platform on the top. A man stood on the top of the platform, arms raised triumphantly as he was surrounded in swirling light and energy.
“He seems very pleased with himself, doesn’t he?” Verci asked.
“Rather,” Satrine said. “Eyes up.”
The rise finally stopped, and a small army arrived with the base of the machine. Dozens of people in dark robes, dozens more that were not even human, and one howling, hairy madman.
The tallest, scariest of the unhumans bellowed out. “Get the children! Fuel the fervent fire!” The army all ran in every direction in the square. Four zealots charged directly at Satrine and Verci.
Satrine was ready with the crossbow, pulling the first trigger as she aimed dead at the heart of the first zealot. He went down and she immediately shot the second, clipping him in the arm. He closed the distance, and was met with the cocking stirrup in his face.
Verci had made short work of the other two with a combination of darts and kicks.
“I presume my deputization protects me from murder charges,” he said to her.
“If I get to keep this crossbow,” she said, quickly recocking and loading it back up. “They’re going for the kids; we need to get to them.” She hadn’t heard any response to her Riot Call. Not that anything could be heard over the racket of all this.
“Right,” he said. He raised his gauntlet arm and shot one of the brass balls. That section of the square filled with smoke. “Let’s go.”
“We can’t see the kids now,” Satrine said as she followed him into the smoke.
“Neither can they,” Verci said.
“Small comfort.” Something fleshy and spiky barreled into her, knocking her to the ground. She rolled with the fall, moving out of the way as a clawed hand swiped at her. What were these things? When she was a kid, there had always been rumors—more childish taunts—about horrors that lived in the sewers, but she had never really believed such things. She couldn’t deny the reality trying to sink its teeth into her face, though. She swung up her handstick, wedging it into the fang-filled maw coming at her. Another clawed hand grabbed her, dragging her and the beast along with her, out of the smoke, out of the square.
This beast looked down on her, hunger in its eyes. “Not child,” it said.
“Nope,” she said. She brought up the crossbow and fired both quarrels at once at it, while bringing up her knee into the crotch of the other. It squealed and fell off her while the first dropped dead. At least these things, whatever they were, still had tenders and other weak spots.
She got back on her feet and drove her boot into the face of the creature, then a second time for good measure. She recocked the crossbow again—saints, this thing was a beauty—but before she could finish reloading, Verci came hurtling out of the smoke. He managed to land on his feet, but started to scramble away as soon as he did.
“Giant!” he shouted.
The largest beast—the one with scaly gray skin, thick and oily, lumbered out of the smoke holding a lamppost like it was a club.
“Constables,” he said in a lumbering voice. “Hate constables.”
The lamppost came swinging down on
