Iron Angel

her.”

“And if you find her?”

He smiled and rose to his feet. “I’ll kill her.”

Soon afterwards they came across a strange trail. Rachel’s Spine training had involved extensive travel throughout the Deadsands, but she still struggled to identify the cause of it. She had never seen so bizarre a set of impressions. The sand between the stone boles had been disturbed by a much larger creature than a kisser-crab or snake, something which had left a shallow, undulating ditch behind it. There were no footprints, yet the creature was evidently man-sized. It appeared to have crawled across the ground in a wormlike fashion.

The trail followed the route Rachel planned to take, which made sense as the only clean spring for leagues around lay in that direction. Looking back, it seemed to originate from a place near to where they themselves had entered the petrified woodland.

Had something crawled up there to get a look at Deepgate, and then returned the way it had come?

“Any ideas?” she asked.

“It’s not any animal I know,” Trench replied.

They followed the trail to the opposite side of the woodland. Beyond this point the land sloped away to the east, north, and south: a vast expanse of pale, rippling dunes and darker patches of scrub. Northwards towards Blackthrone and the caravan trail, a curious bank of cloud or mist smothered the landscape like a dim grey veil, almost as if another city was burning there.

Some trick of the weather?

Rachel turned her attention to the east. Across the horizon jagged the silhouette of the ShaleMountains, over which lay the Yellow Sea. Millions of stars crusted the heavens above. The river Coyle, a faint silvery line, wove across the plain below the foothills, although Rachel could not spy any of the river towns in the gloom.

Yet there were other lights.

Some leagues southeast of where they stood, a great phosphorescent patch covered the Deadsands. From this distance it looked like a town-or perhaps a traveling festival, so garish were the colors. Shades of aquamarine, permanganate, yellow, and ochre throbbed, shifted, and bled together under the night sky. The trail Rachel and Trench had followed through the petrified trees led down the slope towards it.

Trench pointed. “What is that?”

“Cinderbark Wood,” Rachel replied.

“Some form of sorcery?”

“Hardly,” Rachel replied.

“Then why does it shimmer?”

“Deepgate’s chemists painted it with toxins,” she said. “They conceived of the idea during the Southern Clearances. The stone trees were originally supposed to act as a warning to the surviving tribes, an aggressive display of the chained city’s power. But it’s also a trap for the unwary. Every branch and thorn down there is saturated with poison. One scratch can kill.”

“Might a cautious man walk through without harm?”

“It’s not that simple,” Rachel said. “There are poisonous roots buried under the sand, and caches that leak toxic vapors. The dunes are constantly shifting within it, so trails soon disappear. Sometimes the trees are completely covered by drifts. You don’t know what you’re walking on. What might seem like a safe path is often perilous.” She wiped sweat from her brow. “The chemists used the trees as a canvas, colouring their poisons while creating ever more devious ways to bring death to their foes. It became a proving ground, with each man striving to outdo the work of his peers.”

Trench unplugged his water bladder and took a sip. “We could skirt it.”

“We need water,” Rachel said, stalking grimly on ahead. “The only clean spring for many leagues lies within Cinderbark Wood.” She glanced back to the north again, to the queer bank of mist hanging over the Deadsands, and frowned.

It appeared to be moving south towards them.

Caulker hated horses. They smelled as bad as the Heshette who rode them, and had less flesh on their bones than a bag of boiled knuckles. To make matters worse, he had been forced to share a horse with one of the savages. The cutthroat now perched on a skinny gelding behind his bearded companion, wincing with every hard- boned step the beast took, while the horseman in front of him swayed easily in rhythm. This particular bastard seemed to have an unnatural fondness for horses. He was forever patting and stroking the beast’s neck and mumbling to it in his heathen language. For all Caulker knew, the two were man and wife.

Anchor strolled up ahead, chatting with Ramnir. The Heshette leader was mounted, yet such was the giant’s size that the pair of them were almost face-to-face. Often they glanced back at Caulker and spoke in whispers, and then Anchor’s laugh would boom out in the fog, rolling back along the long line of horsemen. Since this morning, their ranks had swelled, from six to almost thirty. The initial party had apparently been part of a larger group of raiders.

“Your master has a good heart,” said the horseman seated in front of Caulker. “He boasts a cheerful spirit.”

“He’s an idiot,” Caulker muttered. “And he’s not my master.”

Yet Anchor’s fame was growing among the heathens. Ramnir had sent riders out beyond the fog to spread the word and beg news from other tribes. Each time the scouts returned, they brought with them more of the savages, curious to see the giant and his rope for themselves. Anchor welcomed them all with his big dumb grin.

In this way scraps of news filtered in from the desert. A vast explosion had rocked Deepgate, spewing debris for leagues around. None of the tribesmen had ventured close enough to inspect the chained city, but the damage was rumored to be extensive. The red mist that had enveloped Deepgate of late had dissipated-an observation that had greatly pleased the tethered giant.

The scarred angel’s two companions had been taken to the chained city by airship three weeks ago. And one of them-the Spine woman-had since been spotted fleeing across the southern Deadsands with a labourer from Deepgate’s workers’ settlement. They were last seen heading in the direction of Cinderbark Wood, so Anchor had decided to make a detour south to look for them. Carnival herself had not been seen, and yet the apparently fortuitous destruction of three skyships the night before suggested she might still be in the area.

They made camp just before nightfall to allow Anchor to discuss this last information with his master in the skyship above. The entire exchange consisted of muttered questions from the giant and unheard replies from the god above while Anchor frowned in deep concentration, but when it was over the tethered man made an announcement:

“It is no good,” he said. “Now Cospinol is convinced that his witchsphere is lying to him. Always it tries to steer us away from the scarred angel, and warns of Heshette treachery. Always lies. The witches have been poisoned by Cospinol’s brother, Rys.”

Caulker snorted. “What makes you so sure it’s lying?”

“It says we should trust you,” Anchor said.

The Heshette laughed, but the cutthroat only seethed and wrapped his blanket more tightly around himself. Hadn’t Anchor himself lied to Caulker in order to lure him out into this wilderness? And what exactly had the giant been whispering to Ramnir about?

Caulker noticed the way the other heathens looked at him, all shifty, as though they meant to do him harm. Well, Jack Caulker had no intention of allowing that to happen. He had taken to keeping a knife in his sleeve and one eye always on the pouch of pearls in John Anchor’s belt.

“Have your master send this witchsphere down to us,” one of the Heshette remarked. “We’ll roast it over an open fire until it decides to cooperate.”

Anchor shook his head. “It is only a few hags,” he said. “I think the gods have made them suffer enough.”

This false display of pity only increased Anchor’s standing among his fawning crowd of followers, while the Heshette who had advocated torturing their enemy’s agent was shunned by his companions. Caulker felt his bile rise all the more. What did these savages know about the world?

And who were the Mesmerists?

The cutthroat had been able to gather a little about them. From what Anchor had said, the Mesmerists