Iron Angel

and see.”

“No,” the creature wailed. “It hurts. Send me back to Hell.”

“Mesmerist filth,” Trench spat. “Menoa sent you here to spy.”

The thing’s bulbous head shook. “No,” it moaned. “I have been the victim of sorcery. The mortal woman who owns this wagon summoned me here. I was powerless to resist.”

“Mina Greene is a thaumaturge?” Rachel asked.

“One of the greatest.”

Rachel cast an instinctive glance around the forest. “And where is she now?”

The demon’s many muscles flexed and glistened. “She left six days ago to look for a door into Hell. This forest is riddled with them: old doors through which many phantasms have passed.”

Trench scoffed. “Yes, phantasms. Portals like those are useless to anything except ghosts. No human could pass through such a vaporous gate.”

“But she has help,” the demon said.

The puppy in Rachel’s arms gave a low growl.

The shape-shifter’s eyes widened momentarily. “I have said too much,” it said. “Please change me into something small and quick-a hare, perhaps, or a bat. Let me go to the Veil.”

Rachel studied the puppeteer’s dog. Its growl had been…opportune, if nothing else. Could this mangy creature also be a shape-shifter? But the pup ignored her stare, lapping at the assassin’s thumb instead. Rachel sighed. This forest was making her paranoid.

Cinderbark Wood remained deathly still. Nothing moved among the painted boles and soft sands except a few wisps of fog creeping in from the north.

Fog?

In the desert?

“Ignore everything it says,” Trench said. “Menoa’s creatures can’t help but lie. If you don’t wish to kill the thing now, I propose we put it to use.” He leaned over the crate.

The demon cried out again.

Before Rachel could stop him, Trench had whispered a word into the demon’s ear. The thing in the crate screamed as its shape began to change. Its bones folded inwards with cracking sounds, and its flesh turned from pink and red to the colour of raw steel. With every heartbeat it grew smaller and its cries became more distant.

“What are you doing to it?” Rachel cried.

“We’ve walked far enough without a decent weapon,” Trench growled. He reached inside the crate, and then withdrew his hand.

He was holding a sword: a shining steel weapon with a plain leather-bound hilt and copper-coloured pommel. Rainbow colours swept across the blade as the angel examined it by the light of phosphorescent branches. “This is an example of one of King Menoa’s first experiments to fuse the souls of the dead with corporeal materials,” he said.

Rachel stared in horror. “Is the demon conscious? Does it still feel?”

“It does,” Trench replied. “But do not pity it. It is more deceitful and cunning than it appears. It has intimate knowledge of the shapes of many weapons and can change between them in a heartbeat. Such creatures were once given to Pandemerian nobles as gifts-they can be far stronger than normal steel or glass, and capable of adapting to any combat situation. Shiftblades, we call them in the Maze.”

Rachel dragged her eyes away from the strange sword. A thought occurred to her. “Menoa’s first experiments?”

Trench grunted. “He moved on.”

Rachel was about to ask him to expound, but she suddenly noticed that the fog had grown much denser. Whorls of mist drifted through the trees like the tentacles of some creeping monster. She could barely see ten yards to the north of them. A sudden chill gripped her. “We’d better get going,” she said.

But Trench didn’t move. He was staring intently into the grey pall that seemed to roll through the trees towards them. “Is such weather normal for this time of year?” he asked.

“Not this deep in the Deadsands,” she replied. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” And then she noticed an odd briny odor in the air. “That smell…” she whispered, suddenly on edge. Her senses were tingling. “Trench, this is a sea mist.”

The angel grinned, and for a heartbeat Rachel could almost believe that it was Dill. Despite his ruined hands and missing wings, Trench’s expression was so unexpected and natural that it seemed to Rachel that her old friend was back before her.

“Cospinol,” Trench said.

Throughout the trek through Cinderbark Wood Jack Caulker prayed for another accident-a fetlock brushing against a protruding root, a poison cache cracked open by a clumsy hoof, a rider failing to duck in time below overhanging branches-anything to make these heathens appreciate the utter insanity of this adventure.

He dwelled on the vision Anchor’s soulpearl had given him-that terrifying plummet from those airy heights into the mist-chilled valley below-and he shuddered. Caulker had experienced that woman’s death. He had been punished for her crimes, and each time Caulker slept, the tethered giant would become his judge and executioner once more.

Up ahead, John Anchor laughed at something Ramnir had said. Despite the dangers of this hideous stone forest and the stench of these heathen riders and the great weight of the skyship he dragged behind him-and the countless souls he had eaten-the tethered man had laughed. What terrors did those consumed souls bring to Anchor’s slumber? If the giant relived the deaths of those he had murdered, then how could he laugh?

Caulker felt small and weak and bitter, and he hated Anchor for that feeling.

He considered the Mesmerists, imagining himself striding through the halls of some glorious castle in Hell. And why should Hell not have castles as glorious as any of those in Heaven? Ayen had spurned mankind, but now Hell sought to embrace it. He pictured John Anchor in chains-real chains, not just this greasy harness he carried on his shoulders.

For the first time in days, the cutthroat smiled.

The horse lurched, bringing him back to the here and now. The Heshette horseman sharing Caulker’s saddle had pulled sharply on the reins to steer his beast around a clutch of violet branches. Caulker realized he had been staring at Anchor’s pouch of soulpearls.

All those dreams of death. These were ghosts trapped in glass-every one of them murdered by Anchor. Caulker recalled the battle-archon’s spirit he had released from its pearl amidst the ruins of the Widow’s Hook, and now he began to understand exactly why that apparition had attacked the tethered man so vehemently.

What would happen if all of those soulpearls were broken at once?

The woodland thinned as they crested a shallow rise. Ancient trees loomed at the limits of the fog like gaudy harlequins, their painted claws reaching out to each other as though frozen in dance. Anchor took advantage of wider gaps between the poisoned boles, steering his rope so that he avoided the worst of the branches overhead. Behind him the rest of the party moved in silence but for the rustle of tackle and the clinking of the horsemen’s fetishes. The air filled with the steaming breaths of their mounts, the occasional snort.

Anchor halted and raised his hand. The Heshette reined in their horses behind him. A moment passed in which every man strained to see through the fog.

Caulker stared into the grey gloom, moistening his lips. Had Anchor spotted the scarred angel, or one of her companions? Perhaps even a Spine patrol? He failed to suppress a smile. A diversion might prove fruitful.

And then a cheerful voice came out of the mists. “The Adamantine Man! By the Seven Gods, I am glad to see you.”

Caulker watched in disbelief as a figure in tattered mail approached them through the coloured trees. He held before him a naked sword, but slackly, without any apparent intention of using the weapon. A second figure-a female Spine assassin-followed behind him.

Caulker ground his teeth and spat. He could not believe this turn of events. It seemed that even Anchor’s