The Broken God by Gareth Hanrahan (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📕

all cells, east wing has Taphson’s offices, barracks, an armoury. Least, that was what it was back when Taphson was alive. Now, it’s something else.

He fires again, targeting the windows. Somewhere in there, Rasce told him, is the pebble Baston planted on Sinter. This is Duttin’s headquarters, her secret off-the-books lair. Baston’s surprised that she chose somewhere in the Wash. He’d have expected somewhere fancier, with the quality. A mansion in Bryn Avane, maybe, or a government building up on Castle Hill. Somewhere far away from the front lines, from the parts of the city Duttin sacrificed for her Armistice.

Reload. Fire again.

This is for you, Karla, he thinks, as he pumps shot after shot into what was once Taphson’s office. Maybe if he does enough damage, he can fix what was broken. Convince Rasce to step back from the brink, somehow reconcile him with Karla, free her from that prison. He curses himself for trying to play the game, trying to take the lead. All he’s good for is hurting people.

He knows he hit someone with his opening barrage. Maybe Duttin’s already dead.

This is for you, Fae. Another barrage of fire, the barrel hot enough to burn his gloved hand. The stink of phlogiston. Discarded cartridges fall from the rooftop, smouldering as they tumble down to the street below.

Baston swings his rifle around, trains the scope on the gap between Castle Hill and Holyhill. There, leaping over the rooftops like a host of angry fireflies. The Tallowmen are coming, swarming up from the Fog Yards.

Even if she’s bleeding out on the floor, Duttin won’t let her Tallowmen cross into the Ishmeric Occupation Zone. She has to preserve her precious Armistice to protect her Guerdon.

Not his.

His Guerdon is lost forever.

He turns and flees into what was once the Wash, but is now the domain of mad gods.

The armies of thieves go down the corpse-shaft.

Perhaps it’s the only way down, but Rasce suspects the ghouls chose this route to mock their fellow travellers.

The ghouls, inhumanly strong and agile, can scale the walls or swing from the chains that once used to lower corpses down for the ghouls’ feast. The humans have to descend in single file, down a stair that spirals along the edges of the shaft, steps unmentionably slick. Some, including Doctor Vorz, lose their nerve and have to be lowered on ropes, like corpses that don’t know they’re dead yet.

Rasce is the first down. The first to search around the base of the shaft, wading through a mire born from the filth of centuries, gnawed bones protruding from the black slime like tree roots. He finds the entrance to the tunnel that Baston spoke of. It’s old, older than the shaft it connects to. He runs his fingers over the walls, and the carvings seem to writhe under his touch.

“A temple of Black Iron,” whispers Vorz from behind him. The Dentist raises his lamp, conjuring shapes out of the darkness. “Ravellers, consuming sacrifices for the Black Iron Gods.”

The amulet on Rasce’s chest squirms against his skin in an unsettling fashion. He lifts it out, tucks it between his undershirt and his leather cuirass. The motion makes his side hurt, the rocky scabs digging into the tightly laced armour.

“Do you need more alkahest?” whispers the Dentist, opening his black bag.

“No.”

“More, ah, tincture?”

“No.” Rasce checks his inner eye, looks out from the New City. At this distance, it’s an effort – he can dimly feel his mortal body stagger, the Dentist holding him upright – but he’s able to look out from the windows of the New City. He can see the lights of the Tallowmen moving, a swarm of fireflies, congregating at the lithosarium. Moving away from the Fog Yards. Good.

“Up the tunnel!” shouts Rasce. “Smash the yliaster vats first, then take anything that isn’t nailed down! The dragon takes what he wishes, and, tonight, you are all blood of the dragon!”

Ragged cheers, but the thieves are too cold and nervous to charge. There’s a great deal of hesitation over who should be first to navigate the tunnel. Rasce would prefer to lead the way himself, but the time is not right. Baston could keep them in line, he thinks to himself.

The ghouls jeer at the idea of being sent to the front lines, so it comes down to the Ghierdana and the Brotherhood, and it’s the Brotherhood thieves who are pushed forward. They advance into the darkness.

What will they find there, Rasce wonders. Wards? Traps? Armed guards, the narrow corridor a killing ground for alchemical weapons like heavy gas or knife-smoke. The sort of things Rasce has seen on battlefields from far above.

Vorz makes him sit down. Insists on giving him more injections. “Wait until we have drawn out Mandel’s defenders,” whispers the Dentist, like he’s talking about pulling teeth. The ghouls cluster around, curious, leering at him. Jabbering among themselves, as if betting on when he’ll perish and be ready for eating.

There’s every chance it might be very, very soon.

The sound of gunfire echoes down the tunnel. Distant explosions. The attack has begun.

It’s time.

The dragon returns to Guerdon.

This city is a wounded beast, thinks the dragon. The scars are plainly visible. He flies over the ruins of Queen’s Point, over the burned remains of Dredger’s yard. Wreckage from the invasion, scattered along the shore. The Haithi and Ishmeric Occupation Zones, like patches of disease.

Even the New City is a mark of injury. A stone scab. This city is dying, thinks the dragon, even if it is in denial of its own mortality. Taras has sacked cities before. Feasted on their remains, and this will be little different.

He circles down towards the towers of the New City. He can smell the mortals in those crowded towers, a mingling of scents. Guerdonese, Severasti, Haithi. Folk from Jashan, from Mattaur, from Varinth and a dozen other lands.

And beyond those towers, more towers, empty ones. Burned-out ruins.

Vorz has made a study of those towers. Once, Carillon Thay fought a Keeper saint