Scar Night Page 0,136

cautious of reaching the bottom of the abyss too abruptly. They kept the lantern burning low as they descended, and strained to see through the humid darkness, searching for some sign of Deep itself or the ghosts down below.

But whatever awaited them still remained hidden.

Carnival wouldn’t as much as hint at what she’d seen during her earlier reconnaissance. She circled them impatiently but kept her distance to stay out of the lantern light. Whenever Dill caught a glimpse of her, he saw nothing in her eyes but a glint of savage humour, as if she were savouring some cruel joke.

He knew better than to press her for answers. Not that he was overly keen to hear what she might say. Her malicious eagerness for them to reach the bottom unnerved him.

In the silence Dill heard his blood drumming in his ears. Rachel’s arms were heavy about his neck, her breath hot against his cheek. The antique steel of his mail shirt began to feel like pig-iron, becoming heavier until it felt like he was carrying the weight of a city on his back. And everywhere now, that smell.

Of war.

Of weapons.

Feebly, he shook his head. He couldn’t place it, and yet some part of him knew what it was—the pungent odour howled to be recognised.

War. Weapons. Something…?

Rachel interrupted his thoughts. “Listen,” she said, “can you hear it?”

Dill listened hard.

A tapping sound, metallic, very faint.

“What is it?” he said.

“I don’t know,” she murmured.

Deeper into the abyss, and gradually, the strange clamour grew louder. It reminded him of the Poison Kitchens—the familiar distant sounds of industry, factories, and forges. The odour intensified too, but its cause still eluded him.

There. Just for a moment he thought he spotted a grey shape in the void beneath them. He pulled up sharply.

I know this. A shiver of fear brushed up his spine.

Rachel sniffed, frowned. “That odour—what the hell is it?”

Dill peered down. “I thought I saw—” He broke off. “Maybe it was nothing.”

But as they continued to drop, the blackness below began to lighten. Further vague outlines appeared, dissipated. Down to one side he spied a dim smudge like a pall of almost invisible smoke. He tried hard to focus but could not define its shape. What if it was just an outcrop of rock? Had he seen anything at all?

“Dill, look up there,” Rachel hissed. “A storm is blowing over the Deadsands.”

He lifted his head and his breath caught. From down here, Deepgate appeared to be no larger than his fist, but the distant city seethed. Glittering clouds of dust and rust fell from the agitated chains and neighbourhoods so far above, while spikes of sunlight punched through in countless places. An angry corona surrounded the outline of the city itself—and in the very centre, a bright ring flared around a black speck. The Church of Ulcis .

“It’s brighter now,” Rachel murmured. “The sun is high. It must be close to noon.”

“It looks so far away,” Dill said.

Deepgate seemed as distant as the sun, and as unreachable.

Gazing up, he didn’t notice the ground approaching until they were almost upon it. When he glanced down, he saw what looked like a steep, chalky slope rushing towards them. Beyond the lantern light, the slope sank away into the distant gloom.

“Dill!”

“I see it!” He thrashed his wings to slow their descent. Sudden wind whipped at Rachel’s hair.

“My God, Dill, look!”

Dill couldn’t understand what he was seeing. Where was the city of Deep? The buildings, streets, gardens? Where were the soul-lights? The army of ghosts? Where was Ulcis?

What was this?

He landed hard. The ground surface gave way beneath him, cracking, snapping. He lost his footing and tumbled wings over heels, pitching Rachel into the dark. Hundreds of hard edges jabbed him, punched the wind from his aching chest. The sword hilt pummelled his ribs. The lantern threw dizzy circles of light. Desperately, he thrust out his arms to slow his fall, but his hands sank into something crumbly and he slid forward again. Thick, sour dust choked his lungs.

Weapons? War?

Dill came to a halt, facedown, in a cloud of dust. He groaned and lifted his head.

Bones.

He was lying on a mountain of bones. Femurs, fingers, clavicles, ribs, spines, as far as he could see—an impossible slope of dry and shattered skeletons. Fleshless hands reached up from gullies and mounds of brittle remains. Screes of skulls and teeth shifted, trickled, and rattled further down into the dark.

Dill had sunk to the elbows in broken bones. He coughed, blinked.

That smell.

Not of