lowered the point of her sword to the floor. With her other hand she slipped the hood off the poisonsong bolt at her hip.
Devon snorted. “It’s what they want. Look.” He punched his stump at the window. “The faithful are converging on the temple. The faster I cut, the more eager they become.”
“Half the city is trying to escape.”
“And if they do escape, I won’t pursue them. I’m not unreasonable.”
“Ulcis is dead,” Rachel said. “His archons are dead. There’s nothing left down there.”
Devon raised an eyebrow. “You found some evidence of that?” He seemed unconvinced. “A tomb?”
“I drank him,” Carnival said.
Devon frowned, cupped his chin in his hand. His eyes flicked from Carnival to the floor and back. Then he looked up, amused. “You drank him?” There was now an edge of uncertainty in his voice. “You drank a god?”
“I could manage another,” she said.
Dill sensed blood in the air, the pressure of violence, like water building behind a dam ready to burst. And in response he felt something building inside himself, a force pushing back. Hadn’t there been enough blood spilled? Too many lives already lost? He’d had enough. “No,” he said firmly. “No more killing.” He faced Carnival. “Let him go. Let them all leave.”
“I think it’s beyond that now,” Devon said, not unkindly.
“Enough!” Bataba snarled. He grabbed Devon’s shoulder, swung him round. “The city—finish it.”
Rachel said, “There’s nothing underneath Deepgate but bones, shaman.”
“Bones!” Devon laughed. “What am I supposed to do with bones?” But his gaze then fixed on the freshly healed wounds on Dill’s chest. “The angelwine,” he said, “you found it?”
“Dill died,” Rachel explained. “It revived him.”
“Died?”
“I’m afraid I left your hand behind.”
Dill was stunned.He had died? His memories were now crystallizing. He remembered the fight on the mountain of bones, the pain in his chest before he blacked out. And then he remembered waking in the dark cell. Was there anything between?
Something…
A void, darkness. But he had a sense that this darkness cloaked other memories, lurking there just out of reach. “How long was I dead?” he asked.
“Days,” Rachel said. “Maybe a week. I don’t know.”
“What do you remember?” Devon asked.
“Darkness.”
“That’s it?”
Dill tried to shake the fog from his head. There was something else. A dream of shadows moving. Had there been a glimmer of light? Voices?
Devon frowned. “That is not good enough.”
Behind him, Bataba suddenly leaned across the skeletal controls, reached for a lever. “None of you,” he shouted, “have any faith!”
The Poisoner wheeled. “What? No—” He reached for the shaman’s sleeve to stop him, but his stump was unable to find purchase. Bataba clicked the lever forward.
Engines roared.
Devon and the shaman were now struggling, fighting over the controls. The Tooth lurched, tipped forward, and suddenly they were over the precipice and falling.
33
Poisonsong
There was a moment of confusion, when Rachel found herself flat against the bridge windows, then pitched back fiercely as the chain at her ankle snapped taut. She struck the rear wall and air burst from her lungs.
A juddering groan from outside. The Tooth rocked, slipped, and settled upside down. The huge machine had been snared, barely, in Deepgate’s remaining web of chains. Through cracked windows in the wall opposite Rachel saw the mighty links of a foundation chain among the tangle, and pitch darkness below it. One of the links had been half-sheared by the machine’s cutters.
The partly sheared link was opening, stretching.
Carnival and Dill had been thrown into opposite corners of the bridge, and were now picking themselves up, dazed. The Heshette shaman lay unmoving between them. Devon was hanging from the control bank fixed to what had now become the ceiling.
Rachel heard the snap of cables and chains, and the Tooth lurched, slipped a fathom. The foundation chain groaned, the sheared link opening further. Rubble showered past the windows.
Devon swung above her, cursing, as she dragged herself to her feet and staggered over to the windows, calling out to Carnival, “Help me break the glass.”
Carnival and Dill joined her, while Rachel smashed her sword hilt against the scorched pane. When it didn’t break, she tried again harder, putting every ounce of her strength into the blow. Nothing happened. “What the hell is this made from?” she cried.
“Let me.” Carnival took the sword and struck the window a vicious blow with it. A fresh crack appeared among the others, but still the pane did not give.
“This isn’t working,” Rachel said. “Try the corridors. We need to find another way out.”
Just then the Tooth shuddered once more. Lesser chains broke,