the Pericurians off the steps leading into the mountain as well as shooting down the assaults being led up the Horn’s slopes. The only good news was that the Guild of Valvemen’s forces had been sighted moving towards the city from the north.
‘Too little too late,’ sighed Colonel Knipe. ‘Damson,’ he said, looking into Hannah’s eyes. ‘The third part of your church weapon, which vault is it hidden in?’
‘It’s not in the city below,’ said Hannah. ‘It’s here in the Horn of Jago. I know more or less where it is, but—’
‘Begin searching now,’ said the colonel. He clicked his fingers and two of his officers stepped forward. ‘Guard this girl’s life as if all of our fortunes depended on it. I will join you after our final defences are put in place.’
Colonel Knipe watched the young churchwoman leave with his two guards, and then he motioned his commanders to the table. ‘It is time, gentlemen. Withdraw the militia units back to the mountain, then seal the doors below.’
‘There are still people fighting in the vaults, colonel.’
‘Convicts, the scrapings of our gutter,’ said Colonel Knipe. ‘Their deaths will give society the service their miserable lives did not.’ He motioned for his staff of office to be brought to him and he pushed it into a socket, exposing the control keys running along its length. Colonel Knipe looked at his men and the edge of his mouth turned up into a grim smile. ‘Those heathen savages put such faith in their scriptures; let us do the Pericurians one final kindness. Let us reunite the wet-snouts with their barbaric gods in the sky!’
His fingers began to play across the keys. And everything changed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Boxiron shoulder-charged the two Pericurian soldiers who had stumbled out of the smoke, smashing in the skull of one with his warhammer while landing a large iron fist in the other’s stomach, the black leather armour crumpling under the impact as the Pericurian soldier fell unconscious – or perhaps lifeless – under the brute strength of the massive steamman.
‘That way!’ shouted Jethro, pointing over one of the bridges. The water level appeared to be rising now, the machines that regulated the water table of the subterranean city disabled in the fighting. Not even draining the water to fight the fires could halt the coming flood down here.
‘We must be close to the Horn of Jago,’ wheezed the commodore as he wearily waved his sabre down the burning street. ‘Let us rest a little, Jethro Daunt. I have a few years on your legs and lack the stout boiler heart of the old steamer here.’
‘I fear we cannot,’ said Jethro. ‘A minute may cost us our lives.’
‘So you say, so you say. Poor old Blacky, driven out of his rest by the corrupt officials of the Jackelian state, dragged through the evil wilds of Jago, burnt by the Fire Sea and crushed by rocks, crawling through turds for the sake of his precious duty, and now forced to run through a burning city while Pericurian brutes take pot-shots at him. Just a minute’s respite, that’s not much to ask for. A small rest while I hope for the fires of this flaming city to pass me by.’
As if listening to his complaints, there was a sound almost like a sigh from the burning buildings along the street the three of them were heading down, the fires seeming to bank down, some of the flames in the upper windows winking out altogether.
Commodore Black shook his head in amazement. ‘Has Lord Tridentscale listened to an old seadrinker’s prayers?’
‘If he has, then he has answered them with your death,’ warned Jethro. ‘Run! Run, good captain, run for your life!’
All around them the fires were dying out, flickering away as the vault’s air was replaced with something else, something that reeked of rot and their final demise.
Ortin urs Ortin winced within the protection of the ring of fortifications surrounding the Horn of Jago. Deep, thick walls of concrete might be enough to protect its occupants from the police militia bullets flying down the slopes, but it wasn’t enough to preserve those inside from the fury of Stom urs Stom berating her officers for failing to take the mountain.
‘Are you cubs?’ she shouted at her lieutenants, ‘When you have three divisions of artillery at your rear? No, you are the chosen, and a few furless devils with police rifles are stalling your advance. You dare give me such news!’
‘We have taken almost all of the