Hooks in the Dark

How many seconds did sixty pounds of consecrated plate take to hit the bottom of nothing?

Vanamo Pajuinen hung upside down by her knees from a braided rawhide harness beneath the under-flange of Mooring Link 412. Her hooked bill-hooks rested loose in her palms, their curved sickles tempered in tallow and ground to a needle bevel. Thirty feet beneath her dangling braids lay three miles of empty black wind, and eighty feet above, the bells of the Blind Spire Orthodoxy tolled for a breach they had already lost.

She did not care about the fortress courtyard. She cared about the under-flange cargo hoist.

Three temple sentries marched along the narrow service catwalk directly below her perch. They moved in standard close-order formation, shields overlapping, their heavy iron greaves clanking against the slotted grating with the rhythm of men who believed their gods watched every step.

To Vanamo, they looked like three brass cauldrons waiting for someone to kick the stove.

The lead guard carried a kite shield bearing the embossed eye of the Blind Spire. Behind him walked a halberdier, followed by a rearguard sergeant with a heavy broadsword strapped to his hip. On open stone, their discipline could pin an entire squad of Outskirts skirmishers against a wall.

On a four-foot iron catwalk coated in condensed void-vapor and black chain grease, their discipline was an invitation.

Vanamo tightened the calf-straps of her harness. Her breath came slow and thin, misting across her cheek wraps. She waited until the sergeant stepped past the second rivet strut, where the guardrail had sheared off during the morning skirmishes.

She dropped.

The rawhide lanyard paid out thirty feet in a single hiss of friction. Vanamo fell headfirst through the dark, flipping her torso at the bottom of the arc to plant both iron-cleated boots squarely between the sergeant’s shoulder blades.

The impact drove him to his knees with a loud clang of denting plate.

Before the halberdier could turn, Vanamo released her harness snap and drove the forward crook of her left bill-hook under the sergeant’s gorget. She did not waste strength trying to pierce the annealed steel. She simply set her heel against the catwalk flange and pulled backward with the weight of her hips.

The sergeant shrieked as his center of gravity pivoted over the bare iron edge. His heavy broadsword scraped sparks across the grating before seventy pounds of steel armor dragged him out into the starless gulf.

[Enemy Eliminated: Blind Spire Temple Sergeant (Level 9)]

[Combat Experience: +150 XP]

The halberdier swung his polearm in a wild, horizontal sweep. The heavy axe-head bit into the rusted rivet housing an inch above Vanamo’s crouched head, throwing bright iron filings into the wind.

"Trespasser on the holy flange!" the halberdier bellowed. "By the Light of the Spire—"

Vanamo ducked beneath the haft, sliding forward on the greased iron. Her right hook blade caught the inside of the man’s knee-joint, ripping through leather lacing and hooking the flange of his iron greave.

She gave a sharp, sideways jerk.

The halberdier’s planted foot kicked outward into empty space. He grabbed for the overhead support beam, but sixty pounds of armor pulled his grip loose from the slick metal. His gauntlets clawed empty air as he tilted sideways, his consecrated litany cutting off into a vanishing scream.

[Enemy Eliminated: Blind Spire Halberdier (Level 8)]

[Combat Experience: +130 XP]

The lead shield-bearer finally completed his cumbersome pivot. His iron kite shield locked against his chest, his short thrusting sword leveled at her throat. He lowered his stance, planting both boots firmly against the iron grating.

"Stand, heretic," he growled through his visor slit. "You face the righteous Vanguard."

Vanamo gave him a thin smile beneath her wolf-fur mask. "Your boots have no cleats, holy man."

The guard lunged forward with a measured thrust, keeping his shield wall intact. It was standard academy drill, designed for cobblestone courtyards and stone ramparts.

Vanamo did not parry the blade. She uncoiled a short coil of weighted hemp from her belt with a flick of her wrist. The leaded net whipped around the guard's shield arm, tangling the brass boss.

Instead of pulling against his charge, she threw her entire body weight backward into the void, catching the outer rail with one hooked blade while yanking the net tight with her free hand.

The guard’s forward momentum met the sudden jerk of her tether. His smooth-soled iron boots slid across two inches of chain grease.

He fought for his balance, his arms windmilling as his shield dragged him forward. His knees hit the edge of the catwalk, and for half a second his visor stared directly into the infinite dark beneath the spoke.

Vanamo gave the hemp cord one final tug.

The shield-bearer tipped forward like an overturned kettle, plummeting into the abyss.

[Enemy Eliminated: Blind Spire Shield-Bearer (Level 8)]

[Combat Experience: +140 XP]

[Total Encounter Victory: 3/3 Hostiles Cleansed]

Blue System runes flared across her peripheral vision, sharp and steady against the black gulf.

[Level 10 Achieved: Shattered Outskirts Sky-Herder (Tier-1 Cap)]

[Class Milestone Unlocked: Tier-2 Path Available]

[Attribute Allocations Processed: +2 Agility, +1 Dexterity]

[Mastery Acquired: Grip of the Void-Catcher (Rank 1)]

[Grip of the Void-Catcher (Rank 1): Increases hook-blade adhesion to chain surfaces by 25%. Reduces stamina cost of anchor-cable maneuvers by 15%.]

A sharp pulse of kinetic heat spread through the tendons of her forearms and calves. The numbness from the freezing void wind faded, replaced by an iron tightness along her grip. Her boots found purchase on the greased metal as if the rivets were carved expressly for her toes.

She stepped over the scraped blood on the grating and retrieved her leaded net from where it hung over the edge.

From the high battlements above, the war horns of the Orthodoxy sounded a chaotic retreat, their brass tones clashing against the clang of iron gates. The front line was crumbling. But below the catwalk, deep within the recessed hinge bay that anchored Mooring Link 412 to the main cosmic chain, another sound vibrated through the metal.

It was not the clatter of retreating knights or the shouts of starving steppe-pikemen.

It was the rhythmic, metallic clink of cold chisels biting into structural pins.

Vanamo crawled along the narrow underbelly girder, moving like a spider across the rivet seams. She peered through the rusted drainage slits of the main bastion footing.

Down in the dark maintenance hollow, three hundred feet beneath the claimed courtyard, four heavily armored sappers worked in absolute silence. They wore soot-stained leather over blackened iron plate and carried heavy copper-banded barrels stenciled with the gears of the Iron-Girdle League.

At their center stood a broad-shouldered engineer holding an iron plumb line against the central hinge pillar. He was tapping a black powder charge directly into the primary load-bearing seam.

Vanamo crouched in the shadow of the girder, watching the red glow of a slow match reflect in the master sapper's goggles. The armies above were butchering each other for every yard of stone, unaware that the floor beneath their boots was being measured for the drop.