Cold-Flame Engine

The iron bars of the fourth portcullis vibrated with the screech of the grand catapult's bronze winch. Yasir stood in front of the gate with his trench shovel raised, his stained linen tunic drenched in cold sweat, his breath wheezing. Behind him, a row of three large water barrels stood stamped with the seal of the Fourth Cistern.

I wanted three things before the sun dipped behind the ridge: dump twenty freezing titan quills into Kaddour's machine, protect the five fistfuls of stolen celestial down tucked inside my jerkin to finish my escape wings, and take my stamped discharge token so I could leave this dying ditch behind. Standing in a narrow corridor with forty pounds of volatile god-parts while the garrison quartermaster threatened to brain me with garden tools was testing my patience.

"Step aside, Yasir," Kaddour's voice cut through the iron grating before I could wedge my cleaver into the latch.

The warlord emerged from the shadow of the catapult turntable, his bronze greaves spattered with dried ox blood. Four guards flanked him in heavy wool cloaks. Kaddour did not look at the quartermaster's shovel; his gaze drilled straight into the canvas harness strapped across my shoulders, where twenty silver-veined titan quills caught the dusk light.

"He brings the fire," Kaddour said, his hand resting on the hilt of his broad cleaving sword. "Open the grid."

"Commander, look at the water," Yasir yelled back, pointing the flat of his shovel toward the row of open water barrels behind him. "The scum on top turned violet an hour ago. The granary beast down in the vaults is leaking bile into the bedrock veins. If we fire celestial marrow over these ramparts, the backblast will coat the cistern flues. We will choke on our own guts before the week turns."

"If we do not fire it now," Kaddour said, stepping to the grate, "the steppe rams will shatter the lower timbers in twenty minutes. Open it, or I order the archers to pin you to the flags."

Yasir swallowed hard. The shovel blade dipped two inches, then struck the flagstones with a dull clatter. He fumbled with the bronze master key at his belt, rammed it into the portcullis tumbler, and threw the gate inward.

"If Kaddour doesn't crack their line before sundown, nobody here needs to worry about sprouting beaks," I muttered as I squeezed past his shoulder. "The steppe clans will roast you on your own spit."

"At least a spit kills a man before his intestines turn to maggots," Yasir muttered back, his knuckles raw against the gate bars. "You crag-rats think anything with feathers can be turned into coin or soup."

I hauled my frame through the gap, my left wrist throbbing where the caustic rain had blistered the skin raw under my leather wrap. The twenty titan flight plumes scraped against the iron frame, releasing a faint puff of ozone and powdered frost. In the inner pocket of my jerkin, five fistfuls of weightless down pressed against my ribs—the final harvest I needed to complete my escape harness, safely hidden beneath my grease-stained leather.

"Where is the grease?" Kaddour demanded, marching toward the catapult's launch cradle.

"Two iron flasks of cold-marrow," I said, unhooking the heavy flasks from my belt alongside the brass winch-pin I took from the sentry. "Plus twenty flight quills. But your arm-cradle is warped from the siege fires. If you lash the feathers flat against the cup, the friction will spark the cold-flame before the counterweight drops. It will vaporize the battery and everyone on this platform."

Kaddour stopped, his scarred brow furrowing. "You know the mechanics of the arm?"

"I know how celestial plumage catches," I replied, stepping up to the massive timber arm of the catapult. "The quills carry a spark. They need spacing."

I climbed the framework with the familiar ease of a crag-trapper, hooking my boots into the cross-braces. Working swiftly with my butchering cleaver, I shaved four notches into the pine launch bucket. I slotted the twenty titan plumes in an alternating spiral, fanning their silver barbs outward so the wind would force them open mid-flight. Then I unstoppered both flasks of celestial fat, pouring the viscous, pale blue grease across the quill bases while anchoring the trip-lever with the scavenged brass winch-pin.

A biting frost instantly crept over the timber cradle. My breath plumed white in the evening chill, frost crystals blooming along the iron bands of the catapult arm.

Below the mountain ramparts, the roar of the steppe host swelled into a deafening thunder. Three heavy siege towers, clad in raw horse hides and iron sheets, creaked up the rocky slope toward the outer curtain wall. Behind them, two thousand horse-archers formed dense wedges, their bronze whistling arrows arching high into the fortress parapets.

"The winch is locked!" the battery sergeant yelled, blood dripping from his left ear where the titan's psychic wail had torn his eardrum. "Counterweight loaded with four tons of river granite!"

Kaddour drew his broad sword and climbed the spotter's plinth. "Release the ratchet!"

Six conscripts threw their weight against the iron release bar. The massive timber arm whipped upward with a crack that shook the masonry under my boots.

The twenty titan quills ignited in mid-arc.

A searing cascade of ghostly white fire erupted across the sky, shedding no heat but cracking the evening air with the roar of shattering glass. The bundle struck the lead siege tower dead center.

There was no conventional blast of flame. The celestial fire spread like living frost, crawling across timber, raw hides, and armor in a flash of blinding silver. The four-story siege tower froze solid within three heartbeats; then, under the sudden freezing shock, the entire wooden structure imploded into millions of glittering ice-splinters.

The frost-wave rolled through the advancing steppe columns. Horses and riders turned to chalk-white statues, their armor shattering into brittle shards as the freezing shockwave flattened the enemy vanguard. The remaining assault ranks broke in wild panic, horses rearing and trampling their own infantry to escape the unnatural cold creeping across the valley floor.

On the high rampart, the garrison soldiers let out a ragged, disbelieving cheer.

"The line is broken," Kaddour breathed, lowering his sword. He reached into his belt pouch and tossed a heavy, stamped bronze token that struck my leather harness with a dull clatter. "You earned your skinning pay and full passage through the lower redoubts. Take your bounty chit and get off my battery before the steppe horns sound again."

I caught the cold bronze in my palm, closing my fist around the warlord's seal. With the discharge chit secured and the five fistfuls of stolen titan down pressed safe against my ribs, I possessed the final handfuls of down, enough to weave my flight wings and lift off the Jebel-Assani cliffs forever.

Yet I offered no reply to the warlord. I was staring at the air churning directly above our heads.

The catapult's backblast had not dissipated into the sky. Instead, the roaring backdraft pulled a dense cloud of pale, phosphorescent residue back over the rampart platform. It fell like greasy snow, coating the timber turntable, the battlements, and the open stones.

A wet, sickening patter echoed across the platform.

I walked to the row of stamped water barrels, where Yasir was already kneeling in frozen silence.

The pale residue floating on the water was not ash.

Thousands of translucent, finger-length larvae wriggled across the surface of the drinking water inside the open barrels. They pulsed with cold, milky luminescence, their segmented bodies burrowing down through the wood staves toward the flues feeding the fortress's primary cistern. As they sank, the water began to churn with a quiet, frantic hiss.

Yasir slowly looked up at me, his eyes hollow and bloodshot. "We broke their towers," he whispered.

Beside him, the fortress's drinking supply darkened into a writhing nest of divine rot.