The tracked mid-air of the Caelum-4 armored carrier slammed into an underwater trench stone retaining wall, throwing a spray of black, sulfur-laden sludge across the forward viewing slit. Inside the steel belly of the transport, the smell was an all-too-familiar compound of diesel exhaust, dried coagulant, wet hound fur, and the sharp, copper-penny tang of raw Zone 2 sky aether.
Arthur Vance tightened the strap of his combat medical harness across his chest bone. Beneath his left gauntlet, the air-powered needle’s six-chamber brass metal tube rested against his wrist blood vessel, primed with packed willow-bark analgesic and hyper-saline clotting broth. His right hand remained settled on the warm, coarse nape of Grimm’s neck.
The Ashen Bone-Fang hound didn’t flinch at the violent jolt. Grimm leaned his full sixty pounds of muscle and black glass-heavy bone against Arthur’s left shin, a dead-weight press of total trust that anchored Arthur to the shuddering floor plates. Along Grimm’s spine, the dark, carbon-veined osteoderms lay flush beneath his coarse black coat, cool to the touch until surrounding mana stirred them. One of Grimm’s ears was notched and torn from his puppyhood in the academy cull pens. But the leftover three-sided ear twitched toward the roof plates. He tracked the rhythmic thud of distant artillery.
