The fire was built inside an iron half-drum set upon three heat-proof hearthstones in the center of the Iron Ark’s defensive laager.
Dry timber was a luxury in the Great Rust-Mire. Because of that, the fuel was tightly packed peat-bricks soaked in refined vegetable oil. It burned with a low, smokeless flame that cast a warm, bronze glow across the underside of the parked transports. The wind blowing off the acid fens was bitter, dropping the surrounding heat to near freezing. But within the circle of the wagons, the air was warm and smelled of roasted root vegetables, dried sage, and searing meat.
Arthur Vance sat on an overturned ammunition crate. A heavy cast-iron skillet was resting on the grate above the embers. With a pair of long carbon-steel cooking tongs, he turned four thick fillets of salt-cured aether-beef.
The meat sizzled with a rich, caramelized hiss, releasing fat into the pan that popped and crackled.
Right away to Arthur’s right, sitting so close that his dark flank pinned Arthur’s thigh against the ammunition crate, was Grimm.
The massive hound’s head was level with Arthur’s shoulder. His soot-black lips were parted, an unblinking, hypnotic stare fixed upon the skillet. From the left corner of Grimm’s heavy black jowls, a single, glistening bead of spit formed, stretched downward for two inches. Then he fell with a soft plop onto the steel deck between his front paws.
