The water in the Mid-Mire was no longer merely tainted with rust. It was a skin-burning, amber-colored broth that dissolved organic vegetation and etched the zinc-coated plating of the transport hulls.
The convoy crawled through the sunken bed of the Old Municipal Siphon Canal, a sixty-foot-wide pre-Cataclysm aqueduct whose concrete retaining walls had long since crumbled into mounds of shattered aggregate and tangled reinforcing bar. Flanking the channel were dense, stone-hard groves of iron-cypress, their leafless, metal branches clawing at the yellow sulfur sky like the rusted ribs of sunken dreadnoughts.
On Arthur Vance’s chest harness, the sky aether gauge clicked steadily. The needle shook in the red side:
75.2 PPM — ZONE 3 SEVERE HAZARD
At seventy-five parts per million, surrounding mana had condensed into visible micro-droplets that clung to gun barrels and eyelashes like grease. Every breath tasted of raw copper and burnt ozone.
“Hold the convoy at forty paces!” Arthur’s voice cut through the tactical earpieces. “Titus, advance three yards and drop foundation. The concrete bed ahead has suffered high-pressure undercut.”
At the front of the column, Titus shifted his massive, columnar legs forward into the murky, knee-deep canal. The great terrapin didn’t walk as a beast of burden walked. He moved with the rock-steady deliberation of a shifting mountain. His black-and-moss back shell, now crusted with dried bitter salt salts from their overnight camp, parted the acidic sludge like the prow of an icebreaker.
