The silence in the Basalt Deep gap was thick, choking, and heavy with the scent of burnt glycol, ozone, and scorched cordite.
From the high northern cliffs of the Red Mesa, the barrels of the two captured Type-58 howitzers remained leveled directly over the three black command carriers. Behind the sandbag low roof walls, fifty nomad hunters stood with iron-spanned crossbows cocked, their arrows aimed down into the gorge.
In the command small roof-dome of the lead carrier, Keith Mercer’s hands were trembling wildly against the hatch rim.
His manicured high-born face was twisted into an ugly mask of frantic, disbelieving fury. His high-collared officer’s uniform, trimmed in silver thread and gold braid, was stained with dark soot from his destroyed gun-trucks.
“Surrender?” Mercer shrieked, his voice cracking into a high, shrill register that was amplified by the vehicle’s loudspeaker. “To a disgraced ex-convict? To an illegitimate bastard expelled from House Vance? To gutter trash who sleeps in the dirt with mongrel beasts?”
With a savage snarl, Mercer hauled himself out of the small roof-dome.
He was clad in a Promethean Mk-VII officer’s combat exoskeleton. A sleek, form-fitting harness of blackened silver-steel struts and high-torque high-pressure pistons that augmented his physical strength by five hundred percent:
