The air in Outpost 09 smelled of rancid lard, stale acetylene, and wet limestone rot.
Arthur walked down the center of the muddy thoroughfare, his long canvas duster pulled close around his shoulders to shield his uniform from the filthy drip of the cave ceiling. Every breath was heavy with the greasy residue of diesel exhaust, raw coal-gas, and sulfur fumes from the illicit smelting kilns running along the riverbank. Behind him, Grimm’s heavy pads squelched rhythmically through the black grease-sludge. At three hundred and fifty pounds, with shoulder muscles like iron pistons and black bone armor jutting from his spine bones, the direhound was an undeniable deterrent. Every drunken prospector, scarred dredge hand, and greasy middleman stepped quickly into the shadows of their tarp-draped shacks the moment Grimm’s amber eyes swept across them.
Above them, crouching atop a rusted iron overhead frame that spanned the shantytown alley, Vesper shadowed their advance. The sabertooth moved like a sliver of liquid silver. It leapt from rusted pipe to load-bearing I-beam without making the slightest sound. Whenever an armed mercenary on a watch platform reached toward a heavy slug-rifle, Vesper’s slit-pupils would lock onto the back of their neck from the darkness, streaming a cold, razor-thin killing intent that caused the guard’s hairs to stand on end and his hands to freeze in place.
