The outer transit viaduct of Sector 4 was an eight-hundred-meter bridge of heavy prestressed concrete spanning a two-hundred-foot-deep sulfur gorge.
It was the final physical link connecting the outer heavy-duty trenches to the inner castle walls of Mega-City 07.
The last civilian transport crawler—a massive, eighty-ton armored hauler packed with the final forty wounded refugees, Toby Mallow’s mobile lab. The last crates of medical supplies—was rumbling across the concrete deck, its heavy diesel engines groaning under maximum torque as it neared the northern bridgehead.
Standing on the southern bridgehead, facing the howling ash storm of the badlands, was Arthur Vance.
Arthur stood with his feet planted wide on the concrete spreading joint. His left arm was strapped tightly against his ribs beneath his blood-stained coat. His right hand gripped the ARC-7 Mag-Carbine. Beside him, Grimm stood like a black glass guard, his teeth bared in a nonstop, low-hum growl that shook the bridge cables. On his right flank, Vesper crouched atop a concrete traffic barrier. Her tail twitching in was silent, deadly rhythm.
Emerging from the burning ruins of Outpost 4 were twelve thousand Splicer shock troops.
They were the forward wave of Apostle Malakor’s main host. Shell-Stitched Locusts, Corpse-Hounds, Burrowing Maulers, and mutant Stitch-Stalkers, running in an unbroken, chittering tide of claws and teeth that filled the entire width of the highway.
