Sound deep ring was the most democratic force in clockwork building.
Captain Kenneth Drake gave the command. Then, the stone terrace erupted in a sharp, coordinated clockwork mix. Along the sixty-yard low roof wall, one hundred and twenty soldiers of Rank Alpha squeezed the brass release levers of their shoulder-fired Wyrmfire launchers.
A timed together series of sharp air-powered clicks echoed through the humid dark.
Within the burning chambers, tightly packed potion-made propellant ignited in clean, blinding orange flashes. A rolling crescendo of shrieking thrust echoed against the dark rock headwall as one hundred and twenty fin-steadied rocket-javelins leaped from their blued-steel tubes.
The backblast flared backward in roaring fans of blazing bright gas, venting harmlessly across the thirty-foot clearance intervals Giles had marked in red chalk.
Giles stood beside his sight transit, holding his leather-cased pocket watch in his left hand. The bronze dial reflected the sudden flare of light that turned the Grand Sunless Deep pit from midnight black into vivid daylight.
“Salvo one away,” Giles muttered, clicking the clockwork timer. “First muzzle speed: two hundred and forty feet per second. Gaining speed profile nominal.”
Down on the approach viaduct, four hundred yards away, the charging horde of young horrors looked up as one multi-legged mass. Their compound eyes gleamed crimson in the sudden glare.
