The sound of flying war-chariots inside an enclosed safe hall was an obscenity of bronze gears. It screamed air-vanes, and the sharp, burning stink of refined kerosene.
Through the massive breach in the ceiling of Entry hall 101. There, the ancient marble dome had collapsed during the Fall of the Outer Epoch, five flying war-chariots of the Pyre-Furnace Court plunged downward into the internal air of the Hall. They were light, hungry craft, their boat-shaped hulls cast from sea-bronze and fitted with swept wings of ribbed copper foil. Twin spirit-coal turbines mounted beneath their outriggers sucked in the damp air and vomited twin trails of black, greasy smoke that right away curled against the pale coffered ceiling.
Each chariot carried three fighters. A pilot bound to the steering levers with leather straps, an archer armed with a heavy repeating giant crossbow firing explosive iron bolts, and an officer holding a signal pennant of crimson silk.
“Clear the row of stone pillars!” the lead officer’s voice echoed through a brass horn, distorted by the rushing wind of their descent. “Target the refugee encampments in Entry hall 102! Fire upon the water-catch basins! Burn their stores!”
The five chariots banked in a tight formation sixty arm-lengths above the flooded flat stone slabs, their bronze hulls gleaming in the gray light filtering through the high window row vents. They leveled their flight, preparing to strafe the long, crowded nave where thousands of mortal families were sheltering.
