The ascent was a silent, upright flight through fire and steam.
Apostate Ren stood at the prow of the five-ton dark rock boulder, his floor-length indigo star-robe trailing in the rushing wind. Using his blackened fingers, the Astrologer had scribed a ring of logarithmic void-equations across the stone’s upper face, linking the boulder’s mass to the rotation of his shattered star compass.
With every click of the brass dial, the five-ton rock sped up upward. It rose through the violet mist like a black cannonball fired in slow motion.
Standing behind him was Ren Prime, his oak staff planted firmly against the rough stone. Beside Ren Prime stood Lord Ren, his iron broadsword drawn and resting across his left gauntlet. Unit Ren, whose single working iron arm was locked into a heavy steel boarding crowbar.
Fifty feet below them, two extra boulders carrying Vane’s salvaged iron plates followed in tight formation, acting as moving shields to deflect the falling debris from the drills above.
The wind screaming around the five-ton dark rock boulder tasted of sulfur and white-hot copper.
As the stone climbed through the one-hundred-foot mark, the dreadnought’s ventral gun sponsons opened fire. These were not the massive siege giant crossbows of the upper deck. They were rapid-firing air-powered swivel guns that sprayed clouds of thumb-sized lead grapeshot designed to repel boarding grapnels.
