The slaver noise-flares were not weapons of fire. They were weapons of sound terror, engineered by the master artisans of the Red Sieve to dominate the underground horrors of the Great Basin.
Three heavy iron canisters, trailing greasy streaks of oily black sulfur-smoke, arced high across the bleached desert sky from the northern ridge. They whistled with a shrieking, air-powered howl as they plummeted downward. It slammed deep into the white chalk-stone salt crust forty yards directly ahead of the fleeing refugee caravan.
Their barbed anchor-prongs buried themselves into the stone-hard hardpan. Then, their internal clockwork percussion hammers tripped with an explosive metal click:
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
High-hum sound shock waves pulsed through the bedrock at three hundred beats a minute. The internal bronze springs struck hardened brass anvils. It sent packed moving shakes deep into the underground water bed. The hum was an exact mimicry of the wild distress cries of a wounded young sand-worm. To human ears, it was an ear-splitting, teeth-grating clockwork racket that made the temples throb with nauseating pain. To the huge Glass dust-Wyrm thrashing in the basin behind them, it was an irresistible sense bright light that overwhelmed every other shaking trace on the white plain.
