The snap of twelve heavy steel crossbow bowstrings sounded like dry branches breaking under boots.
Ren Vale dropped flat onto the dark rock ledge. His forehead pressed into the damp dust. His right arm was tucked protectively across his padded ribs. Above his head, a volley of four-ounce iron quarrels ripped through the sulfur mist, the heavy steel points slamming into the overhanging amethyst ceiling with explosive cracks, showering his wool cloak with sharp purple chips.
“Volley by ranks!” Foreman Harek’s voice roared from the bridge pillar forty paces below. “Reload and elevate five degrees! Sweep that ledge until nothing moves!”
Ren raised his chin half an inch.
On the western rock shelf, Harek had assembled ten surviving shock wardens behind a hastily erected breastwork of overturned supply crates. Five wardens were furiously winding the goat’s-foot levers of their heavy repeating heavy steel crossbows, while two engineers brought up a portable steam-storage tank mounted on a two-wheeled iron cart. A three-inch high-pressure hose connected the storage tank to a five-foot air-powered demolition hammer. A terrifying heavy-duty piston designed to punch through granite fault lines.
“Boy,” Artificer Ren hissed from the shadow of a dark rock boulder two yards to Ren’s left. “Don’t lift your head. A steel bolt from those heavy steel crossbows carries two hundred and eighty foot-pounds of striking force. If a quarrel strikes your horn scales, the wool padding will absorb ninety foot-pounds. The leftover one hundred and ninety will pass straight into your chest bone. It…
