The silence in the mountain pass was shattered by the screech of grinding brass gears high above the roadway.
From the stern of the Heavenly Mandate, a thick plume of black, greasy smoke erupted from the backup exhaust chimney. The backup fire—a massive iron sphere suspended between the stern keels—had ignited with a violent, rhythmic thrumming that shook through the roadbed. Deep within the lower machinery deck, thirty backup stokers shoveled sulfur-grade fire crystals into the roaring crucible, desperate to generate manual steam.
Marquis Zhao twisted wildly in his chains, his face contorting into a ferocious snarl.
“Do you think an Imperial Navy flagship dies quietly in the mud?” Zhao roared, his voice booming across the meadow. “Third Division, manual override! Fire the stern backup! Swing the bronze prow sixty degrees south! If we’re brought down, we take the town granaries with us!”
High on the flagship’s quarterdeck, the surviving deck officers rushed to the backup brass levers, bypassing the seized central helm.
The massive warship began to pivot. Its three-hundred-foot hull groaned in agony as the backup fire forced raw, raw spirit oil into the starboard thrusters. The bronze dragon prow—a twenty-ton solid casting tipped with star-iron spikes—began swinging through a wide, destructive arc, aimed directly toward the stone granaries of the lower valley. The massive cedar timbers creaked under terrifying twisting strain as the unbalanced torque twisted the ship’s lengthwise axis.
