(One week ago)

  The silence in the Mid Locus was the first lie. It wasn't an absence of sound, but a suppression of it as if the air itself had learned to hold its breath.

  The ever-present industrial thrum of the Ash-March Residuum was gone. Swallowed. Not by distance, by the warped topology of this place.

  Because the Residuum wasn't far. Not really.

  The island.

  The Ferro-Locus was a concentric ring, three layers carved into living rock and something older than rock. The Outer Verge. The Mid Locus. The Inner Locus. Each one a world unto itself, bleeding into the next.

  And the Residuum?

  It sat in the Outer Verge. Close enough to touch, if the geography here obeyed normal rules. Close enough that its furnaces and factories should have been a constant, grinding presence in the bones.

  But the Mid Locus didn't care about normal.

  Here, sound died. Here, distances folded. Here, a man could walk toward the Residuum for hours and end up further away than where he started.

  The industrial heartbeat of the Outer Verge, the endless churn that never stopped, never slept was simply gone.

  The basin floor tilted at a sickening grade, and the seven concentric ravines created a dizzying effect.

  Tap. Tap.

  Rubin and Aeron had been walking downhill for what felt like kilometres, yet the inward-leaning iron trees made them feel like they were climbing some impossible slope.

  Rubin had heard stories. Scavengers who swore they could see the Residuum's smokestacks from the Mid Locus ridge line.

  He had believed them once upon a time. Now he knew better.

  Bunch of lying motherfu-

  Something moved in the periphery. Both of them froze.

  Without a word, they scrambled behind a massive, slag-like crystalline rock. Pressed themselves against its cold surface. Listened.

  Aeron's teeth wouldn't stop chattering.

  "Keep yourself together... dammit," Rubin whispered almost angrily, the threat of the mid locus keeping his voice in check. "You want every single creature to know our location?"

  I never should have brought this fool...

  He looked quite vexed. And another part terrified.

  His eyes dropped to his arm. A simple band adorned it, unremarkable to anyone else.

  But he looked at it with an intensity that suggested it was more than a simple adornment.

  A flash of red blinked every now and then.

  It felt heavy in a way that had nothing to do with its actual weight. A ticking timer.

  This was their chance. A desperate gamble.

  The Mid-Locus.

  Most called it a death sentence. They weren't wrong, but they weren't right either. The truth was more complicated, more dangerous, more tempting.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Because the Mid Locus wasn't just filled with things that killed you. It was filled with treasures.

  Beasts whose body parts could feed a man for months. Whose worth could climb to dozens, even hundreds of tallies.

  Enough to buy freedom. Well at least for a while.

  His face tightened.

  He wasn't the first fool to think this way. Far from it. The Mid Locus had been swallowing dreamers long before he was born.

  Only one in ten scavengers made it back. One in ten. And those weren't amateurs taking desperate swings, they were experts. The best of the best. People who had spent years learning how not to die.

  Rubin exhaled slowly. He wasn't one of them, If he was he probably would not be in this mess.

  Still, he had something most scavengers didn't. Something that would even the playing field.

  Something that might just keep him alive when everything else went wrong. His hand brushed the dagger strapped to his buckle.

  Still.

  They needed to be cautious.

  "The trees," Aeron breathed, his voice cracking. He pointed a trembling finger at the iron tree, their trunks like locked differentials.

  "Their branches... they're moving when you don't look at them."

  Rubin followed his gaze.

  The branch resembled a large, segmented cable of braided copper.

  That's not a branch.

  His pupils constricted.

  Dodge.

  As if on cue, the viper lunged from the shadow, its jaws snapping shut inches from Rubin's face.

  In the next second, a dagger appeared in his hand. Orange light flickered along its edge, unsteady and hungry, coating the blade like something that wanted to feed. He swung.

  The viper split in two. The wound sizzled where the blade passed through. A burning smell filled the air.

  Aeron's eyes fixed on the blade. Fear flashed across his face first, followed by something uglier.

  Greed. There and gone in an instant before he looked away.

  "Quickly," Rubin said, already moving. A Copperhead Strikebow. An intact head was worth at least twenty tally marks. The skin was worth less, but tally was tally.

  They moved fast. Rubin knelt and went to work, his dagger slicing through the viper's segmented hide.

  It peeled away in long strips, revealing braided copper gleaming beneath the orange light. He sawed through cartilage and pried out the venom sacs, which still pulsed faintly even in death.

  Aeron stuffed everything into his pack with shaking hands. Blood, dark and viscous, coated their fingers.

  "Let's move. We can't stay h—"

  ZAP.

  The sound was small. Insignificant. Like a spark jumping a gap.

  Rubin's head snapped back. His words died in his throat.

  Aeron stared at the hole that had appeared in his partner's neck. Clean. Precise. Steam rising from the edges where something had burned through flesh in an instant. Blood began to pulse out in thick, rhythmic spurts, too fast, too much.

  Rubin's hands came up. Pressed against the wound. Slipped in his own blood. Still a bit disoriented.

  Then the light behind them went out.

  THUD!

  Rubin crumpled.

  Aeron's hands flew to his mouth, crushing against his lips hard enough to hurt. A scream tried to tear out of him but he choked it down, forced it back.

  His eyes stretched wide, burning, fixed on Rubin's body as it hit the ground.

  He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He could only watch.

  From behind a pulsating cluster of violet crystalline fungi, the source of the sound finally emerged. It moved with a jerky, alien grace, its six multi-jointed legs striking the earth with sharp, metallic ticks.

  It was the size of a bear, though nothing about it suggested anything warm or living. Its body was a segmented carapace of tarnished brass

  On its head stood a crystal horn. A seamless fusion of metal and crystal.

  A single point of red light pulsed scanning the duo, well just the latter since the other was dead.

  Then it stopped.

  Time seemed to stretch and warp. The creature’s crystal head tilted.

  Aeron's eyes spotted the dagger lying a few inches away. His gaze flicked to the beast, then back to the blade.

  He reached for it.

  At the same moment, the beast's horns began to glow a bright yellow. The brass plates along its back rippled in response.

  You're right. Earlier you had:

  "Target acquired. Moving to extraction." The Enforcer turned, dragging Dion with him. The others fell into formation, weapons still raised, eyes still scanning.

  ZAP!

  A new blast split the air.

  Aeron's eyes went wide.

  A shadow fell over them, massive, absolute, blocking out what little light bled through the iron trees.

  BAM. BAM.

  The ground shook. Figures emerged from the treeline in perfect formation, grey-enameled armor gleaming dully through the dust. Two of them. Five. More following behind.

  The blast meant for Aeron sparked uselessly against the lead Enforcer's chest plate and dissipated into nothing.

  Strike-Leader Valerius stepped forward, his visor sweeping the clearing with mechanical precision.

  The creature launched itself, turning into a blur of tarnished brass. Its crystal horns flared bright yellow as it closed the distance.

  Valerius didn't flinch. He never did.

  "Contact! Fauna hostile!"

  Valerius stepped into the lunge. His armored forearm smashed upward in a brutal parry, deflecting the crystal horns aside with a shriek of tearing metal. The gathered blast discharged harmlessly into the trees.

  In the same motion, his other hand drew his cleaver. As the creature stumbled past, off-balance, he brought it down.

  CRUNCH.

  The blade sheared through brass and flesh. The red light died. The body collapsed.

  Three seconds. Maybe less.

  The Enforcers hadn't even needed to fire.

  Aeron sobbed with relief, scrambling to his feet. A weary smile found its way onto his face.

  "T-ttthank you!"

  Valerius ignored him. He flicked dark ichor from his cleaver with a practiced snap of his wrist and scanned the tree line, his visor straining against the oppressive quiet.

  Behind him, the Enforcers moved into position without a word. Three knelt, weapons trained on the darkness.

  Three stood at the flanks, covering every angle. They had done this a thousand times.

  "Tight formation," Valerius barked. "More incoming."

  Aeron blinked. "Huh?"

  His weary smile faded. More were coming.