The preparations took hours. It was a difficult task, with the Eidolon and his companions constantly moving — creeping through the crypts, avoiding the flow of the sickness. They descended to the lowest throat that fed the Gates. Inside, the pneumonic stench was overwhelming, and it washed over the Eidolon, wringing and twisting his insides, nauseating.


    The Eidolon spat the taste of death to the floor. It was vaguely sweet and cloying, and he couldn’t rinse it out. Inside the throat, they were forced to traverse through a narrow, twisting tunnel. It was impossible to walk upright, so they had to keep low and crawl like their original forms, all through the filth. The walls were slick. Once, the roof was smooth but now fractured, full of cracks which oozed moisture.


    After carefully stalking metre after metre inside, Marchemm signalled they stop. Taneberr and Llewtoll kept a careful eye out in each direction, scanning in the infrared haze. The rest worked, rigging concussive charges to the metallic ribs that held the passage open. The Eidolon worked alongside them in the cramped tunnel, their equipment challenging to make space for. When the charges were set, they were all forced to climb around the tight space to turn and traverse the passage back into the Gates.


    This passage was the last of seven, carefully chosen and warily set for detonation. Soon, together, the Axiamati crossed into an open space amidst the lower rises of the abandoned reach. The agora was filled with bones, the air thick with sickly perfume emitted by the abandoned fest halls, and a fetid, mouldy miasma. A rare silence filled this part of the city. Nothing carried upon the heavy air but the crunch of their hurried steps and the heaving of their breaths.


    Finally, the Eidolon gave the word, and they tossed down the arrested net weaver to collapse amidst the dead.


    “Release me,” the freak hissed, four hands bound. “I have done nothing to you.”


    “Breaking of the flesh of the dead,” the Eidolon said, standing over it, scowling. “The laws of grace and of our Lord steward demand punishment.”


    The Eidolon held his hand to the side. Menmarch was the first to react, drawing his large star metal blade and pressing the radiant green handle into the Eidolon’s hand.


    “Fortunately for you, I am merciful,” the Eidolon continued, hefting the blade but not raising it. “You will do nothing more than serve the security of this realm. After that, you shall be free once more.”


    Then, one of the freak’s own nets was heaved over it. Taneberr’s grip, too heavy to resist, forced it down, and he used bone stakes to secure the net against the ground. The freak howled and cursed, demanding freedom, ignored as the warriors checked their equipment. They readied gleaming armour and helmets, except the Eidolon, who was content with his beaten cloak and the borrowed sword.


    Llewtoll checked and rechecked the wireless connection to the explosives. As he did so, the freak shrieked, “I was doing nothing more than harvesting what I needed to survive.”


    “There is never need to profane the flesh of innocents, heretic,” Taneberr growled. “I should break you in kind.”


    Sir Enhash put a seven-fingered hand on the brute’s shoulder, uttering, “Our role today is to fight, not to judge.”


    “You know nothing!” The freak hissed, froth slopping around its mouth. Then it twisted against the stakes, its four hands lashing out.


    Taneberr growled. He pulled back, standing and nodding to the knight superior at his side in a reluctant display of acceptance.


    “Time,” Llewtoll said, and the Eidolon nodded.


    As one, they withdrew, moving swiftly to separate buildings surrounding the open city square. The others scurried to hide, scrambling to the relative safety of the steps. The Eidolon, however, took narrow staircases and small crawlways higher and higher until he emerged upon the sloped and sharp roof of a trembling building overlooking the agora. There, he crouched upon its edge, waiting, cloak pulled tight around his body.


    Below, amongst the stilted base growths, the Eidolon could see Llewtoll and Taneberr keeping low, their weapons in hand. Like him, they waited in stony silence — one disciplined and the other brute following the hunter’s lead. All of them ignored the shouting protests of the net-weaver until he, too, surrendered to the hush. The quiet had almost lulled the Eidolon into a false sense of security, squatting on the high, blade in hand. His yellow eyes glimmered in the biolights.


    When the explosions came, there was no flash. The thumps kicked condensation out of the air, spilling mists in all directions, choking the alleyways. Boulders of silicon flesh fell around ribs of metal alloy, and thick resin-chitin shells cracked down, sealing the lower throats around the cavity. The entire, vast chamber heaved and shook as this small portion of mighty Acetyn’s continent body wheezed.


    The boom shook the structures that made up the agora, and many of the older, fragile alcoves collapsed on impact. Grimly, the Eidolon waited patiently and listened for the effects of the blast. Below him, he saw Llewtoll and Taneberr shrugging off the earthen ash that had fallen upon them, tumbling from the structures around them, brushing hastily at their visors. The Eidolon remained crouched on his spiked perch and watched as the fluid slowly began to build up in the undercroft, completely drowning the lowest reaches of the Gates.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    Nothing. No sounds, no cries, no people. When the vast wheezing settled down, what remained was a comatose place full of halls and towers that stretched out, leading to never-ending labyrinths. Yet, now, the caverns and structures were silent as if they themselves waited for the moment to come, a choreographed presentation of reflected light and shadow playing off the walls and the faces that they wore.


    The Eidolon turned his head, tracking distant motion with his yellow, slitted eyes. Movement leapt and flashed through the streets below with augmented velocity, smashing through the walkways, crashing against the columns and shafts, and covering them with shadows as they broke biolights. Following its pace behind cover was challenging as it fled the rising tide, well camouflaged in dark silicon flesh. The Eidolon blinked to infrared. Their prey was too well hidden but for the brightness of its throat and belly, exposed as it leapt: a tell-tale sign of the aug-mad, blood that burned so hot that it risked boiling.


    The quickest and easiest way to higher ground was through this agora, and, as predicted, it was the route that the hound took. Clawed hands lacerated the walls and ceilings as it crawled over them. Its every motion was havoc and death.


    When the hound finally emerged at the edge of the square, the lips of its long, lobed head cracked apart and salivated at the smell of a trapped freak. Hounds were always at their most voracious when in danger.


    Slithering down, the dark beast lowered itself to the ground upon six taut, biomechanical limbs. Its bladed tail lashed as it stalked towards the bound net weaver, who began to scream and thrash against its bindings again, realising what was happening and holding its monstrous attention in the process. Eyeless, the hound moved closer, with excited, loping steps, tasting the air with its siphons and the tip of a bright red tongue.


    Watching, the Eidolon held his breath. Bounding and whip-fast, the hound was nearly upon the struggling freak, the desiccated bones that littered the square crushed beneath its claws. The flutes upon its back gulped down, heaving breaths as its lips peeled back around its long skull and exposed metallic teeth, far too large for its jaws, taking up the entire forefront of its wicked head. Curved slabs of chitin armour rippled upon its throat and shoulders as it dribbled saliva onto the freak, preparing for an easy meal.


    The first flash of gunfire broke the mist. The Axiamati’s salvo tore through the city’s silence as one. However, the bright fire of their lances pricked the ablative bioceramics of the hound’s hide as if they were nothing more than thorns. Some hit their target, rending gaping holes through the weakest points of its armour. The hound’s mutagens filled the injuries with quicksilver, staunching and repairing the gashes and holes, its bones and cartilage knitting clean instantly. The hound hissed, reluctantly forced off its meal.


    They had the monster’s attention, and it was not impressed.


    The Eidolon’s muscles tensed as the hound’s sibilant cry boomed across the agora. Even the buildings flinched. Many of the etched-out areas perched upon the sinewy columns and walkways began to shiver and tremble.


    As if challenged, Taneberr leapt from his hidden place. Breaking from his hiding spot, the hulk of a warrior charged. Heedless of the ineffective weapons fire of his allies, he rushed forward, meeting the hound’s turning maw with a tremendous smack from his armoured gauntlet. The impact of Taneberr’s fist was palpable, kinetics thumping up through both the ground and the building under the Eidolon’s bare feet.


    The hulking warrior followed through with a right hook into the beast’s plated neck, compressing the armour around its throat. Then, a wicked flourish of Taneberr’s sabre caught across the beast’s belly and head, glancing off its terrible hide.


    Driven back, the hound hissed and lashed out two massive claws. The vicious blades clamped down around Taneberr’s torso, grinding against star metal, with the keening shriek of blades sticking against steel. Taneberr was forced down to his knee with a furious cry, then onto his back, as the beast wrestled him down. Towering over him, the hound snarled, chrome teeth gleaming in the biolight.


    As they met, the firing had stopped. Marchemm and Menmarch, trying not to catch their reckless ally in the crossfire, repositioned out in the open. They levelled their lances to fire upon the beast’s back, cracking sharp fire into it.


    Picking up Taneberr and slamming him back down, crushing the skulls and the discarded bones beneath him, the hound turned towards its new assailants and roared. Its head and neck bulged hideously, and then it disgorged its profane tongue. Bursting forward with pneumatic force, the venomous extension bifurcated, forking and splitting again and again. It swept forward and filled the square like dragon fire. Countless metres of impossible flesh overtook Marchemm and Menmarch, enveloping and sticking to them with microscopic barbs, oozing with neurotoxins and artificial nano-weapons.


    The Eidolon jumped from rooftop to rooftop, tracking his way around the square in a sprint. The loose tiles, scales, and dry shells of the structures rattled under his bare feet.


    One final leap, and the Eidolon was airborne. The city held its breath.


    Impact.


    The Eidolon’s knees and bare feet landed upon the head of the hound, arresting his fall with a heavy crash. The momentum carried him forward into a roll.


    Swinging the star sword, the Eidolon carved off the hound’s wicked tongue before touching the ground. The beast could do nothing but scream its surprise as the Axiamati’s champion landed. Then, thrusting forward his grip, the Eidolon deftly turned and plunged the gleaming star metal blade into the monster. He found the only spot on the beast not invincible to their weapons — the terrible space between its chrome teeth.


    A visceral separation of bone, connective tissue, and soft flesh. The Eidolon stood with his arm plunged into the monster’s head all the way up to the elbow. With a wet slough, he twisted the radiant green hilt and pulled the weapon out again, completely destroying the hound’s biological and electronic neural tissues with a flick of his wrist.