The Crawling City’s forward cavity was a hard, calcium-shelled thing. Between spinal columns and barnacle vaults, byways and courts were inhabited by living, sapient monsters. Only the light of bioluminescence and the yellow, sodium glow of electric lamps revealed the deepest recesses, a tomb of civilisation buried deep within a titan.

In further, darker depths, eyes of all types failed. Freaks coveted ciliated and hairy skins, exploring by touch and scent. The most domineering grew, or stole, tongues and scales that tasted the infrared.

The city’s heartbeat was slow despite the struggle for survival, eternal in its bowels. With every thousand pumps, there was an unmistakable resonance. The bell tolled from its heart as predictably as the sun rose over the outer horizon and metal fell from the stars, scorching the earth.

The hunter looked out over the rippled, cement street. Stilted thralls took lopping steps over the uneven ground, heading heartward by the dozen. They shrieked to clear the way, a decree of His Eminence, Lord of Bone.

Nence sprayed chemical words, dragging Ay from his lost thoughts. He grumbled, and once more, their hands met, sharing silent communication.

“A fresh start for one newborn?” Nence asked.

Ay patted his confirmation, reaching into his satchel and putting down a tumour for his companion. Then, linking hands again, Ay explained.

“I need something to ride, supplies, anything that can take me to Sestchek.”

Nence took the biomass and weighed it in hand. They both looked around the near-empty watering hole. No one else who squatted in the darkness met their eyes.

“Help me,” Ay croaked with actual words. “One more time.”

The scintillating feathers on the back of Nence’s neck and arms stood on end. He clutched the tumour to his chest and spat back an affirmative scent.

Distracted, Ay turned his beak to the outside again. Freaks of all shapes and sizes dragged themselves past, in the wake of the fallen Lord’s thralls, a slave army on their way to the tumour mines. Outside, across the roadway, one of the cartilaginous pipes opened. It wretched from its place on the side of a building and vomited up a whorl of bile and phlegm. Then out fell a freak, shed into the streets. Alive only moments, passing thralls bound it in manacles. They shrieked for their enslaved hands, who began beating and dragging the monster, conscripting it on the spot.

A pale stepped past — bipedal, humanoid in shape, but wearing sweeping white garments and clad in shining star metal armour. Its uniform hid every inch of the beast beneath, concealing its lack of humanity. Such callousness was revealed only as it stared with approval at the tormented soul being forced into servitude.

Axiamati in Enelastioa — the herald was far from alone down here.

Nence reached out, cooing softly from his throat to steal Ay’s attention once again. Nence didn’t have words, at least not words from a voice.

“Don’t lose yourself for this,” Nence said with his hands. “I don’t trust the shapers and the sculptors. They only mutilate.”

Ay retook Nence’s hand but used his voice, even though it still stung.

“I know. But I can get us out of here.”

His eyes turned down between his beaks before he continued.

“I can make everything better.”

Nence creased his oily, feathered brows and leaned in closer. He was concerned, putting a hand to the side of Ay’s beak, trying to give the hunter at least a moment of comfort.

“You don’t have to do anything else,” he said. “You already do so much.”

“The Voice offered me a wage.”

“That means freedom?” Nence asked, unsure.

“Yes. I almost said yes,” Ay said, shoulders slumping.

“Some people give their lives to serve the Lord,” Nence offered with slow, reassuring hand movements. “Real money could take us a long way. So let us live up there—”

The hunter shook his head and brought his side of the conversation back to silence, their hands together.

“No. I won’t do it. It’s like giving up. We can work for what we want. Everyone needs biomass.”

“Alright. One last time, for you,” Nence said, touching the hunter’s shoulder. “A fresh start for one newborn. I will find you these things. What must you do now?”

“The herald called me to the Enelasian court.”

“The Vat-Mother’s home?” The taste of fear crept into the air as Nence asked, “Why?”

“I have to be assessed, or so he said.”

“The xenos and the pale are together in this, then,” Nence hesitated. “I don’t like this.”

“No.” Ay shook his head from his shoulders and shrank in the dark. “Neither do I.”