They fell into a small undergrowth of bone, barely tallenough for Zaria to stand.Sunlight glimmered through the canopy.Whoever waspulling back the bone was obviously attempting to lead them toward the pyramid,the one Isaac had glimpsed at the center of the osseous forest, but there was agraveyard of metal buried within the white, osseous nest, and the tunnel wasoften compelled to bend and curve around the ancient debris.As they venturedthrough, Isaac caught glimpses of rigid metal hulls, hollow cylinders, thickentrails of copper, remnants of machinery still festooned with spikes and pinsand poles.Once, he saw a hint of red stripes painted on the metal of aglass-windowed room.The flag of the necromancer gods was chipped and fadingaway.
Isaac had read about dry docks in the more prosperouskingdoms of the Diet, places where old and damaged ships would be lifted fromthe sea, or the sand, and laid beached upon the earth.There would be entirefleets lying in piles of wood, iron, and canvas, withering away as the workersbutchered them for parts.The ships here seemed gathered for a similar purpose,if in a strange way.
The questions rose.Why was there ossein growing over themetal?How had it formed into a fungus-like fester?Furthermore, why wouldanyone make ships out of metal?They couldn’t possibly float.The waterdisplacement alone—
The sunlight vanished.There was only shadow.
“Isaac!”
He looked up.
The sky was gone.In its place, a skull was leering down atthem, the empty sockets of its eyes loosing an avalancheof dirt.The face of the colossus was bleached a chalky white, the contourssmoothed with wind and time, the temporal sockets shuddering out sand and chipsof withered bone.Nearly two days ago, Soren had blasted the skull withcannonballs and barrels of black powder, and, now, the teeth within its jawwere cracked like old porcelain, the edges glimmering with the purple light ofsouls.
Isaac felt his stomach drop.
Seeing the colossus move on its own, seeing the twitch andreaction of a creature whose scale was comparable to mountains, filled him withan indescribable awe, even without the vestiges of flesh and meat and scales.It had been a reptile, long ago, when it drew a natural breath.There were twoholes in the side of its skull.Isaac had been right.It was a diapsid.
He did not feel vindicated.
For a long moment, Isaac made eye contact with a creature ofunimaginable size, one that an empire of necromancers had worshipped like agod.
Slowly, the titan shifted its head.Sunlight returned,shining through the hinges of its fleshless jaw.The beast was scanning theground.Isaac realized, with his heart in his throat, that it hadn’t seen themat all.They were shaded beneath a canopy of ossein, and the two of them weresmall enough to be less than ants for such a titanic monster.The odds of thecolossus actually spotting them were slim.For a moment, he felt relieved.
The next moment, a gust of wind slammed into the canopy.Ossein rained like a storm of arrows.The wind had come from above, caused bythe shifting air pressure of the beast turning its head.It created a localizedsquall with every motion of its body.If it did not step carefully, the sweepof its leg would brush away all the metal ships, like the shavings of a saw.Isaac could only imagine the destruction it would sow if it actually wanted tostrike.
Being hidden would not save them.Their only chance was tokill its master.
The moment the skull disappeared from the sky, Zaria beganto run, ducking quickly through the tunnel of bones.Ossein continued to recedein front of her, pulling back like the white foam of a wave.Isaac followedbehind at a stumbling pace, trying to keep pressure on the knife in his chest.
They made their way through the cemetery of ancient ships.Zaria slammed her weight through the curtains of ossein wherever they werethin.When they were thick enough to compose an actual bone, she guided himthrough the remnants of the necromancer ships, taking him through a blurryseries of rooms and compartments and tunnels.Each of the vessels varied wildlyin size, and many were obviously the detached sections of even larger vessels,ones that had been cleaved away and butchered into pieces.He passed by deadinstrumentation, narrow hallways, crew decks that were still dotted with bunks.Most of the ships were lying buried beneath the festering colony of bone.
He couldn’t imagine all that had been lost.
Eventually, the receding ossein led them towards aparticularly large hull, standing like a bulwark against the concrete and bone.The entrance was overflowing with ossein, but the fibers on a nearby wall werealready peeling away, and they managed to squeeze through a disassembled gap.Inside, they found something close to a command deck.There was a row ofdevices along a wall, followed by a collection of metal stations in the centerof the room.Isaac wasn’t sure how a captain could command a ship from insidethe deck, but he was quickly losing all mood to speculate.
Outside, the titan was still searching.Despite the constantcover of bone and metal, Isaac was always keenly aware of where the beast waslooking, which he based solely on the massive shadows cast upon the earth, aswell as the gusts of wind that erupted with every one of its motions.At themoment, the quakes in the ground were telling him that the beast had moved itssearch far to the right.The colossus was shifting its weight.He could imagineit bending down, beginning to search closely.
“You alright, love?”
Isaac collapsed into one of the metal command chairs.He wasfinding it more and more difficult to breathe, and it wasn’t solely from theknife jutting above his lung.He had cast many spells today, most of them inthe last few hours alone.The fatigue was beginning to mount.
Zaria threw the cutlass to the floor, pulling out the lastof their blankets and wrapping a section of fabric around the blade.With agrunt, she drew her flint and began to strike them together, creating rapidbursts of sparks.
“What’re you doing?”Isaac asked.
“Cauterizin’.”
The sparks caught.The flames grew tall on the sword.Shecame over, kneeled in front of him, and gripped the hilt of the knife in hischest.The slight touch made him gasp.
“Gotta come out,” she said.“You’re bleedin’ too much.It’snow or never.”
The ground shook beneath them.He had no time to argue.
She began to pull.If the pain did not strike the breathfrom his lungs, he would have screamed.When it was out, she retrieved theirrations, wiped a thick crust of salt off the meat, and stuffed it in the wound.This time, he managed to scream.After the brief disinfection, she wiped thesalt away, grabbed the sword, unwrapped the burning fabric, took him by theshoulder, gave an apologetic look, and pressed the searing hot cutlass to hisskin.
He must have fainted, at some point.
The next thing he knew, he was on the floor, and Zaria wasgroaning as she pulled the knife out of her eye.It came in two ragged jerks.She flung it off into a cluster of ossein, pressing a trembling hand to herface.The noise she made was barely above a sob.Around them, a shockwaveripped through the room, dislodging a flurry of metal sheets.It almost feltlike the capsule might lift from the floor.
