The settlement smelled of wet rust and desperate industry.

  It was a sprawl of corrugated iron and scavenged timber huddled against the muddy bank of the river. Chimneys belched thick, yellow smoke that tasted of sulfur, stinging the eyes.

  The Crusher’s heavy footfalls ceased at the perimeter. Ezy cut the engine, and the machine settled into a crouching idle, heat shimmering off its patched manifold.

  The gates—a mismatched pair of reinforced warehouse doors—creaked open.

  A dozen Ratlings stood in the mud, armed with mining picks and oversized flintlock pistols, meant for Wolfkin hands. They were gaunt, their fur matted with coal dust, their oversized ears twitching nervously.

  Vavnaar stepped forward.

  His shadow stretched over them. He wore the confidence of a predator entering a pen. He rested a hand on the pommel of Silver Flash, expecting the usual submission.

  The Ratlings flinched, backing away, but they didn’t bow. Their eyes darted past him, locking onto the Red Metal machine and the seven-foot-tall figure in black chitin armor standing beside it.

  “You’re a bandit!” One yelped, voice trembling.

  “We sent for Tribane!” Warned another.

  Vavnaar growled; they all flinched, and two fell on their backs.

  "We need supplies," Vavnaar bared his teeth. "Powder. Timber. Steel."

  An elder Ratling, leaning on a brass-shod staff, stepped forward. He didn't look at the Wolf Kin. He looked at Mara.

  "Tribane’s tithe was paid three days ago," the elder squeaked, his nose twitching. " The warehouses are empty. We have nothing for exiles."

  Vavnaar snarled. Stepping forward, he grabbed the elder by his tunic. "I didn't ask if—"

  Mara’s hand clamped onto Vavnaar’s vambrace. Her grip was iron.

  "Stop," she said quietly.

  She stepped past the Wolf Kin. She reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a heavy object wrapped in a rag.

  She unwrapped it and held it in front of the Ratling Grey-Fur.

  The midday sun caught the raw emerald. It was the size of an apple, jagged and unpolished. Green fire seemed to swirl within its depths, humming with the faint, residual energy of a god.

  The elder’s eyes bulged. A collective gasp rippled through the Ratling guard. The fear in the air evaporated, replaced instantly by a silent, hypnotic avarice.

  "We aren't here for charity. We’re not here to threaten. Please, recall your scouts. We're here to buy."

  The elder reached out a trembling paw, hovering over the stone. "This... this is salvation," he breathed, his whiskers twitching in a frantic rhythm.

  Mara leaned in, her height casting a shadow that made the elder look even more fragile. "We need heavy timber—a lot of it. We need cannons—siege grade. And we need enough black powder to level a mountain. I will help with the Alchemy."

  Ezy stepped forward, her metal leg clanking on the mud. "And I’ll help with your metalcasting. We need fast, but not sloppy; we can’t risk misfires."

  Mara handed the gem to the elder. "We’ll bring our ride into town—it’s a giant skeleton. You’ll need to warn your people." She reached into her satchel and offered a ceramic bowl. “This is a bonus for… discretion.”

  The elder peeked inside. Ichor. Fresh and glowing. He clutched the gem and the bowl to his chest like they were his own pups. He turned to his guards, barking orders in a rapid-fire dialect of squeaks and high-pitched chitters that sounded like dry gears spinning too fast.

  The guards dropped their weapons and scrambled toward the warehouses. One of them tripped in his excitement and was instantly swallowed by Vavnaar’s massive shadow.

  "Run," Vavnaar growled. The Ratling scrambled on all fours, vanishing into a doorway.

  Vavnaar turned his yellow eyes to Mara, a low rumble vibrating in his chest. "Gold buys the goods, Fox Kin," he said, baring his teeth. "But fear makes them work faster. Do not grab my arm again unless you intend to lose it."

  He stepped past her, reclaiming the lead. As they followed him into the village, the sensory assault of the settlement hit them. The air was a thick, humid mix of charred grain, wet coal, and the hiss of steam venting from pipes. Every alleyway echoed with the skittering of padded feet and the frantic, rhythmic squeaking of the Ratling dialect—a thousand voices arguing over quotas and fuel.

  "The bandit’s wrong," the elder said, bowing his head to Mara but keeping a terrified eye on the Wolf Kin’s back. "We’ve never been paid for our work. This is… motivating."

  The alchemy district was a nightmare.

  Mara followed the elder through a maze of hissing pipes and bubbling vats. There were no delicate glass beakers here. This was barrel alchemy—chemistry practiced with a shovel.

  Giant copper cauldrons sat over open coal fires, boiling thick, tar-like substances. Ratlings in leather aprons stirred the mixtures with long wooden paddles, their goggles reflecting the erratic flames.

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  "Sap mixed with charcoal and sulfur," Mara muttered, walking beside Trenn. "Every ingredient is common, and the production method is crude."

  "And the product. It’ll explode?" Trenn asked.

  "Violently," Mara grinned.

  They reached the armory. It was an open-air shed filled with Husk-killing weapons.

  Ezy walked down a row of cannons. Most were jagged cast-iron tubes bound with rusted hoops. She stopped in front of a squat, ugly weapon with a bore wide enough to fit her head.

  "Husk-Busters," the elder said proudly, patting the cold iron. "Short range. High impact. We load them with harpoons that explode into shrapnel."

  He gestured to a crate of large spear-like missiles. The tips were hollow, capped with distinct red wax.

  "Explosive heads? How? A timed fuse?" Trenn asked, hefting the missile. It was heavy.

  "No fuse," the elder corrected, tapping the red wax tip with a claw. "Percussion cap."

  He mimed a violent collision with his paws. "It pierces, then blasts. Cracks the shell from the inside out."

  He pointed to the jagged iron shaft. "And if the god heals over it? Good. It seals the shrapnel and the Black Powder residue inside. Every time it moves, it shreds itself apart again. Messy wound."

  Trenn looked at the cannon, then at the harpoon. He turned to Mara.

  "We take four. And all the ammo."

  Trenn sat on the highest vertebrae of the Gem-Croc’s skull, twenty feet above the ground.

  The skeleton was parked in a clearing of trampled grass, now swarming with a frantic, ant-like industry. It looked less like a bleached shipwreck and more like a vessel under construction.

  Pulleys were lashed to the god's towering, inverted ribs, and the clearing hummed with the coordinated effort of the village.

  It took teams of Ratlings, harnessed together like sled-dogs, to haul a single massive timber beam up the skeletal flank. They moved with a rhythmic, chattering grunt, their small bodies strained to the limit as the heavy wood ascended toward the spinal ridge.

  Dozens more scurried along the vertebrae, hammering iron spikes into the bone with a frantic, metallic staccato that echoed through the forest.

  Amidst this monumental labor, the Wolf Kin pups—Yetran, Arenlys, and the quiet tan one—were treating the ribcage like a macabre jungle gym.

  They were a blur of fur and laughter, leaping over the teams of hauling Ratlings and swinging from the very ribs being used as scaffolding.

  They chased Kip and his friends through the spinal corridor, their high-pitched yips mixing with the carpenters' saws. To the children, the remains of the god were just a playground; to the adults, it was a desperate, oversized puzzle.

  Their laughter was mixed with the hammering and sawing of the artisans. It was a foreign sound, sharp and bright against the dull hum in Trenn’s head.

  He watched them, his face slack. He tried to smile. He knew he should. Children playing was good. It meant safety. It meant peace.

  He pulled the corners of his mouth up. The scar tissue on his cheek stretched tight, resisting the expression. It felt like wearing a mask made of dried clay.

  He looked at his hand. The stump where his fingers used to be was smooth now, healed over by time and his god-blood.

  He closed his eyes, hunting for a memory. A laugh. Not the yipping of Wolf Kin, but a human laugh. Clear. Bright.

  Elora.

  He remembered a dock. Sunburn. Shoving her into the water. The sound of her surfacing, sputtering, and laughing.

  A warmth flickered in his chest—faint, like a candle in a drafty room. He held onto it, shielding it from the cold, metallic silence of the Gem-Croc soul.

  "Hey."

  Trenn opened his eyes.

  Kip stood at the base of the skull. The Ratling boy was clean now, wearing a tunic that fit; he was staring up with wide, unblinking eyes.

  "You're the Gem-Croc now?" Kip asked. “You have its tail, its soul, and you ride its bones. Are you a god, then?”

  The pups stopped playing. They gathered on the ribs, watching.

  Trenn looked down at the boy he had almost crushed. He looked at the golden tail coiled upon the skull like a crown.

  "I'm just Trenn," he rasped.

  Kip shook his head. He reached out and touched the massive canine tooth of the skull.

  "No," the boy whispered. "Kings have gold. Monsters have claws. You have both."

  He didn't say it with fear. He said it with awe.

  Trenn looked at the horizon. He didn't correct him.

  “Go play with the pups, Kip.”

  Zeen sat alone on a mossy boulder near a stream, away from the noise of the crafting district.

  The forest was quiet here. The air smelled of pine sap and damp earth, a relief from the sulfur of the village.

  Almitad’s skull rested in his lap.

  It was white and clean, the bone sanded smooth. The One-Eye amulet sat in the right socket, a black jewel sealed in place by hardened amber ichor.

  Zeen dipped a fine-point brush into a small pot of crushed berry paste. With a steady hand, he traced the curve of the zygomatic arch, painting a delicate vine of teal and orange.

  "You took the easy way out, didn't you?" Zeen whispered to the bone.

  He dipped the brush again, adding a petal to the marigold flower circling the left eye socket.

  "We finished our mission, you and me. You avenged your people. And then you just... crossed the finish line."

  He paused, his hand hovering over the brow. A bitter knot tightened in his throat.

  "But I didn’t die. I'm still here," he murmured. "We killed the One-Eye. It didn’t bring back Gil. His soul is still bound to my musket. The hole in my heart is still there."

  He looked at the skull’s grin. She was complete. He was leftovers.

  "I envy you," Zeen admitted, the words heavy as stones. "You died with purpose. I’m just living with the mess. The shadow I became after Zeen’s death, doomed to carry on."

  He finished the last motif on Almitad’s forehead—a gilded spiderweb.

  He set the brush down. He picked up the skull.

  It stared back at him. One empty socket, one black eye. “Just like me.”

  Zeen took a breath. He lifted the padded skull and lowered it over his head.

  The darkness swallowed him. The smell of stale calcium and wet paint filled his nose.

  He opened his eyes.

  The world split. His left eye saw the red forest, dull and flat. His right eye, looking through the One-Eye’s corpse, saw the world in high-contrast violet. He saw the flow of sap in the trees. He saw the heat rising from the ground.

  He closed his left eye and concentrated. His sight projected into the village. It moved past the barrels of Black Powder, past the rows of Husk-Busters, past the Gem-Croc, and the laughing kids.

  He shook his head, and he stood up.

  Zeen was gone. The smuggler, the griever, the gnome who carved small toys—he’d lost so many pieces of himself, he wasn’t sure what was left.

  The figure that turned toward the village wore the face of the dead and saw with the eye of a monster.

  The Shepherd of Vengeance began his walk back to war.

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