The gravel terrace shook in three-second intervals. Across the open logistics yard, massive stone kilns bled white lime dust into the sky, coating the iron tracks in a thick, chalky layer that muted the sound of everything approaching.
Vesper didn't get a chance to drop behind the stack of un-printed iron sleepers.
Before they could clear the shadow of the exit hatch, a heavy iron grappling hook tore through the white dust cloud, anchoring with a sickening metallic crunch directly into the framework of the terrace railing right beside her head. A thick steel cable snapped taut, and three figures surged out of the white haze from a stationary freight platform.
They were armored in reinforced leather plates stamped with the crude, heavy hexagonal seal of Joran's private garrison.
"Two more errors sneaking up from the boiler line!" the lead guard shouted, unhooking a three-foot iron cattle-prod that crackled with blue, unstable registry-current. "Grab the girl first!"
Vesper lunged forward, her iron sorting rod swinging up in a desperate defensive arc to catch the first guard's wrist. The impact rang out like a hammer hitting an anvil. She twisted her hips, using the momentum to kick the second man square in the chest, but the third guard slipped entirely past her vision. His heavy, iron-shod boot caught her across the flank, sending her sprawling across the gravel.
She tumbled straight into the open metal cage of an automated freight lift.
Before she could push herself up, the guard's fist slammed into the exterior manual wall switch. The heavy iron mesh door slid downward with a violent mechanical crash, locking her inside the lift platform as the automated gears groaned into motion, pulling the cage rapidly up the vertical stone face toward the higher spires.
"Daxian!" her voice was cut short as the lift vanished into the upper blackness.
Daxian sprinted toward the lift gating, but his boots slipped in the loose gravel. His right arm was a dead, stiff weight against his ribs, the blackened silk wrapping holding the blistered iron-wood graft tightly against his skin. The sudden movement sent a sharp, agonizing flare of heat exploding through his chest fractures, stopping him dead in his tracks as his breath caught in his throat.
The lead guard stepped directly into his path, a smug grin twisting his face beneath his visor as he raised the crackling cattle-prod. "Worry about your own profile, glitch."
The iron rod came down in a sweeping diagonal strike aimed at Daxian's neck.
Daxian didn't have his sovereign energy to simulate a flawless evasion path. His body was entirely spent from the long, vertical climb. He couldn't dodge the blow. He simply ducked his left shoulder, letting the energized iron rod strike him dead-on across his chest.
The blue current ripped through his tattered white robes, the raw voltage instantly seizing his chest muscles and forcing a wet spray of blood past his lips.
He didn't fall. The searing pain of the electrical discharge slammed directly into the volatile purple fractures inside his core, triggering a violent, erratic counter-surge through his veins. He didn't try to analyze the code. He drove his left fist forward with every ounce of physical momentum his failing legs could muster, striking the lead guard dead in the center of his throat armor.
The metal plate buckled under the raw, un-calibrated force of the glitch-surge.
The lead guard choked, his eyes rolling back into his head as the force of the punch lifted his feet completely off the concrete, throwing him backward into a stack of empty iron fuel drums with a deafening clatter. He lay there motionless, his cattle-prod rolling away into the chalky dust.
The remaining guard stepped back, his eyes widening as he looked at his fallen captain, then at the erratic, violet light bleeding through the front of Daxian's torn robes.
Daxian didn't look back at him. He stood alone in the center of the blue-lit staging yard, his chest heaving as his left hand dripped with fresh crimson fluid from the shattered throat-plate.
He picked up his fallen iron sorting rod from the gravel, using it to steady his shaking frame as the remaining guard fled into the shadows of the secondary tunnels.
Leaving only the steady, mechanical clacking of the processing wheels against the iron track as he looked up into Joran's private territory alone.