Prologue
Ash fell sideways the night the markets bloomed. Morning in Ashenreach comes in greys, a thinner shade of night pouring across the landscape.
That's when the Crawlers move. On all fours, ribs showing like cage bars, skimming the ground as they walk. The Drift is their country: dunes of powder-fine soot that can swallow a leg to the hip. Out here you learn small, mean lessons: how to breathe through cloth, how to keep your skull down, because the tall ones usually get shot first.
Crawlers hunt for iron with an insatiable appetite. A pistol with its handgrip wrapped in rags. A broken machine-gun link. A torn shield strap. The Drift coughs up these relics every night after the arena has finished taking its share. The shadow goblins are the ones who pay for these relics, poorly.
Grit, a young Crawler, nosed aside a seam of ash and found a sword half-buried to the hilt. The blade wavered in the heat mirage, but was too heavy to haul far. He tugged until it gave and then dragged it downslope. With the sword gripped in his teeth, he felt the weight in his jaw hinge.
He wasn't alone. A dozen Crawlers combed the same stretch, eyes ember-bright in skull sockets, tails low for balance. When one found a belt of machine-gun links, the others converged by instinct and helped coil it without kinking the feed, checking each link for burrs.
"Don't stand!" hissed an older Crawler when a newcomer tried to lever up for a better view. "No standing around these parts." Standing makes you a silhouette, and silhouettes invite lessons delivered at muzzle velocity.
Grit found brass enough to matter by mid-morning, plus the sword and half a shield.
When night fell, green lanterns sputtered to life under arches built from scavenged rib cages. Grit went to the markets to sell his salvage.
The shadow goblins rolled out their stalls on iron wheels, their bells tinkling in the soot-thick wind.
A goblin in a leather cap stitched together by guesswork weighed his items.
"The sword bites crooked," the goblin said, running his nail along the edge. "Still, theatrical. The Kennel boys like props like this one. As for the shield, it's acceptable, good rivets. Brass is brass." He pushed a small stack of coins across the counter. Grit's bone-tail dipped. It wasn't much.
In the Ashmarket, the goblins laid their goods in rows: bones wired into knuckle spikes, mirror-polished pistols, swords, soot-scarred helms, and shields scrubbed enough that a buyer could see the reflection of his own skull. Every stall kept a coin scale, and ledgers outnumbered people.
"Look, look," said a goblin with a red visor, patting a revolver rack. "Two chambers speak truth, four chambers make friends." He winked. "Six chambers settle accounts. Death voids warranty." He bit a gold coin to test it. "Both buyers, every buyer, welcome. We are very democratic."
The air tasted of tar and soot. Beyond the market rows, an engine coughed awake inside a mobile arena's iron guts.
The Ash Wardens stood where the market's light thinned, furnace helms burning dull red on their brows. Many Wardens had died establishing order here.
Across from them, the Bone Creed whispered a litany over a crate of ammunition. "Bless the round," a priest murmured, pressing bone-inlaid cartridges against his lips. "Bless the aim. Bless the receiver."