Novels by Andrea Kugy

The deafening roar of the siege-cannon’s discharge left the forge interior vibrating with a dissonant, bone-jarring hum. Dust, thick and caustic as powdered limestone, cascaded from the rafters, turning the air into a suffocating, grey shroud."Did it hit?" Lysenne coughed, clawing at the collar of her tunic, her lungs burning from the sulfurous exhaust. She surged toward the embrasure of the blast-wall, her eyes searching the street through the shifting haze of plaster and smoke.Aerovan was crumpled against the base of the cooling, shuddering cannon. His breath came in ragged, wet wheezes, his face a mask of grey fatigue. He didn't look at the street; he looked at his hands, which were now locked in a permanent, trembling curl."Don't look for beauty, girl," Aerovan croaked, spitting a glob of dark, metallic-tasting bile onto the debris. "Look for the iron.""It hit," Drovic shouted, his voice hoarse as he scrambled up the shattered masonry to joi

"Three! Two! One! Fire!" Lysenne screamed, her voice cracking under the oppressive weight of the atmosphere.Aerovan didn't hesitate. He didn't even breathe. He threw his entire failing body weight behind the brass lever, his teeth gritting together until he felt the sharp bite of enamel on enamel.CLANG.The forge didn't just rattle; it shrieked. The primary siege-gun, a monstrosity of welded scrap and repurposed industrial pistons, roared to life with a sound like a mountain being torn in two. The discharge of chemical propellant ignited within the breach, a blinding, actinic flash that bleached the color from the room.The recoil was instantaneous. Even with the improvised oak braces Lysenne and Drovic had jammed into place, the cannon leaped backward, smashing through the reinforcement wall behind them. The floorboards disintegrated into clouds of jagged splinters. The sound of the shell leaving the barrel was a supersonic tear in the fabric of the air, a whip-crack that deafened

"If those pistons cross the threshold, the tunnel won't matter, because there won't be a living soul left to notice the rubble," Aerovan barked, his fingers locking onto the cold, grease-slicked brass of the primary firing lever. His hands trembled, a violent, uncontrollable tremor that threatened to betray him, but he didn't pull away. He couldn't.Lysenne scrambled across the uneven floor, dodging a fallen crossbeam. "Wait! If you trigger that discharge, the kickback will shred the entire support structure of this cellar. We need a secondary brace! Drovic, get the timber from the storage rack!"Drovic, still clutching his ruined hip, ignored the searing pain and lunged for the pile of splintered oak. "Brace it? We’re holding back a wall of iron, Princess! Bracing it is like trying to stop a waterfall with a toothpick!""It’s better than being flattened into paste!" she snapped back, shoving a stack of iron plates beneath the heavy frame of the sieg

"Forget the battery, Drovic! Forget the steel!" Aerovan choked out, staggering to his feet with the help of a charred timber. He used his heavy iron cane to lunge toward the primary battery emplacement, his movements jerky and disjointed. "The golems aren't waiting for us to finish our morning prayers. They’re already at the perimeter wire."The low-frequency rumble began then, vibrating through the soles of their boots—a deep, resonant thrum that spoke of thousands of pounds of reinforced Null-Stone plate and high-pressure steam pistons.Lysenne scrambled to her feet, wiping a streak of black soot from her forehead, her eyes wide. "Are you certain, Aerovan? If we fire the battery now, we risk collapsing the entire eastern tunnel network. We’ll be buried alive.""We’re already buried, Your Highness!" Aerovan spat, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly growl. He ignored the way his knuckles bled, his focus entirely on the massive,

"Steady!" Aerovan rasped, his vision tunneling into a pinpoint of grey focus as the massive granite slab hovered, held aloft by nothing but the iron-willed leverage of his rusted crowbar and the desperate strength of the survivors. "Drovic, move!"Drovic didn’t wait for a second invitation. With a guttural grunt, he dragged his crushed, bleeding frame out from the fissure. As soon as his shoulders cleared the gap, Aerovan shoved his crowbar aside and collapsed into the silt, his lungs heaving. The granite slab slammed back into the dust with a bone-jarringthud, sending a shockwave through the floor that rattled the nearby quench-tanks.Silence, thick and suffocating, descended upon the basement. The only sound was the distant, rhythmicthump-thumpof the Iron Duchy’s artillery walking toward their sector.Drovic rolled onto his back, gasping, his face a mask of pulverized brick dust and dried gore. He looked at his l

"Heave! On three, or the whole cellar drops on his head!"Aerovan’s voice tore out of his throat, raw and ragged, laced with the metallic tang of blood. He shoved the iron crowbar an inch deeper beneath the jagged slab of split masonry, his boots skidding across the grease-slick rubble."One!" Lysenne shouted, her fingers locking onto the crossbeam alongside four ash-covered guardsmen. "Two! Lift!"Muscles strained. Sinews popped. The massive block of granite shrieked against the twisted iron rebar, grinding upward by half a handspan. A cloud of pulverized mortar billowed out, blinding and choking them."I see his arm!" a militiaman yelled. "He's pinned by the hip!""Don't look at it, pull him!" Lysenne ordered, her knuckles dead-white under the grime. "Aerovan, hold that leverage!""I'm... holding!" Aerovan ground out through clenched teeth. His brittle, aged bones screamed. Every joint felt like it was packed with broken glass, the a