Iron-Jaws Jackson stepped forward, his steel jaw-plate catching the cold violet light of the basin. The metal plate, bolted crudely over his lower face, gleamed with grease and old rain, distorting his sneer into something monstrous. Behind him, the rotting wooden archway of the pre-industrial depot loomed like a ribcage, its dark interior smelling of decades-old dust and dry, fossilized pine sap.

Barnaby Finch did not move. He stood balanced on his eight-foot-tall Insulated Oak Stilts, his heavy cedar guide-staffs driven deep into the narrow granite crevices of the ledge. The physical toll of the crossing was written in every line of his slouched posture. The crushing, one-hundred-pound mass of the energy-storage core on his back felt heavier than it had at midnight, its thick canvas straps biting through his canvas coat, compressing his spine, and sending a sickening, liquid heat through his knees. Every muscle in his thighs trembled, a low-frequency vibration that matched the ominous hum of the wet clay flats below.

Behind him, Clara Thorne leaned heavily against a rotting timber beam, her forearms crossed over her chest. Her hands, wrapped in thick, soot-stained strips of canvas, were raw and blistered from the chemical distillation fire that had saved their resin supply. She could not grip a guide-staff; she could not swing a weapon. She could only watch, her eyes wide and dark with a cynicism born of a lifetime spent running from corporate debt collectors.

"Jackson," Clara spat, her voice tight and dry. "You’re a long way from the coal-sorting yards. Brand must be paying you a pretty sum to drag your heavy steel carcass out into the Glimmer-Mist."

"Brand wants what's his, girl," Jackson rumbled, his voice vibrating through the jaw-plate with a harsh, metallic rattle. "And the Vanguard Syndicate wants that core. You think a broken-down, slouched fossil of a porter is going to stand between us and a corporate bounty?"

Beside Jackson, "Heavy-Hand" Hector grinned, a slow, brutal expression on his scarred face. He was a massive brawler, his broad shoulders wrapped in a sleeveless leather vest. In his hands, he weighed a set of heavy, non-insulated iron chains, the cold metal links clinking softly in the silent air. The chains were thick, designed to wrap around a stilt-walker’s wooden shafts and ground them to the wet clay below. In the Glimmer-Mist Basin, where the ground was saturated with three hundred volts of static potential, those conductive chains were a death sentence. If they touched the wet earth and Barnaby's stilts simultaneously, the voltage would travel up the metal, bypassing his insulation and vaporizing him instantly.

"Gideon," Barnaby muttered, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that barely carried through the thick purple fog. "Keep Pip behind you. Don't let him step off the stone."

Gideon Vance, his hands shaking so violently that his fogged spectacles slipped down his nose, pushed them back with a trembling knuckle. "Barnaby, we have no traction on this ledge. The wide-foot adaptors are still clamped to your stilt-tips. They’re meant for sliding on the glass, not for fighting. If you try to pivot, the willow bases will catch on the rock."

"I know," Barnaby replied quietly.

He didn't have a choice. To their left, the frictionless obsidian of the Lightning-Scar lay like a black mirror, reflecting the angry, churning violet sky. To their right, the sheer drop of the rocky hill fell away into the boiling geothermal fens. The only path to survival lay through the depot's heavy oak doors, and Jackson's enforcers blocked the threshold.

"Take him down, Hector," Jackson ordered, raising his insulated steel club. "Break his legs. Leave the mechanic for the boss."

Hector grunted, his massive arms tensing as he swung the heavy iron chains in a wide, horizontal arc. The metal links whistled through the damp air, heading straight for Barnaby's right stilt-shaft.

Barnaby's reaction was automatic, born of fifteen years of carrying heavy loads through the shifting mud of the lowlands. He did not try to dodge; the wide willow adaptors clamped to his stilt-tips made a rapid lateral movement impossible. Instead, he leaned his body weight back, centering the core's mass directly over his hips, and drove his cedar guide-staffs into the stone ledge to anchor his frame.

*Clack-clank.*

The iron chain wrapped tightly around his right stilt-shaft, the heavy links binding against the seasoned oak. The lower end of the chain dangled mere inches above the wet, highly charged clay of the basin floor.

"Now!" Jackson roared, lunging forward on his own heavy, combat-reinforced stilts. He swung his insulated steel club, aiming a brutal, downward strike at Barnaby's already bruised left stilt-shaft—the one holding together by a fraction of an inch under the hot resin weld.

Barnaby gritted his teeth, his focus narrowing to the physical mechanics of balance. He knew that if he took the hit, the left stilt would shatter, dropping him directly into the conductive mud. He had to move. He compressed his knees, gathering the natural flexibility of the seasoned oak shafts, and attempted a desperate, explosive jump—the *Double-Stilt Leap*—to clear the ledge and land inside the depot's threshold.

But the calculation was off. The crushing, one-hundred-pound mass of the energy core on his back multiplied the downward force of his landing. As his wide willow adaptors struck the wooden floorboards of the depot's outer platform, the rotting timber gave way with a sickening, splintering crash.

*CRACK.*

Barnaby's right stilt-tip plunged through the collapsing floorboards, trapping him in the structural frame. The sudden stop jerked his body forward, the heavy canvas straps of his pack biting deep into his shoulders. He was stuck, his right stilt wedged tightly in the broken timber, while the conductive iron chain still clung to the shaft, dangling closer to the wet ground below.

Jackson closed the distance, his metal jaw-plate twisted in a triumphant grin. He raised his steel club for a final, shattering strike at Barnaby's exposed left stilt.

"You're done, fossil," Jackson sneered.

In that split second, Barnaby did not panic. His mind went cold, entering the state of absolute physical focus he called his *Load-Distribution Instinct*. He did not try to pull his right stilt free; he knew the wood would split under the tension. Instead, he used the very liability of his cargo to his advantage. He shifted his hips, throwing his entire center of mass to the left, and allowed the massive, one-hundred-pound weight of the energy core to act as a heavy pendulum.

The momentum of the shifting load swung his body in a rapid, heavy pivot. Using his trapped right stilt as an anchor point, Barnaby swung his left stilt wide, the flat willow adaptor sweeping across the platform like a massive wooden club.

*BOOM.*

The impact was brutal. The heavy willow adaptor struck Hector’s metal stilt-bracket with the full force of Barnaby's shifting mass and the core's momentum. The metal bracket, designed for lightweight speed rather than heavy impact, shattered under the crushing force, sending a shower of steel bolts into the mist.

Hector let out a sharp cry of agony as his stilt-shaft splintered. The sudden loss of balance threw him sideways, his body flailing as he fell off the platform. But as he went down, the iron chain wrapped around Barnaby's right stilt was yanked tight, pulling Barnaby's shoulder out of its socket with a sickening, wet click.

Barnaby gasped, a white-hot spike of pain exploding through his chest as his right shoulder dislocated. His vision blurred, and his grip on his guide-staff slipped. But his instinct held. He leaned his weight onto his left stilt, forcing his body to remain upright despite the agonizing pain.

The broken, conductive chain was ripped free from his stilt-shaft by Hector's falling weight. It landed with a heavy clatter across a dry, uncharged granite block at the edge of the ledge, its links sparking faintly as they bled off the accumulated static charge safely into the stone instead of grounding Barnaby's body.

Hector struck the wet clay below. The ground charge, saturated with three hundred volts of static potential, instantly found its path of least resistance through his non-insulated gear. A brilliant, blinding violet flash enveloped him, his limbs locking in a silent, rigid spasm as the current surged through his chest.

Jackson, startled by the sudden destruction of his partner, stumbled on his combat stilts. His right tip slipped on a patch of wet clay at the edge of the platform, his center of gravity drifting too far to the right. He flailed his arms, trying to regain his balance, but the heavy steel club in his hand pulled him down.

With a loud curse, Jackson fell backward, slipping off the narrow ledge and plunging directly into a highly charged silt-puddle at the base of the rocky hill.

The moment his steel jaw-plate and leather vest touched the overcharged mud, a massive arc-discharge erupted from the puddle, the violet current crackling violently across his metal plates. Jackson's body went rigid, his jaw locking in a silent, agonizing spasm as the electricity surged through his limbs.

As Jackson fell, his finger, locked in a post-mortem spasm around the trigger of his rusted weapon, squeezed.

*BANG.*

The heavy revolver discharged, the bullet striking a rusted iron pipe at the entrance of the depot. A brilliant shower of sparks erupted from the impact, flying directly into a dark, low-lying pocket of vaporized gas leaking from the depot's ancient, cracked resin vats.

Barnaby's eyes widened as the air around the threshold began to glow with a pale, flickering green light.

"Barnaby!" Clara screamed, her voice cracking with terror. "The gas! Get back!"

But Barnaby's right stilt was still wedged tightly in the broken floorboards, his dislocated shoulder screaming in agony as the first hiss of ignition echoed from the dark interior of the depot ruins.