Moonless dark draped the Viscus frontier when the first Architect surveyors rappelled from rope-balloons into the ravines below. From afar they looked like charcoal motes drifting over a sleeping beast; up close, each bore an astrolabe-codex on one hip and a shotgun on the other. Fornos had paid mercenary premiums for these "hired guns," but he insisted on a single title for their profession:
Cartographer.
Because on this expedition, a wrong line on parchment could bleed more men than any Relict roar.
The scouts christened the first corridor Red Maw Canyon—a scar of iron-rich shale that ran straight as a sword stroke from the western foothills to the Fault's inner basin. Streaks of oxidised sandstone painted the cliffs a visceral crimson; midnight winds wailed through ribs of stone as though the earth itself still suffered an ancient wound.
Red Maw offered speed: a marching column could cover the twelve-league distance in less than a day. But the canyon also birthed mana-storms—whorls of raw ether that gathered every sixth night with eerie precision. Blue fireflies appeared first; then air thickened, humming like a struck lyre; finally the storm tore visibility to ribbons, turning compasses berserk and driving lesser golem cores mad.
Survey Captain Asha Veil logged the pattern:
"Cycle regular as a heart: five sunsets calm, sixth a tempest. Duration two hours at peak, then total stillness. Recommend movement during storm to blind hostile augury; shelter stations mandatory every three leagues."
North of the canyon lay the Glass Steppe—thirty square kilometres of blasted plain where sand had fused under Relict breath centuries ago. The surface glittered like a sea frozen mid-wave, smooth enough to shave a reflection if you dared kneel. It was perfect artillery country: flat sight-lines, no obstacles, ideal for salvo cannons to deploy firing grids.
But the openness cut both ways. There was no cover, no fold in the terrain to mask a battery crew sponging barrels. High above, thermal currents rose from hairline cracks in the glass; any scout with a half-decent scry-scope could spot a marching gun train from five leagues.
Architect scribes marked each crack wider than a boot—potential anchor points to chain down recoil sleds. They also burned sigil-stakes along the Steppe's perimeter: low-glow wards that would dim cannon flashes behind a veil of refracted light, effective only under full darkness.
Beneath both lay the forgotten Grinder Tunnels, a mesh of abandoned ore shafts whose entrances gaped like toothless maws along the Fault rim. Old plaques still bore the sigil of the Arctren Mining Syndic—closed after a core-breach suffocated two hundred men in rotten mana steam.
Fornos considered that history an advertisement: if poisoned air once filled those hollows, Relict sonar would find only echoing emptiness now. The deeper galleries—reinforced with adamant lattice—could withstand tremors that toppled surface camps.
Yet danger simmered: cave-ins, toxic gas pockets, blind shafts that plunged forever. Scout-gunner Merek Dole lost a leg when a false floor collapsed, dropping him onto a rusted ore-pulley. They hauled him out and fitted an iron peg in the field; Merek kept mapping with charcoal between morphine grimaces, claiming every scream was "just the tunnel giving directions."
Back at the forward planning lodge—a timber fortlet overlooking mist-wreathed ridges—Fornos spread the survey sheets across an oak slab. Each parchment bristled with coloured inks: red for hazards, blue for water caches, gold for mana-flux vents. Beside him, Konos sniffed steam rising from a mug of chicory while senior Architects crowded lanterns.
Fornos tapped the map.
"Artillery will roll here—Glass Steppe," he declared, voice steady. "Night march only. We anchor barrels by dawn, fire positions by dusk, move again next night. Golems haul guns under blackout canvas."
He shifted finger to the canyon. "Logistics—Red Maw. We stage food, water, spare barrels inside storm cells. Convoys move during mana-storms; enemy scryers see nothing but static. If schedules drift, we lose the cloak."
Finally he laid a palm over the Grinder glyph. "Capture team goes below. Two squads Ash Company, eight siege golems, one spore-medic unit. They surface at Fault Basin exactly three hours before artillery begins suppression fire on the Behemoth. Any earlier and sonar picks them; any later and we waste the shell window."
Konos absorbed the sequence, then grunted approval. "Risk of cave-in?"
"Acceptable if we halve pack weight and pre-brace crosscuts," Fornos replied. "Every handler carries a collapsible jack frame—patent from Mitis foundries."
Architect Wren unrolled a second sheet—thin, silvery. "Adamant leaf," she said. "Maps etched by micro-etch stylus: won't scorch under mana flash, won't tear in wind. Inset runic bevels glow when exposed to volcanic gas, fade when safe."
Konos raised eyebrows. "Expensive."
"Cheaper than a lost column," Fornos countered. He slid one leaf toward each unit captain. "Memorise every leg. Destroy the leaf if capture imminent."
Final Checks at the Fault Rim
The plan demanded rehearsal on the terrain itself. Over the next fortnight, dummy columns enacted the route: gun crews pushed empty sleds across Glass Steppe under new-moon skies, timing rest breaks to match predicted mana gusts. Logistic wagons crawled through Red Maw while violet lightning lashed overhead—iron-tire sparks dancing between spokes. In the tunnels, golem torch-bearers hammered pitons, expanding choke-points just wide enough for siege joints.
Fornos observed from shifting vantage towers: narrow crow's-nests lashed to basalt pillars, portable spy-scopes scanning for errors. Each night he updated his Vein-Book—a grim ledger of every artery, capillary, and nerve the expedition would use.
Mistakes emerged: one storm cell flooded, washing sealed grain into a ravine. Two artillery sleds shattered glass crust and sank axle-deep into powder sand. In the tunnels, a gas pocket ignited, singing half a squad's eyebrows but teaching invaluable lessons about airflow markers.
By the end of week two, corrections hardened into doctrine:
Storm Cell Rule: cache crates two meters above canyon floor, lashed to tri-stakes, lids wax-sealed.
Glass Steppe Stride: guns leapfrog no more than 400 paces between cooling intervals; sled outriders scout fissures with mirrored rods.
Grinder Truss Code: every 30 meters a wooden A-frame braces ceiling; if brace count falls behind schedule, column halts and retrofits—no exceptions.
On the final night before withdrawal to main camp, survey teams gathered on a basalt spit overlooking the Fault Basin. The air shimmered faintly—hangfire aura from the Behemoth far below, breathing in its sleep.
Captain Asha produced a small knife. One by one, surveyors pricked thumbs and smeared blood onto the adamant master-leaf—an ancient smuggler's pact that bound mapmakers to those who would walk their inked paths. If a cartographer betrayed coordinates, the stain's crust would never wash from their skin—superstition perhaps, but powerful.
Fornos accepted the leaf last. He pressed thumb to metal, feeling its chill bite. These lines are veins, he thought. When they pulse with men and steel, the Fault itself will feel our heartbeat.
He folded the leaf into a lacquer tube and addressed the assembly:
"Your work is the difference between legend and massacre. If the maps lie, we perish. They will not lie."
No one spoke, yet conviction settled on the ridge like first frost.
At dawn, banners came down, fires stamped out. Surveyors marched in silence, leaving the Broken Lodge empty save for wind and chalk outlines on the planning table.
Fornos lingered a moment longer, fingertips resting on the oak. He pictured the three corridors like arteries converging on a colossal heart soon to be cut open.
"Cartographer's Vein," he murmured—the name he'd chosen for this chapter of the campaign. A vein that would carry ambition, iron, and salt straight into myth.
Then he turned and followed his people, maps secure, routes set. The next time they returned, it would be with roaring guns and nets woven of adamant will.