Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 223
as a pathology to be removed. Axel had thought he and
Calandria had succeeded in hiding their nano and implants
from the rulers of Ventus. Maybe it hadn’t worked.
Axel had to get to Calandria, and Turcaret happened to
be standing on the only door. "Out of the way, you bastard,"
Axel said. Turcaret’s face was lost in darkness, but Axel could
see he was shaking his head.
"I will deliver you to them," said the controller. "It will
be my pleasure." He shouted something into the sky in some
old language. Past his dark outline, Axel saw a thing like a
caged claw, big as a house, fall straight at them. Just before it
hit, great lamps like eyes blazed into life from its crossbeams.
The roof disappeared with a great slap Axel felt in his
bones. Dust and scraps of shingle and wooden beams shot into
the air, and he was airborne too before he knew it. He landed
on his side on the roof, which swayed and pitched like the deck
of a ship. Something bright as the sun, and howling like a
million saws, planted itself in the roof next to him and twisted
this way and that. He smelled hot iron and ozone.
Axel rolled onto his stomach. Turcaret was crouched
two meters away, also looking up. Axel willed himself to
stand up, but his strength momentarily failed him. As he was
struggling onto his elbows, Turcaret sent him a silent,
contemptuous glare, and hopped down through the hole in the
roof.
A metal tower reaching all the way to heaven was
heaving its base back and forth through the ruins of the manor.
Only part of one wing had collapsed, so far, but the thing had
hundreds of arms, and these pounced out and down into
corridor and chamber, and through the dust he could see some
of these arms passing struggling human forms inward to the
thing’s central cage. Horrified, he rolled away from the sight.