Ravensoul by James Barclay

he refused to adopt it. It’s just a shame the populace didn’t accept his decision. Whatever, the two of them are hardly saviour material. Not that it would matter if they were. Nothing can stop what is coming.’
    ‘You don’t know that,’ said Blackthorne. ‘You don’t even know there is an enemy. All we’ve got so far is a heat haze and a rumble in the earth.’
    But that was not entirely true and he knew it. Gresse had heard, just as he had, the clank and thud of machinery. It sounded much like someone perpetually raising and dropping a portcullis, though there was a wheezing undertone, like ten thousand Gresses drawing in pained breath as one.
    ‘I’ve had the visions and the voices. And, deny it all you like, you have too. I just paid attention.’
    They were riding up a steep valley side into which terraces had been cut for red grapevines. The path wound through the terraces, ascending gently. The morning was hot and the vibration under hoof combined with the shimmering air and the clanking of chain and metal to bring unease.
    Beyond the valley edge, the land swept steeply down to rough grassland and, further east, fine farming territory. If whatever was coming was on the fields or open ground, they would be afforded a peerless view. Blackthorne was not convinced he wanted one. Looking to his left, he could see that Gresse was nervous. His tongue flickered over his front teeth and licked his top lip. His hands were white on the reins.
    ‘We’ll be plenty far enough back,’ said Blackthorne.
    ‘I do not share your confidence,’ said Gresse.
    They crested the rise.
    ‘What in all of mighty fuck is that?’ breathed Blackthorne.
    Gresse would normally have chastised him for the use of language he attributed to Blackthorne’s friendship with the lower classes. This time he was mute, merely shaking his head in reply.
    Two miles away and advancing across the farmland, came, well . . . men, beasts and a machine, if such terms could be applied in this instance. Blackthorne had seen interesting plans for machines before, wine presses and the like. And Denser had once shown him the drawings for a machine designed to trap and hold demons. But they were nothing like this, whatever it was. Those had been relatively small devices. This was more akin to a ship on a sled being pulled across the land by beasts of burden. And whatever the beasts were, they weren’t oxen or mules.
    It was a while before they could see absolutely clearly, until the figures and their contraption had materialised from the shimmering in the air. Blackthorne wished they had remained indistinct. The machine was simply incomprehensible. The size of an ocean-going trader, it was principally a long, slender oval from which jutted multiple funnels, each angled differently from the next, over thirty of them and yet maintaining a sculpted poetry. From a raised spine, what looked like five masts fled skywards. Each held four spars and from these spars drifted dozens of lines that probed at the air as if seeking something.
    It was a striking piece of work, and while Blackthorne had no idea what it was actually doing, the effects of its passage were as clear as they were devastating. The land in its wake was burned and ruined. Buildings were levelled and trees torched such that only broken blackened stumps remained. Flora and fauna were simply smoothed from existence as easily as Blackthorne might blow dust from a book. Man and animal eliminated without a cry. And for what purpose?
    ‘It isn’t the only one,’ said Blackthorne. He pointed away to the north where more cloud smudged the sky, dark and filled with lightning. ‘And see how the damage spreads in the wake of the thing. If it continues and if there are enough of these machines . . .’
    ‘. . . then the whole land will be consumed,’ breathed Gresse. ‘Who are these people?’
    The machine was being pulled along by a pair of massive brown hairless beasts with tiny heads, barrel bodies