THE MARROW AND THE GEARS.

Chapter 2: The Heat in the Bone.

"Fire..." Silas gasped. His eyes were bloodshot, leaking a thick, yellowish fluid as his tear ducts finally unfroze.

Elara didn’t wait for him to find his feet. Her own joints felt like they were filled with crushed gravel. Every movement was a chore. She grabbed the heavy sledgehammer leaning against the vat. It felt twice as heavy as it had fifty years ago. She swung it against the furnace latch. Clang. The iron sparked, the vibration nearly shaking the hammer from her hands. On the third hit, the latch snapped. She shoved a handful of Ignition-Moss into the grate.

The cellar turned a violent, flickering orange. The roar of the fire was the first beautiful thing she’d heard since the world stopped.

"We’ve got three hours," Elara said, spitting a bit of copper-tasting phlegm onto the stones. "Before the Starvers wake up enough to walk. If the marrow isn't boiling by the time they hit that door, they’re going to look at us and see a buffet. Grab the saw, Silas. Start on the ape-shanks. The big ones."

Silas stumbled over, his legs shaking. He picked up the bone-saw, the metal teeth glinting in the firelight. The sound of the saw hitting the frozen bone was a high-pitched scream that echoed off the damp walls. Scritch. Scritch. Snap. "Is it true?" Silas asked, his voice a rasping whisper. "About the Spire? They say they have Ichor that tastes like honey."

"The Spire has a lot of things we don't," Elara snapped, throwing a hunk of rendered fat into the vat. "They have honey, they have heat, and they have the luxury of not smelling like a slaughterhouse. We have the Gutter. Now stir the pot before the bottom scorches. If this batch burns, we’re all dead by Tuesday."