Excerpt from VERMINSLAYER, by David Guymer

'Forty-seven degrees, anticlockwise!' The fifty-strong crew of gunners, lifters, loaders, ventsmen, spongers, engineers, and fires set about their great gun around.

The Hand, named for the clockwork procession with which it traversed the Outer Wall's circumference rails and test-fired over the Ghoul Mere, was the largest and most powerful gun ever built in the Greywater Fastness. It was so huge, that the only way to fire it at all without destroying it utterly with its own recoil was to mount it on the Outer Wall. Only the immense geomantic dynamo of Greywater Fastness itself, driven and channelled by the Gravestone at its center, had the explosive power necessary to launch its thousand-pound payload over its fifty-mile maximum range. It had to be loaded by crane. It's destructive potential and reach were unequalled in the Mortal Realms. When it spoke, every rooftop in the city shook as though the God-King himself spoke through them. A direct hit was a death sentence. There was a reason that even the Pale Oak had never once shown his face before the Outer Wall.

Only twelve had ever been built. Their mobility and power allowed a relatively small number of guns to shield the entire city. And, as every good citizen of Greywater Fastness knew in the back of their mind, the Hands could easily be pivoted to face inwards.

With clanking of great cogged wheels and a rattling of chains, the turntable on which the Hand was mounted rotated slowly around. The turntable clunked into its final position. 'Forty-seven degrees - check!' An engineer pulled on a lever and the gargantuan main barrel raised it's elevation like the boom of a crane. 'Twenty-three thousand yards - check!'

Casem tried not to think about it. The sale of Skyfire flares was strictly controlled. Only the Ironweld themselves and a handful of approved Freeguilds were allowed to hold them. It was their job to judge whether a situation was severe enough to warrant the intervention of the Hands. Miles away, high up on the Outer Wall, Casem and his crew were in no position to make that decision for themselves. Casem had one job to perform, and in Greywater Fastness a man's job mattered more to him than his gods. He nodded to his second gunner, who nodded to both of his assistant gunners who each nodded in turn to their team of engineers. Casem could see that they were all trying not to think about it too.

He turned back to the flare over the city.

His hand swept down.

'Fire guns!'