The Lesser Devil (The Sun Eater, #1.5)

by Christopher Ruocchio

Frustrated by Crispin’s still-free hands, he let go with one of his own and pulled back to strike Crispin a blow that would have knocked the teeth from his head. Crispin tried to get his hands up to block it, shut his eyes despite decades of fighter’s instinct. The blow never came. Warm blood splashed Crispin’s face, and opening his eyes he saw that Lud had stepped in and interposed the highmatter blade between between Carlo’s arm and Crispin’s face, severing the Durantine’s appendage at the elbow. And the blood . . . it wasn’t blood at all. Whatever it was draining from the stump of Carlo’s arm, it had the texture of oil and the color of milk. The tissues visible beneath Carlo’s skin were egg-yolk yellow, the bones black and fibrous. He wasn’t a man at all. Too late Crispin remembered that the Durantines did not share his Imperial hatred of machines. Carlo was one of their strojeva, a golem. What was the old English word? An android.