The blockade fell over the Sunken Fissure with the cold, clockwork finality of an iron drop-gate.
Along the northern ridge, the switch engines of the Rask Refining Board sat idle on their sidings, their fires banked, their steam bled off into the gray drizzle. Armed mercenary pickets barred the mountain passes, turning back civilian supply wagons and impounding grain shipments destined for the Fourth Battalion.
Yet, inside Dugout Seven, there was no panic.
There was only the quiet, furious industry of commoners who had spent their entire lives surviving on the discarded scraps of high-born tables.
Toby Mallow stood in the center of the dugout, a grease pencil tucked behind his ear, directing four commoner infantrymen who were carrying crates of newly harvested underground provisions into the rear storage alcoves.
“Stack the sulfur potatoes against the back wall where the ground stays cool and dry!” Toby shouted, adjusting his round glasses with a flour-dusted knuckle. “Keep the dried bracket mushrooms in the sealed ammunition tins to prevent damp rot! And make sure the fresh mountain greens are soaked in the limestone water before nightfall!”
Arthur Vance sat at the corner table, inspecting a wooden bucket filled with crystal-clear water drawn from the outpost’s newly engineered straining system.
