Len Vey sat on an overturned crate of draft horseshoes in the drafty tack room of the upper gatehouse, the unsealed leaves of Cira’s letter resting across his knees.
The air in the timber shed smelled of old horse liniment, oiled harness leather, dry oat dust. The damp, clean rain that drifted through the open loading bay from the surface trench. Outside the timber slats, thirty armed quarry drillers stood guard around Bevin Soot’s freight wagon, their heavy iron tools resting on the cobblestones. Meanwhile, Bram Ash and Ivara Quill checked the lashings on the zinc transport chests.
Len’s hands didn’t shake as he unfolded the three sheets of heavy royal thick parchment.
The handwriting was clearly Cira’s: sharp, upright, economical strokes of black dark oak-ink, with the aggressive double-cross on the capital letters that she used when entering priority parcel bonds into the Tern Road station ledger. Cira had never wasted ink on sentiment or decorative flourishes. She had spent three pages transcribing the official military archive records from the Ministry of War in the capital, certifying each excerpt with the notarized countersignature of the Highbank Transport Guild:
DISPATCH SUMMARY: THIRD ARMY SAPPERS BRIGADE — SECTION FOUR. SUBJECT: HOSTILE SIEGE ENGINE ‘Giant statue IV’ — TARGET NEUTRALIZATION. LOCATION: ASH BASIN DEPRESSION, SECTOR NINE. DATE OF ACTION: YEAR MINUS ELEVEN, MONTH FOUR, DAY SIX. RESULT: Deadly BOILER EXPLOSION FOLLOWING SEVENTY-TWO HOURS OF Nonstop ARTILLERY ACTION. INTERNAL FIREBOX COLLAPSED. MAIN DRIVE TRACKS SHEARED. CASUALTIES: SEVENTEEN THOUSAND ENEMY TROOPS ENGAGED. FORCES Scattered…
