The entrance to the Sump Road drainage under-road drain was hidden behind the rusted carcass of a dead steam locomotive in the lower switching yard.
The locomotive had sat on the dead-end siding since the second year of the Black Sky, its driving rods disconnected, its boiler chimney pipes rusted through, its iron cab converted into a temporary storage locker for damaged track ties. Cold rainwater dripped steadily from its peeled steel cladding, pattering into the black, oily slurry that filled the check pit beneath the driving wheels.
Bram Ash knelt in the freezing mud beside the pit. His uninjured left hand used a three-foot iron crowbar to lever open a heavy cast-iron drainage grating.
Every heave on the bar sent a burst of painful pain through his shattered right shoulder, causing his face to turn the color of skimmed milk and his teeth to grind together with a sickening dry click. But he refused to let Geth Marr take the tool. He worked with the grim, desperate fury of a man who believed that physical labor was the only currency that could buy back a fraction of his ruined honor.
Beside him in the shadow of the rusted boiler stood Len Vey, Ivara Quill, and Melli Dorn. They had stripped their gear down to working essentials. Wool coats buttoned tight against the sulfur mist, boots greased with animal fat, lanterns hooded to narrow level slits of green light that cast barely two paces of radiance.
