Bram Ash didn’t look back when Melli’s hammer struck the chain. He didn’t look back when the carbine discharged with an ear-splitting roar that shook the dark rock walls.
He ran with his chin tucked into his chest, his boots finding purchase on the narrow twelve-inch strip of ungreased flat stone slabs bordering the drainage gutter. Every stride sent an explosion of white-hot agony through his right shoulder. There, the lead ball had shattered the acromion bone two days ago. The torn muscle fibers beneath his collarbone were grinding together like wet sand, each impact tearing fresh tiny blood vessel beds until blood was bubbling through his fustian waistcoat and dripping from the hem of his shirt.
Behind him, the three-ton flatcar was speeding up down the four-percent grade. Clack, clack, the heavy cast-iron wheels singing on the cold rails as the heavy rush of six fifty-gallon barrels took command of the tracks.
And above that iron rumble came the sound of boots landing on the curved oak staves. The light, uncanny, balanced impact of someone who didn’t feel the violent sway of the rolling chassis.
Bram reached the south delivery portal.
The portal consisted of two huge oak leaves, eight feet wide and ten feet high, heavy with slanted wrought-iron bracing straps three inches broad. Across the center of the two doors lay the drop-bar: an eight-inch square white oak timber, eight feet long, resting in two heavy iron stirrups bolted through the four-foot dark rock jambs. Above the…
