The cold mist in the railway cutting was thickening. It rolled down from the high crags in heavy, sulfur-scented waves that made the animal fat lanterns flicker with a pale orange halo.
Bram Ash stood over the weeping merchant. His heavy service pistol was held in his uninjured left hand. The hammer was resting at the half-cock safety. His breath whistled through his broken front teeth in short, jagged rasps that smelled of stale tobacco and blood. The anger that had tightened his neck muscles had not vanished. It had settled into a cold, hard ache that mirrored the gunshot wound tearing at his right shoulder. He reached down with his left hand, caught Bevin by the greasy fur collar of his green coat. Then he hauled him upright against the pitch casks.
“Get on your feet, Soot,” Bram growled. He shook the fat merchant until his teeth clicked together like loose dice in a leather cup. “If you want your brother to see another sunrise, you’re going to earn his breakfast with your own sweat.”
Bevin stumbled, his boots slipping in the coal slime. His hands grabbed Bram’s coat sleeve like a drowning man grasping a waterlogged reed. His cheeks were purple with cold, his bald scalp slick with sweat that had cooled into an oily glaze beneath the freezing fog.
