Ivara Quill watched the soles of Bram Ash’s boots vanish into the black square of the coal chute.
The heavy iron draft flap settled back against its frame with a dull clang. It was followed by the muffled thud of the inside door being dogged shut from within the cellar. Then, silence. The cold damp of the cutting rushed back to fill the void. It was broken only by the distant thrum of the Great Quartz core miles to the north and the nonstop hiss of high-pressure steam leaking from an overhead pipe rim.
She stood alone with Len Vey on the wet flat stone slabs of the boiler house platform.
Between them and the granite foundation sat the four-wheeled hospital gurney. Its wicker sides were splintered from the transit down the switchbacks. Its straw mattress, soaked with antiseptic wash and yellow serum from Mara’s scalds, gave off a sharp reek cutting through the sulfur damp. It sat squarely across the steel rails. A glaring marker telling any tracker who had been carried and where the wheels had stopped.
Ivara didn’t leave the cart intact. In a province governed by office surveillance and armed patrols, an intact cart was a tactical asset for the pursuit. Vance’s men could hitch it to a hand-car, mount a copper-flame lantern on the support posts, and sweep the cutting with focused light.
