Forty miles south of Black Crag, eighty feet below the level of the stars, beneath the vast corrugated iron ceiling of Tram Ward, there was no smell of pine and no clean mountain wind. There was only the thick, oily reek of burning animal fat, damp lime wash. The heavy sulfur heat of nine hundred sick people crowded into the freight sheds.
Len Vey sat at the zinc-plated routing table on Track One. His braced left arm was bound securely to his ribs with broad strips of waxed harness linen. His sound right hand moved steadily across the supply order manifests, dipping an iron pen into soot ink. Beside him, Bram Ash stood guard over the brass telegraph key. Meanwhile, Doma Reel checked off crates of dried lentils, salt pork, and animal fat candles.
Every ten minutes, a paired runner team stepped up to the table. Len no longer kept the complete working route in his pocket. If Morn’s guards or his own double intercepted a courier, they would find only an isolated fragment: six timbers to River Ward. Twenty pounds of animal fat to Salt Ward. Eighty yards of braided hemp cord to Quarry. Shared, decentralized procedures had replaced the solitary arrogance of personal memory.
