On the western outer edge of the Salt Ward. There, the white bitter salt melted rock waste beds met the steep dark rock switchbacks leading up to the Quarry, the silence of the cut anchor was total.
For twelve years, this two-mile hall of dead bitter-salt flats had been a zone of terror for the workers of Rookvale. It was the main transit route between the glass kilns and the limestone digging pits. But it was also a registered patrol sector under the direct power of the city court. To enforce the forced curfew and prevent the smuggling of uninspected salt, lime, and tools, Magistrate Pell had requisitioned twelve town patrol copies from the Salt Ward Claimant Cabinet six years ago.
Hollis Fenn stood sentry on the raised stonework platform of Milestone Four, his heavy wool coat buttoned to the chin, an iron-shod sounding pole braced against the flat stone slabs. Beside him, mounted to the stone pillar, sat a hooded copper lantern whose green-tinted beam lit up a thirty-foot semi-circle of damp, white dust.
Through his brass field telescope, Hollis watched the flat expanse of the melted rock waste beds.
Across the gray-white plain, twelve figures were pacing their assigned patrol loops. They wore the heavy oilcloth smocks, wooden clogs, and broad-brimmed felt hats of kiln foremen and gate guards who had died during the great office strike of Year 6. Their movements were terrifyingly uniform. Eight paces forward, a three-second pause to inspect an empty drainage ditch, a…
