The stone chamber smelled of ancient river silt, damp lime, and cold iron. The ceiling vaulted thirty feet above the sump, lost in shadows so dense that the hanging guide cables of the dark rock drop-gate were invisible until they quivered against the weeping stonework. Water fell in nonstop, heavy drops from the stone wall-brackets overhead. It struck the black pool with hollow plinks that echoed like small brass hammers against an anvil. Every drop seemed to amplify the cold that was creeping up through the soles of Len’s boots, a damp, stone chill that settled into his shins. Then it made his bruised knees ache with every breath.
The hunter advanced through the knee-deep water without the dragging pushback that slowed Len’s boots. It moved with zero-drag ease, its feet skimming the gravel bed as though the two-foot head of water were nothing more than a draft of mountain air. In its right hand, the stolen pinch-bar remained level, its chisel point glinting with a dull leaden sheen in the faint sulfur soft glow that clung to the wet limestone. The creature’s face was an unbroken mirror of Len’s own features from the morning of Day 1. Smooth skin untouched by the scab on Len’s jaw, clean hair free of the coal soot that blackened Len’s collar, and gray courier eyes devoid of fatigue.
