The double stepped forward three paces, its stride soundless on the thick spruce timbers.
Burdenless Step canceled the impact of its soles against the wood. He took in the moving shock into its marrow so that not even the grit between the planks crackled. In the silver, unblinking starlight that fell through the skeletal ribs of the watching dome, the creature looked less like an assassin and more like a weary road courier stepping into a district office after sixteen hours on the high trail.
It held Deren Vey’s brass bell in its left hand by the neck, fingers resting over the hairline fracture in the skirt to damp any lingering ring. The metal was dull, scored with old cart scars and notched by decades of postal service across the Cloudford passes, but in the double’s clean, uncalloused grip, it looked clean.
Len leaned his back harder against the flanged iron support post of the safety hoist. His right ankle had swollen until the stiff cowhide of his boot felt like an iron band bolted across the joint. Every beat of his heart drove a thudding wave of nausea up from the torn joint cords into his lower belly. His left arm, strapped tight against his ribs in its split-ash harness, felt dead and heavy, cold to the fingertips.
