Breaking through an ancient sealed gatehouse needed high-pressure leverage rather than battering rams.
Giles Croft stood on the forward narrow high walkway of the Iron Mole, observing the thirty-foot black glass portals of Karak-Dum through his glasses. Behind him, Master Borin Bronze-Lung and Foreman Corbin Cross were positioning two fifty-ton high-pressure toe-jacks beneath the green rust-crusted bronze locking bars.
“Gentle pressure on the hand-pumps, Corbin,” Giles directed.
“We’re unseating an ancient hinge, not demolishing a wall. If the top door beam shears, thirty tons of loose rubble will block the entrance.”
The high-pressure cylinders extended with a steady hiss.
Under forty tons of upward force, the ancient bronze pins groaned, shed three hundred years of green rusting, and lifted cleanly out of their granite sockets. With a deep, echoing shudder, the black glass gate swung inward half a foot, releasing a puff of stale, cool air into the digging cut.
Inside the dark cave beyond, hundreds of faint, yellow light points flickered into view.
They weren’t candles. They were small grease lamps made of dried bone, burning animal fat in shallow stone dishes.
