Eighty-five feet beneath the railway embankment, Sapper General Thorgar was still poking the steel pipe with the tip of his axe.
Down below, Thorgar had unrolled a crude sheepskin map of the surface railway against a timber strut.
“Listen to me, you dogs,” Thorgar growled to his sapper lieutenants. “The moment we breach the ballast, we don’t waste time killing train drivers. We plant our explosive barrels directly beneath the rail fishplates. When the iron track snaps, their armored war-trains will derail and tumble down the embankment like rolling tin cans.”
The lieutenants grunted in bloodthirsty agreement, sharpening their short-handled picks against the damp granite.
“And what of their legendary Lord Master builder?” a lieutenant asked, grinning with yellow fangs. “They say he builds cities from stone in a single night.”
“He’s a pampered bricklayer who hides behind books and brass rules,” Thorgar scoffed. He spat into the drainage ditch. “When a man spends his life measuring dirt, he forgets how to bleed. When our drills pierce his railroad, he will run back to Haven-Hold like a frightened rabbit.”
“Is it a secret weapon?” a sapper sergeant asked, shining his lantern on the clean threads. “A poison dart trap?”
“It’s just an iron tube,” Thorgar sneered, spitting onto the tunnel floor. “The exiles left an old water pipe in the dirt. Drag up the blasting powder barrels. We pack the heading with forty kegs and bring down their iron road.”
