The darkness in the gallery was not merely the absence of light. It was an active, oppressive presence that amplified every heartbeat.
Hook-Hand Liu’s breath came in ragged, wet rasps that rattled in his throat like dry peas in a bladder.
“Cao?” Liu called again, his voice dropping an octave, turning thin and reedy with terror. “Where are you, Cao? Answer me!”
No sound came from the right. The gallery was dead silent, save for the faint, steady dripping of groundwater sixty paces back along the tramway.
In Liu’s mind, the quiet was far more terrifying than a shout.
Thin Ghost Cao was not a man who held his tongue in a fight. He was a foul-mouthed rat who cursed continuously to blade collar his courage. For Cao to go fully silent within two breaths of the torch going out meant only one of two things. Either Cao had abandoned them and fled down the shaft, or Cao was dead.
And no man could flee down an obstacle-choked gallery in total darkness without kicking a stone or cursing a timber bent.
“Wei!” Liu hissed, turning his head wildly toward the central rail where Scarface Wei was fumbling with his broadsword. “Something’s wrong! Cao isn’t answering! The kid is—”
