The heavy oak postern door thudded shut two hundred feet below, its iron bolts sliding home with a double clack that vibrated through the conduit lines straight into Noll’s core.
Down in the west culvert, Sergeant Berr stood in the torchlight with his skull firmly socketed back onto his neck, his rusted mail dripping moisture onto the gravel. Fen was leaning against the stone jamb with both hands on his knees, his surgeon’s apron stained with soot, laughing softly in a ragged, breathless wheeze.
“They dropped their spears, sergeant,” Fen murmured, shaking his head. “I have served with the Crown muster for twelve years. I have seen cavalry charges break on pike-squares and I have seen siege mines blow redoubts into the river, but I have never seen two thousand infantry back away from an empty ditch because one man walked down the slope with his head in his ribs.”
“They know what happened under this hill,” Berr answered, his gauntleted hand resting on the hilt of his service sword. “They were waiting for someone to come out of the dark and tell them the debt was real. Now tell the showman to finish the verse before their officers start shooting their own file-leaders.”
