The gray granite pier supporting the eastern arch of the ninth door was sweating cold drops of condensation that smelled of sulfur and dead ferns.
The Last Guest leaned its weight against the damp stone, resting two long, chalk-pale fingers against the fluted molding. When its sleeve shifted, the pewter place settings chimed—a dull, rhythmic clatter like tin cups rattled against prison bars.
“Look at the ridge, Host,” the Last Guest said. Its voice had the hollow, whistling drawl of a chimney flue on a November night. “You broke the camp in the valley. You bought the carters with turnips, and you gave the ditch-diggers clean rags for their coughs. But the crest is not bought. The three companies under the black dragon hold their boar spears toward your gate, and every spearhead is a sworn line in the King’s commission.”
Noll Vey kept his right stone hand clamped hard over the limestone witness rail. Where his left arm had been sheared away by the falling kitchen beam, the jagged gray fracture ground against his ribs whenever he breathed.
“They are nine hundred men on a frozen rock, Guest,” Noll said, his stone throat raspy. “Their supply wagons are unhitched in the ditch. Their noon battery is quiet. In two hours they will have frozen toes and empty bellies.”
