The cherry-red ember bit into the oil-soaked hemp with a venomous hiss.
A trail of orange sparks flared across the dark iron catwalk, racing along the beam like a scurrying fiery centipede. High in the shadows, Blood-Captain Varga turned his back on the spy-hole, laughing with raspy, guttural satisfaction as he wiped tobacco flakes from his lower lip.
“Seal the catwalk hatch,” Varga ordered, gesturing toward the heavy iron trapdoor behind him. “Let the mountain do what forty men couldn’t.”
Shadow-Captain Kross slipped through the narrow iron hatch first, his black cloak whispering against the damp granite. Varga followed, dropping the heavy iron bolt into its reinforced socket with a dull, final thud.
Sixty feet below, the vast cavern of the sixth gallery was wrapped in cold, subterranean stillness.
Sera Thorne stepped onto the raised stone dais in the center of the chamber. Her boots clicked softly against the red gravel floor, the sound echoing off the towering walls of raw cinnabar stone.
The solitary tallow lamp hung motionless from an iron chain, casting long, wavering shadows across the jagged rock. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, each drop striking the stones with a slow, rhythmic tap.
Rusted iron rails ran across the cavern floor, half-buried under red sand and shattered timber ties. Discarded ore carts sat tilted against the walls, their iron wheels crusted with thick layers of orange rust.
