The western quarry was an amphitheater of grey granite, carved into the roots of the Old Hill over two centuries of pick-work and lime-splitting. Its high, sheer walls rose sixty feet above the quarry floor, sheathed in sheets of black winter ice that caught the smoky red flare of eight iron pitch-cressets. The air tasted of sulfur, pulverized stone, and wet oak sawdust, thick with the sound of iron beetles ringing against adze heads.
At the center of the northern face, where the ancient haulage tunnel pierced the rock, Alden Bram had constructed a masterpiece of architectural deception.
To an enemy surveyor looking through a brass spyglass from the river bluffs, it appeared to be a secondary sally port hastily fortified with second-growth timber—an obvious weak point in Harth’s western perimeter. It had an outer archway of dressed limestone blocks, iron strap-hinges mortised into the stone with lead grout, and an imposing portcullis of eight-inch square white oak timbers bound together with forged iron brackets.
In reality, the passage behind the portcullis did not lead into the town. It ended sixty paces deeper into the hill at a blank, solid wall of living granite.
“A false fortification must have flaws, Jon,” Bram said, his voice echoing off the stone face as he tapped the outer lintel with his notched ash cane. “If you build it too strong, the enemy sappers will look at it and say, That is a trap; no sensible commander puts three feet of seasoned oak over…
