The sound of iron-shod boots came from the upper gallery, not with the measured tread of a patrol, but with the frantic, stumbling rhythm of a man running for his life.
Down the spiraling granite stairs cut into the living rock of Old Hill, the noise echoed like hammers striking cold lead. Shouts followed—muffled, hoarse cries that bounced off the ashlar walls, drowned half out by the high, screeching whine of the overheated Crown Furnace. Small showers of dried mortar and pulverized lime drifted down through the ventilation shafts, settling like pale soot upon the rime-frosted flagstones of the vault.
“Jon!” a voice bellowed, ragged and choked with smoke. “Jon! Where are you?”
Tobin burst into the circular chamber, his knees nearly giving out as his boots hit the floor. The young runner’s leather jack was shredded across his left shoulder, exposing a bloody furrow where an iron quarrel had grazed his collarbone. In his right hand he carried an empty crossbow, its bowstring severed and dragging in the frost. He caught the arched stone doorway with his left palm, his fingers leaving smears of black grease and blood against the limestone, his chest heaving as if he had run three leagues through marsh mud.
