The eighth bell of Flood Month struck with a heavy, rhythmic cadence that set the leaded panes of the River Lantern trembling in their zinc cames.
Operation Dawn Assembly did not begin with the blowing of war horns or the shouting of heralds. It began with the quiet, methodical unrolling of municipal parchment on tavern tables, the scrape of iron keys in warehouse padlocks, and the clatter of hand-barrows rolling across wet cobblestones.
In the taproom, Jon Hale stood behind the polished oak bar, where forty-eight individual slips of vellum lay arrayed in four tidy ranks. Each slip bore the stamped wax bone seal of the Harth Town Council and the ink signature of Lady Signe Lorr.
Sixteen-year-old Tobin burst through the taproom doors, his grey mare tied to the hitching rail outside, his wool riding cloak steaming with river damp. His face was flushed with the exertion of sprinting up from the livery ditch, his hands grasping the lead message tube Jon had given him at dawn.
“The south quarter guildhalls are open, Master Hale,” Tobin reported, his breath coming in quick, shallow puffs. “Master Finch has thirty weavers at the hall doors waiting for the wagon slips. Master Holt has the forge brazier banked with charcoal at the smithy, ready to turn sixty iron timber clamps.”
