The outpost’s gate stood open when the inspection wagon arrived.
Beyond it, a road of packed black stone passed between workshops and storage sheds toward a long building on the hillside. Steam rose from a vent above its roof. Farther east, beyond a second fence, the land fell away into a broad basin filled with shallow water and pale reeds.
Iven saw the Marcher before he saw the machinery around it. A ridge of dark mineral plates rose above the reeds. The creature lay on its side in the basin, its massive head turned toward the hills. One eye was open. A lattice of pipes and platforms surrounded the exposed flank; canvas screens hid part of the work from the road.
No city rode on its back. No towers or streets obscured the line of its body. Iven had seen Mercy from the ground after the evacuation, but the sight of another Marcher still made the scale of the platforms look absurd. They were small things fastened to a living body that had traveled the Reach long before the outpost existed.
A woman waited at the gate with two guards and a man in a clean gray coat. She wore a leather apron over her work clothes and carried a ledger under one arm.
