The scent of sulfur candles preceded them by thirty paces.
Ren Vale stood on the dark rock shelf outside the grotto entrance. His left arm was bound across his chest in the rigid ram’s-horn splint, hidden beneath the folds of his frayed wool cloak. In his right hand, he held his mammoth bone awl, its silver-tipped metal pen resting lightly against a roll of cured sheep thick parchment.
Three figures rounded the bend of the drainage chimney pipe. Their boots splashed through the shallow black salt water.
They weren’t the armored shock-troops of the Harvester squads. They wore long surcoats of stiff, wax-treated plum broadcloth, trimmed with greasy otter fur and stamped at the breast with the three-faceted cog of the Underground Revenue Bureau. Across their shoulders hung leather satchels bulging with lead-sealed tax rolls. At their belts swung short, heavy lead truncheons designed to shatter stone crusts without sparking in sulfur pockets.
The leader was a thick-necked man with a nose like a split beet and eyes the color of stale puddle-water. Over his right ear rested an iron tally-slate and a grease pencil.
“Hold the landing, vagrant,” the lead court guard barked, stopping five paces short of the shelf. He unrolled a long parchment strip with a snap of his wrists. “Court guard-Assayer Gurn, representing the High Chamber of Mines. We’re auditing the sector three overflow. Unlisted occupancy of a third-tier pocket grotto constitutes secret stone habitation.”
