Dawn didn’t bring light to Fort Karst. It brought only a thickening of the gloom. That turned the black dark rock castle walls the color of a bruised iron skillet.
Ren stood in the drafty courtyard of the inner keep, his breath plume billowing white in the freezing mountain air. The two concussed legionary guards from the night parley had been stripped of their black plate and shoved into the cold dry-storage cells beneath the western tower. In the center of the yard, three iron fire bowls burned with damp pine knots, sputtering thick, pine-scented smoke that stung the eyes and did little to warm the slush underfoot.
The heavy oak door of the keep groaned open.
Commander Raymond Cole emerged, leaning heavily on a peeled ash walking staff. His weathered face was the color of curdled milk, the bandage beneath his wool tunic soaked through with a fresh circle of dark lung-blood. Two grey-bearded guard post sergeants walked behind him, their hands resting uneasily on the handles of their rusted broadswords.
Cole stopped three paces from Ren, his breath wheezing through his ruined chest with a wet, rattling whistle. His pale blue eyes swept over the bloodstained flat stone slabs near the writing hall stairs, then came to rest on Ren’s frayed lambskin apron and violet-stained fingers.
