The western sally port of Fort Karst was located at the end of a long, dropping vaulted gallery carved from the mountain’s raw dark rock ribs.
At three in the morning, the gallery was colder than a burial vault. The air smelled of damp stone, horse sweat. The sharp, nervous reek of men who knew they were about to commit murder.
Four heavy, canvas-topped freight wagons stood hitched in single file along the inclined tunnel, their iron-rimmed wheels muffled in thick strips of oiled burlap. The draft mules stood in silence, their muzzles tied shut with leather thongs to keep them from braying in the dark. Piled high beneath the canvas covers were brass-bound chests of silver bullion, bolts of dyed southern damask silk, and crates of refined bitter pine-resin—the liquid wealth of the High Khorat Merchant Trade group.
Gathered near the massive oak timber bar of the outer sally port were seven men.
They wore quilted wool travel doublets under dark cloaks, armed with heavy hunting cutlasses and cocked wheel-lock pistols. At their center stood Merchant-Councilor Bartok. The florid gentleman had pulled an otter-fur cowl over his thinning grey hair, holding an unshielded brass lantern in one trembling hand and a rolled slip of parchment in the other.
