The sound of the trench was loud, wet, and immediate on Kezra Venn’s right side.
Down in the yellow marl of the sunken ramp, Maud Venn and four haulers were muscling the first heavy oak baffle into place across the entrance of the drainage adit. The green timbers—six inches of seasoned white oak bound with flat iron strapping—scraped heavily against the limestone stone retaining wall with a wet, splintering roar. Bram was shouting orders through his teeth, his voice high and strained as he guided the bottom pivot into its greased stone socket. Mud splashed against the trench walls. Boots churned the clay. Iron braces clattered against the shale floor.
All of that clamor poured straight into Kezra’s good right ear. It filled her head with the urgent, chaotic rattle of retreat.
To her left, the morning was quiet.
The alley between the ruined beehive kiln and the corner of the master drying shed lay wrapped in the thinning fog. The ground there was soft, covered in decades of crushed charcoal, coal screenings, and wet brick dust that muffled every footstep.
Around that blind brick corner, the second yard sentry came at a dead run.
He was a seasoned infantryman—broad-shouldered, heavy-set, his leather brigandine rattling with iron rivets. He had heard Orven’s shriek from the gate and had sprinted along the northern outer edge of the sheds to cut off the thieves before they could dive into the drainage ditches. As he cleared the curved brickwork of the kiln, he…
