Before stepping through the pried iron grille into the unmapped dark, Kezra Venn called a halt in the stone entry hall of the western service shaft. She had learned on the Saltglass quarries that plunging blindly into a void before reconciling existing records was the fastest way to lose both equipment and bearings. The entry hall was cold, paved with rough-hewn pavers of native gritstone, and smelled of wet straw from the nearby mule pens. A heavy oak tool chest, banded with rusted iron hoops, sat against the southern wall.
“Fellis, set the lantern on the lid,” Kezra said. She wiped stone dust from her knuckles against her trousers. “Yseld, keep Sergeant Kroll where he can watch the courtyard stairs, but ensure his spear guards remain outside our measuring circle.”
Fellis Dain rested his good right forearm on the oak chest. He used his teeth to help loosen the leather thongs of his map roll while his braced left hand stayed tucked safely against his ribs. He laid out the heavy calfskin scroll that Ulvan Dret’s assistant had delivered the last evening—the official foundation survey of Stonewake Citadel, bearing the title Western Underground Traverses and Bedrock Profiles, Checked by the Cartographic Corps of the Cairn Host.
