The lower western guardhouse of Stonewake Citadel was a cold, windowless bunker dug directly into the bedrock beneath the outer artillery castle wall. Water seeped continuously down the sweating green limestone walls, collecting in shallow gutters that smelled of stale lime, damp rot, and old iron chains.
Three detained freight drovers who had been held for curfew violations had already been released onto the outer road under Hest’s general amnesty. But in the fourth and lowest cell, behind a heavy door of iron-banded oak, the final civilian remained.
Kezra Venn and Paxa Sel dropped the slippery stone flight into the cell hall, lit up by a smoking pine torch carried by Guard Sergeant Kaelen. The sergeant’s heavy boots clattered loudly on the wet steps, his iron keys clinking against his belt. He unlocked the massive padlock and shoved the heavy door inward on screeching hinges. Then, the lantern light fell upon a terrible bundle of ragged blankets lying on a bed of damp barley straw in the far corner.
The man lying there was Morren, a thirty-eight-year-old independent quarry stone-cutter from the northern valleys. Three weeks ago, while working on forced repairs along the high artillery ramp under Krail’s orders, a heavy two-wheeled timber wagon loaded with granite blocks had suffered an axle fracture. The wagon had overturned directly onto Morren, crushing his left hip, fracturing three lower ribs, and pinning his legs beneath the wreckage.
