The under-road drain was fifty paces of claustrophobic, bone-chilling stone.
Tomas crawled with his head low, his wool-capped skull clearing the dressed granite ceiling by barely two inches. Beneath his knees, the floor was covered in a thin, crunchy carpet of dried sheep bedding and crushed limestone powder dust, frozen dry as desert sand. Every movement raised a fine, powdery cloud that smelled of sheep fat and sixty-year-old lye.
Behind him, the steady, rhythmic scrape of Nessa’s boots and the heavy, rasping breath of Kael echoed off the stonework walls with hollow care.
At the forty-pace mark, the tunnel widened. The ceiling stepped upward into a vaulted arch of mortared granite blocks six feet high.
Tomas stood up, his spine cracking with a dull pop as he straightened his back. He raised his horn lantern, sweeping the yellow circle of light across the underground chamber.
They were standing in the lower drainage sump of Waystation Seven.
The chamber was twenty paces square, paved with massive flat stone slabs of dark stone. In the center of the floor stood an iron-grated sump pit, dry and clear of debris. Along the eastern wall, a flight of broad stone steps climbed into the darkness. It was flanked by heavy iron handrails anchored into the stonework with lead sockets.
