Before any journey into the northern wilderness could begin, the physical custody of the two hundred crates in Gallery North had to be secured under royal law.
Tomas Reed, Nessa Vale, and Kael spent twenty-four hours transforming the buried castle into a functioning salvage base.
Their first task was the air-flow shaft.
Located fifty paces behind the Great Hall, the air-flow shaft was an upright channel five feet square, lined with dressed limestone blocks, that climbed forty feet through the rock ceiling to emerge on the open snowfield above the buried stronghold.
Tomas stood at the base of the shaft, looking up through the square stone chimney. At the top, forty feet above, a square of blinding white sky was visible. A window of daylight framed by the limestone rim.
“The draft is sound,” Tomas observed. He felt the cold, dry air drawing smoothly up the chimney pipe. “The snow above has drifted around the chimney mouth, but the opening is clear. If we rig a heavy timber tripod over the top, we can hoist the crates straight up from the storehouse floor to the surface.”
Kael was already measuring the timber beams they had brought down from the stables.
