The dawn that followed the lifting of the Great Gate brought neither rain nor respite. By the third hour after sunrise, the clean northern wind had died, replaced by a hot, greasy draft from the south that smelled of scorched thick tar, smoldering moss, and raw sulfur.
Tomas Reed was inspecting the dismantled toll-spindle foundations on the raised stone road. Just then, the rattle of hoofbeats broke over the southern dike. A lone marsh pony, its shaggy coat gray with dried salt-mud and lathered with white foam, galloped through the open gap. In the saddle clung Joram, an eighteen-year-old apprentice lighterman from the Sump settlements, his face smeared with black grease, his canvas tunic torn at the collar.
“Master Reed!” the boy shouted, tumbling from the pony’s saddle into Bram’s arms before the beast had even halted. “They’ve fired the bogs! Baron Kray’s horsemen rode through Sump-End before first light! Forty retainers in yellow coats, carrying jugs of coal-pitch and whale oil!”
Tomas caught the lad by the shoulders, steadying him. “Where did they set the fire, Joram? Speak plain.”
“The drainage banks around Old Willow!” Joram gasped, his eyes wild with terror. “They poured pitch into the main peat ditches and set torch to the dried gorse. The ground is burning underground! The whole south basin is filling with black smoke! They said if the King’s court wants to read Alia Sen’s papers, they can sift the ashes from the mud!”
