The first crate was not sunk in the black water. It sat four feet above the waterline, lodged in a forgotten wall niche behind the air-flow chimney pipe.
Tomas found it while inspecting the stonework anchors for the spruce raking shores. His mica lantern beam cut through the cellar dusk. It caught the dull gleam of rusted through lead banding on a hardwood chest half-buried under a drift of dry bat droppings and crumbled lime mortar.
“Sile,” Tomas called softly, keeping his voice level and low. “Hold the line. Don’t strike the stone.”
Sile Rook froze on the sloping landing, his bronze hammer arrested mid-swing. Nessa stepped down from her survey station, moving with deliberate, feline balance along the oak cleats. Her brass hearing horn was held ready.
Tomas knelt on the dry granite ledge. The crate was three arm-lengths wide, crafted from seasoned heart-hardwood two inches thick, secured with heavy lead straps instead of iron to prevent rust. But nineteen years of fuming sulfur vapor had done what moisture couldn’t. The lead had swelled into a brittle, whitish-gray crust, cracked like dry lake mud.
Across the front panel, burned into the dense wood with an iron brand, was the royal ordnance mark. The crossed mortars of the Capital Arsenal, surrounded by the skull-and-hourglass of Class-Four volatile munitions. Above the lock plate, stamped into an oval lead seal, was the personal cypher of Master Armorer Vane. Batch 88, Inspected at Oakhaven, Sealed for Siege Transport.
