In the damp hard coal darkness of the coal cellar beneath the King’s Bench courtyard, the sound of Tomas’s two answering taps arrived through the copper pipe like tiny hammer blows on silver: CLANG... CLANG.
Nessa Vale didn’t move a muscle. She remained kneeling on the coal heap. Her good right ear was pressed to the velvet bell of her aimed tube. Her eyes tracking the flickered yellow lantern light that suddenly spilled down the wooden cellar stairs from the courtyard above. The dry oak treads creaked under heavy, unrushed boot-heels. Two men in iron-tipped boots dropping with lanterns and drawn truncheons.
Sile Rook was already in motion. The scarred veteran of the Flood March moved with the terrifying, soundless economy of an old soldier who had spent twenty years hunting scavengers through ruined river castle walls. He didn’t draw a sword. In the tight, four-foot brick vaulting of a coal cellar, a three-foot blade was a useless debt that would catch on every ceiling arch. Instead, he stepped into the deep shadow behind the massive brick coal-chute, planting his feet wide in the hard coal slack. His massive oak tall body-shield, three feet wide and five feet tall, bound around its rim with three-quarter-inch rawhide bands, was braced firmly against his left shoulder. In his right hand, his iron-wood hooked pruning blade was held low. The curved steel beak pointed at the ground.
