The cold fog of the Great Marsh didn’t drift. It clung to the black peat bogs like wet fleece. It smelled of decayed reeds, sulfur gas, and ancient lime mortar dissolving in standing water. A quarter of a mile from the corduroy timber road, the ruins of the Sinking Chapel of Founders rose from the dark morass like the shattered ribs of a stranded river barge. Its twelfth-century limestone walls, once squared and dressed by royal masons with tooth-chisels, were coated in black river moss and cracked by the slow, relentless subsiding of the valley floor.
Tomas Reed stepped off the floating mattress of bundled heather onto the underwater flat stone slabs of the outer porch. His cart driver boots broke through an inch of frozen crust with a sharp, glass-like snap. The freezing marsh water surged instantly around his ankles. He paused, letting his heels settle until the iron plates struck solid Pennine stone four inches beneath the surface silt. He reached down, testing the tension on his calfskin wrist brace. The damp cold was already piercing his wool coat, stiffening the gristle scar on his left forearm. But the joint remained secure.
Behind him, Sile Rook dragged the two-wheeled gear cart onto a relatively dry ledge of limestone footings, his boots finding purchase with practiced, military caution. The veteran unslung his heavy oak tall body-shield, setting its iron-shod base into a crevice between two fallen top stone ledge stones. His right hand remained clamped to the wooden handle…
