Chapter 44: A Red Candle’s Shadow
By the next hour, Lan and his new entourage had gone their separate ways to begin preparations for the campaign ahead.
Wren had already vanished into the alleys to gather reconnaissance. Thorn began preparing supplies for travel. Halmer busied himself with maps and routes, while Garran barked orders at the Mad Vipers now mobilizing under Lan’s rule.
Only Venom remained, riding beside Lan in silence as they made their way toward the southern roads.
The cold bit at their cloaks, but neither paid it any mind. Before them was the mouth of the Ranevian mines—at a time it was the pride of the region, but currently a wound in the mountainside, surrounded by skeletal scaffolds and broken tracks.
Venom grunted as he stepped ahead. "It used to be loud, this place. Back when I was still cutting my teeth as a runner, the forges down here never slept. We mined steel that fed a significant portion of the kingdom’s weapons."
Lan followed him into the shadow of the mountain. The old tracks creaked underfoot, and the stale air reeked of old iron and sweat.
"Now?" Venom continued. "It’s all but dead. We dig for weeks and find nothing but gravel and ghost ore. Every once in a while, we hit a vein, but it’s gone before we can make use of it."
They passed hollow carts, shattered crates, and rusted pickaxes. Some men labored deeper in the tunnels, but their faces bore the dull exhaustion of digging a grave that had no bottom.
"And digging deeper?" Lan asked, brushing his fingers along the stone walls.
"Impossible." Venom stopped at a broken lift platform, one of its chains long snapped. "Ever since the last collapse many years ago, we haven’t been able to reinforce the deeper tunnels. It’s too unstable. The deeper we go, the more... strange things we find. Crystals that drain your mana. Creatures that don’t die right. The kind of stuff you send letters to the capital about."
Lan arched a brow. "And what did they say?"
"They told them to seal it." Venom shrugged. "So they did. Not long after, they pulled their garrison that collected the ores out of the region."