The sun had sunk beneath the western ridges by the time the drowned causeway terminated at the foot of Oak haven's northern water gate.
The fortress-town was built like an iron wedge driven into the river gorge. Its timber palisades rose forty feet above the churn of the black torrent, anchored by massive dressed-granite bastions that wept green slime into the foam. Down where the river funneled into the lower flumes, an iron portcullis hung suspended by greased chains—its heavy spikes submerged three feet into the current to prevent ingress from the swamp.
Malakor tied their mounts in a dense copse of weeping willow near the edge of the embankment. The horses were lathered and shivering from the fen’s cold mire, but they stood silent under his low command.
Aurelia crouched beside him behind a ruined masonry culvert. The night air had turned brittle, stinging her nostrils with the sharp stench of woodsmoke, roasting mutton, and river rot drifting down from the garrison battlements above.
"The winch-house is on the western pier," she whispered, her gaze tracing the silhouette of an octagonal stone tower overlooking the sluice gate. A single torch burned in an iron cage above the landing, casting long, wavering ribbons of orange across the black swirl of the water. "Two sentries on the catwalk. Four more inside the guardhouse by the warmth of the brazier."
"The current will disguise the sound of the breach," Malakor said, his shoulder brushing hers as he adjusted the leather harness of his great sword. "The Concord keeps their river guards fat on imported ale and border tolls. They are not expecting an assault from the drowned fen."
He turned his head to look at her in the gloom. The moonlight was a thin silver sliver behind breaking clouds, catching the sharp elegance of her profile and the dark, unyielding fire in her eyes.
Without warning, his hand reached out, curling around the nape of her neck beneath the hood of her cloak. His thumb pressed firmly against the hollow beneath her jaw, tilting her face toward him. His fingers were calloused, smelling of river mud and iron, but the heat radiating from his skin sent a sudden, delicious shockwave through the blood-tether binding them.
"You take the catwalk sentries," Malakor said, his voice dropping into that low, possessive rumble that made her pulse skip in the dark. "Do not let them reach the alarm bell. When the chains drop, I will clear the interior guardroom."
Aurelia’s lips parted, a sharp, dangerous smile curving her mouth. "You speak as if I need a reminder on how to cut a throat in the dark, Malakor."
"I speak," he whispered, leaning closer until his lips brushed against hers, tasting of cold mist and raw defiance, "because I expect to find you alive when the iron gate lifts. If I lose you to a river sentry after dragging you out of the Hollow Realm, I will burn this entire province to the riverbed."
The savage promise in his words settled into her core like molten lead. She leaned into the pressure of his mouth for a stolen, breathless heartbeat, her fingers gripping the cold plate of his gorget before pulling back with a sharp, ragged exhale.
"Then open the gate," she breathed, drawing her twin horn-hilted daggers from her thighs. The dark steel caught the torchlight in faint, matte-black gleams. "And try not to make too much noise."
Malakor’s eyes flared amber with savage amusement. He released her neck, drew his broad hunting knife from his belt, and slipped silently into the black water of the river flume.
Aurelia followed like a wraith.
The freezing torrent hit her chest like an iron fist, knocking the breath from her ribs, but the silver resonance in her blood surged forward to meet the shock. She kicked against the powerful eddy, letting the churn of the current carry her into the deep shadow cast by the eastern pier.
Above them, the unwitting sentries paced the wooden catwalk, completely oblivious to the apex predators rising from the cold teeth of the water below.