The demon-eyed adventurer stepped through into a wider chamber carved clean from the cliff and reinforced with timber braces driven deep into the stone. The ceiling sat low enough to press sound downward and keep it there.

A single lantern burned on a hook near the far wall, its flame steady and unremarkable.

Men sat along the stone.

They were not guards, but workers. Dust-caked clothes clung to thin frames, bare feet pressed flat to the packed dirt. Their wrists were rubbed raw where rope had worn through skin, healed badly, then been bound again.

They shared the same posture, backs against the wall, heads angled forward, eyes unfocused. Their breathing layered the room, shallow and uneven, as if they had learned to keep it quiet.

None of them spoke or looked up.

A second lantern burned deeper inside the chamber, half-hidden behind a support beam. Its light shifted once as a shadow crossed it, then held.

He adjusted his angle and moved.

His boots met packed dirt instead of stone, the sound swallowed by the quarry's rhythm above as chains moved, iron struck, and distant voices carried through layers of rock. He passed the seated workers without slowing. One man's fingers twitched as the former paladin went by. Another swallowed and lowered his head further.

They did not move.

A narrow passage opened to the right, and he entered it.

The air changed at once. Sweat hung heavy. Old blood soaked into the wood. Iron left too long in damp clung to the back of the throat. The passage led into a small room where a table stood against the far wall and a stool lay on its side. A ledger sat open where it had fallen, a quill still resting in ink. Chains hung from a ring sunk into the stone.

One chain was in use.

The apprentice sat beneath it on the floor with his knees drawn up. One wrist was bound in iron. The other arm was wrapped tight against his ribs. His hair had been cut short without care. One eye was swollen shut, and the other stayed fixed on the dirt as if looking up had stopped being useful.

He was breathing.

That was enough.

Gabriel crossed the room.

The boy flinched as his shadow reached him, shoulders tightening as the chain rattled once against the stone. He knelt and placed two fingers against the boy's throat.

A pulse answered.

Alive.

The demon-eyed adventurer's hand moved to the manacle. Simple iron. One hinge. One pin. Church issue, built fast and meant to hold rather than endure. He slid the strip of metal into the hinge seam and applied pressure.

A footstep sounded outside the room.

He did not look back.

The pin shifted, then slid free into his palm as another step sounded closer. He opened the manacle and caught the boy's wrist as it dropped, limp at first, then curling reflexively as the fingers clenched in expectation of pain that did not come.

The door behind them opened.

A guard stepped inside.

The man wore a Church cloak and carried a spear in his right hand and a lamp in his left. His eyes went first to Gabriel, then to the open manacle, and finally to the apprentice. His mouth opened as if to shout.

The former paladin moved.

He closed the distance in a single step and caught the guard's lamp wrist with his left hand. He twisted hard until bone shifted, and the lamp fell from the guard's grip and died in the dirt without a sound. The spear came up too late.

He drove the edge of his hand into the guard's throat, straight and controlled. The sound that escaped was not a shout, only a broken breath. As the spear dipped, he took it without changing his grip and turned it smoothly. The point went under the jaw and out behind the ear.

The guard dropped.

He did not watch him fall. He hauled the apprentice to his feet and shoved him toward the doorway. The boy stumbled through, barely keeping his balance, and the demon-eyed adventurer followed.

Movement had already begun in the outer chamber.

Two guards were turning toward them, drawn by the disruption that had not quite become noise. One had a short sword halfway clear of its sheath. The other was lifting a horn.

Gabriel crossed the space and threw the spear.

It punched through the horn guard's shoulder and drove him back into a timber brace, pinning him there. The horn struck the ground and rolled away. The guard screamed once, then sagged as his breath failed him.

The swordsman stepped in.

He met him.

The first exchange glanced off the guard's blade. The former paladin shifted his weight and drove a knee into the man's thigh. The leg gave and the guard went down hard. The blade followed, sliding beneath the ribs and angling up.

The guard's breath stopped.

He pulled the weapon free and turned.

A third guard emerged from the tunnel mouth with his spear raised, eyes wide as he took in the bodies, the pinned man, and the blood spreading into the dirt. He hesitated.

The demon-eyed adventurer did not.

He stepped inside the spear's reach and caught the shaft mid-thrust, twisting until the guard lost leverage at once. The blade cut across the man's forearm, clean and controlled.

The spear fell.

He drove the pommel into the guard's face until bone gave, sending him staggering back against the wall. The blade followed without pause, passing through the mouth and out the back of the skull. The body slid down the stone and settled where it fell.

He stepped past it.

The apprentice stood where he had been left, back pressed to the rock, eyes wide and unfocused. His breathing came fast and thin, held tight as if even sound felt dangerous. Gabriel took his wrist and pulled. The boy followed without resistance.

They moved deeper into the chamber.

The seated workers finally looked up, not at him, but at the apprentice. Something crossed their faces. It was not hope or relief. It was recognition, or warning. None of them spoke, but they shifted aside without being told.

One man rose too slowly. His shoulder drifted into the narrow path between stone and beam.

The former paladin cut his throat.

The body collapsed and cleared the space it had blocked. No one else moved.

A shout echoed from the far tunnel, uncertain and raised too late. Footsteps followed, faster now. He kept moving.

At the far end of the chamber, a guard rounded the corner and froze as he took in the bodies. His mouth opened, but the demon-eyed adventurer crossed the distance and cut him down before sound formed. The guard fell where he stood.

He turned back as the apprentice's legs buckled. Gabriel caught him and hauled him upright. The weight was wrong, too light and unsteady, but he did not slow.

Another shout rose behind them, closer this time.

He turned and placed himself between the apprentice and the tunnel mouth, waiting.

A guard charged into view with his sword raised, panic driving motions learned by rote rather than training. He stepped forward and drove the blade through the man's chest. The guard collapsed backward without another sound.

He did not follow him down. He drew the apprentice close and braced one arm across the boy's chest to keep him standing.

Silence settled again.

Bodies lay where they had fallen. Blood soaked into dirt and wood and disappeared into shadow. The apprentice breathed against his arm in short, sharp pulls, each one sounding like it might fail.

Gabriel bent and snapped the remaining chain free from the wall. The iron ring tore loose with a dull crack, and he shoved the length aside.

The apprentice was free.

Not safe.Not gone.Free.

Footsteps sounded again in the tunnel, more than one this time.

He tightened his grip on the boy and turned toward the corridor he had used to enter.

The work was not finished.

But it could not be undone.

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