The first leg of the trip, out to Beggar’s Rest, was easy enough. After Ibb had let them through the gate, they’d all sparked glowstones and spent the next couple of hours walking amid blue-tinged shadows. The deep tunnels were considerably messier than the more civilized parts of the underground, littered with chunks of fallen stone from the initial collapse four hundred years previously, mixed with detritus and the occasional moldering skeleton of more recent visitors.

As far as live inhabitants went, they saw only distant glimmers, torches or glowstones that vanished as soon as they came into sight. A single scuttling plaguespawn, not much bigger than a rat, skittered down a side corridor as they passed through an intersection. It threw itself at Yora, tiny bone-jaws clicking; disdaining her spear, she simply brought her boot down on the thing, crushing its fragile body to a sticky pulp.

“Sometimes,” Ibb said, looking with distaste at the mashed remnants, “I think the only reason Deepfire hasn’t been overrun is because even the plaguespawn can’t get enough to eat.”

“I thought the Legions cleaned these tunnels out,” Harrow said, frowning at the mess.

“Nothing stays clean for four hundred years,” Kit said. “There’s hidden entrances all over the mountains. Plaguespawn can find their way into anything, given long enough.”

“The Auxies are supposed to sweep down here periodically,” Yora said, scraping her boot against a rock. “Not that Raskos can be bothered.”

Beggar’s Rest was visible long before they reached it, the flickering yellow-orange light of its fires gradually painting the walls of the tunnel as they approached and drowning out the fainter blue of the glowstones. A slight upslope led to a large, round chamber, with a dozen tunnels projecting in all directions like spokes from a wheel. There was a single large fire at the center of the room, with a crowd of hunched, shadowy shapes clustered around it, and a few other campfires and makeshift tents scattered about. A pair of big men with long staffs gave them a cursory look as they came in, and Ibb gave them a friendly nod.

“Last bit of warmth before the deeps,” Ibb said. “Take this chance to get your coats on. Stay close. I want to ask some questions.”

Harrow walked behind Yora as they picked their way through the crowd. People turned to stare as they passed, and Harrow glared at anyone who got too near. Most of the people clustered by the bonfire seemed to be beggars in truth, skinny, ragged men and women, dressed in scraps, with a few children drawn in close. Their skin was a uniform gray with dust and grime, and filthy hair hung in sticky clumps. Nearly all were maimed somehow—missing arms and legs, hands and feet, gaping eye sockets that made Gyre’s own scar itch, big patches of scabby, diseased flesh.