The journey to the Summer Keep would take three or four weeks depending on weather. There were over four hundred lords, ladies, servants and other support staff, and nearly a thousand soldiers both on foot and on horse. The supply train was over a kilometre long.
Ethelred rode with the vanguard for most of the journey, though he rode in his carriage once the road began to climb into the mountains. On the seventeenth day, Lothar, a scout from the vanguard, returned to share the news that the vanguard had reached the pit of Mt Ethelred II. Ethelred called a halt and rode to the head of the column. The road was narrow, and horse handlers were attempting to keep their charges calm. It was not a long ride, and when he arrived, Ethelred dismounted, approached the edge and knelt to inspect it.
The edge of the pit was cut shear, and while the ground around it was loose dirt, the sides themselves were hard and vertical, descending hundreds of yards into darkness. Ethelred placed his hands on the edge and leant out and tried to see the bottom. He moved to grab a stone to toss into the pit, and only then noticed the blood welling from deep cuts in both his palms. “This edge is incredibly sharp, sharper even than a barber’s knife! Chancellor, take note that the merchants have broken the agreement, as they have mined deeper than the foot of the mountain. Send for a physician, I will have need of him for these cuts. Gods, they are deep.”
