The transit from the Orchard terrace down into the Salt Ward followed the old heavy-duty water chute road. A steep, switchbacking cutting carved directly into the gray bitter salt shale. The heat swung wildly as they dropped. That left the damp, organic greenhouse air behind for the blistering, throat-scorching draft of the salt kilns. Long before they reached the gates, the orange glare of the draft furnaces stained the low cloud belly overhead. That turned the black sky into a bruise-colored canopy of copper and sulfur smoke.
Ivara carried the stamped pledge in her leather field pouch. She walked a half-pace ahead of Len to set the pace. She watched his feet. The boy was compensating for his bruised ankle, his gait slightly uneven on the loose shale. But his Road Sense was keeping him on the compacted wheel ruts where the footing was solid. Every time his heel struck a patch of loose melted rock waste, his stance shifted before the stone could slip. His Surefoot took in the dynamic shock with the natural economy of a courier who had spent years on mountain scree.
The road was narrow, bordered on the downhill side by a rusted strap-iron guardrail that shook with the roar of the lower works. Below them, stretching across two miles of bitter salt flats, the Salt Ward lay like an open fire bed. Hundreds of low brick sheds, kilns, and annealing lehrs vented plumes of dense white smoke into the gloom, lit up by the…
