Geth Marr and Edda took up the ash-wood poles of the litter, moving with the practiced, timed together rhythm of quarry riggers carrying a fragile payload across an uneven bench.
They carried Len Vey out of the backup station, down the north gallery where the cut paired seals hung cold in their cabinet, past the shattered glass of the watching slits. Through the twisted iron portal that opened onto the high watching terrace of the Star tower.
The sub-zero mountain gale struck Len like a bucket of freezing river water dumped over his face.
He gasped, his teeth clattering wildly against each other, his good left hand instinctively clamping over the thick linen webbing that bound his right ribs. The sudden heat drop from the ninety-degree heat of the service station to fifteen degrees below zero drove the breath from his contused lungs, chilling the sweat on his neck to frost in less than twenty seconds.
Beside the litter, Geth set the forward tips of the pine poles down upon the granite flags, wedging two timber blocks beneath the runners so the stretcher tilted thirty degrees upward against the stone railing, propping Len’s shoulders so he could see across the entire country basin. Edda tucked a second horse blanket around his legs. He tucked the coarse wool beneath his boots to keep the freezing wind from piercing his split soles.
