When Ysabet came back to the fire, Ashaun and Sister Osha had returned from the upper ridge track. Osha sat on a flat pack-stone with her heavy archive case open across her knees, checking the oiled wool wrappings around her three copied memory stones and her father Amren’s small leather-bound notebook to make sure the morning damp had not crept inside the clasps. Ashaun stood by the simmering pot, her translucent stone left forearm braced against her hip while she pared a frost-softened turnip with her right hand and her heavy camp knife.
“There are glassback tracks by the broken pen rail,” Ysabet said without preamble, stepping into the circle of warmth. “Right forefoot drags the fourth claw sideways.”
Ashaun paused with the knife blade half through the purple turnip rind. She had traveled with Ysabet long enough to know the story of the two bent right fingers, even the parts Ysabet never offered around campfires. Osha glanced up from her notebook, her fingers resting on the brass latch of her case.
From inside the turf hut, Deyun thumped his newly whittled pine crutch against the low doorpost and hopped out into the pale morning light. He grimaced as he eased himself down onto the split-log bench beside the fire, stretching his splinted calf out over a folded grain sack.
