The rope pulley groaned as four heavy baked-clay crocks dropped through the bedrock fissure.
Creeeak—thud.
An Ni unhooked the hemp sling and guided the last glazed jar onto the dark rock floor of the underground vault.
Each crock was sealed with red beeswax and bound with iron wire, bearing the desert caravan stamp of salted camel hump animal fat.
Twenty pounds of rendered fat per jar.
Eighty pounds of packed living fuel.
“Four pots,” An Ni said, wiping grease and crushed lime from her knuckles. “Every drop we traded from the nomad clan in the dunes.”
She rested her hand on the cold rim of the lead jar.
