Daro Kesh walked over from the doorway, set his barley mug down beside the chalkboard slate. Then he tapped two thick knuckles against the map of the upper valley that Vel had sketched in white soapstone on the corner of the pine table. The former White Heron judge agreed with Ilyra that a town writ would warn the mountain guard post within an hour. Even so, his weathered face showed none of a young fighter’s eagerness for a direct charge.
“Ilyra is right about the pigeons,” Daro said. He looked around the table at Seyun, the spearwoman, and the scroll-keeper. “The moment a town clerk in Oran reads the name Hollow Summit on a settling, the lower shrine will be swept clean or collapsed with blasting powder. Going to the mountain first is the only way to catch the rig while it’s still bolted to the rock.”
Ilyra inclined her head slightly, her hand resting on the ash shaft of her spear. “If we travel by the upper sheep tracks above the east gorge, we can reach the lower pine terraces in three days without passing a single sect toll-gate.”
“We can,” Daro agreed evenly. “And what happens on the fourth morning when we step out of the pine trees onto the stone apron of the lower shrine with bare steel in our hands? Walk me through the arithmetic, Ilyra—both the political count and the breathing count.”
