Climbing back across the ironstone ridge crest against the teeth of the wind, Daro Kesh measured his stride by the hitching rise and fall of Senn’s ribs against his shoulder blades. Every third step on the upward slope, the carpenter’s chest muscle caught at the fourth-rib scar, until they passed back inside the half-league radius where the mountain’s current-carrying black flaky rock carried the faint, split pulse of the summit pillar.
Daro’s boots crossed that stone seam. Then, he felt the tension in Senn’s chest ease by half a finger’s breadth. Not cured, not free. But mechanically supported by the surrounding field streaming down from the vault where Nara Soth still stood. The physical proof of how deeply the rig had rewritten the man’s body made Daro’s jaw set harder.
He didn’t creep toward the hidden supply chute in the dark like a thief hoping to slip a parcel under a gate. Ten paces from the overhanging shale lip where the iron-bound timber door sat recessed into the cliff wall, Daro halted in the center of the path, drew his split Bronze sword three inches from its sword sheath with his free right hand. Then he struck the flat of the shortened blade twice against the granite boundary marker.
