Above the birch line, the afternoon sun thinned into a pale, heatless disc behind high wind-clouds. The pilgrim road narrowed to a ledge of grey limestone flanked by steep scree slopes. The wind coming down from the northern seal ridge carried the dry, metal smell of high height snow and old stone. Here, there was no room for dramatic footwork. A careless slide to the left meant a thirty-foot tumble into frozen bramble. Meanwhile, the limestone wall on the right bruised any elbow swung too wide.
Seyun walked three paces behind Ilyra with his iron rod held close to his ribs inside the open front of Hesh’s grey wool coat. Before Ilyra began her fifth slow-spear set of the afternoon, he looked at the terrain under their boots—a ten-yard stretch of slanted shale coated in black glare ice—and then glanced back at Mina, who was carrying the padded cedar box of individualized tester packets directly behind his left hip.
“My left side stays closed across the ice shelf so nothing passes toward Mina’s pack,” Seyun said aloud, his voice clear against the wind.
Ilyra nodded once and glided forward on the glare ice. Her marsh-iron spear slid out in a deceptive, double-branched thrust. The main point aimed straight at that declared left lane toward Mina’s shoulder. Meanwhile, the backup branch of her Deeper Bronze wake curled around Seyun’s right ear. At the same time leaving her own forward wrist fully unguarded six inches from his iron rod.
