Through the final dark hours before dawn on the fourth day of their march, the seven of them climbed the steep switchbacks above the pilgrim shelter’s back gate. Here on the northern shoulder of the mountain, the stunted pines vanished altogether, replaced by upright slabs of black-and-grey hard black rock that rose straight into the low winter clouds. A bitter wind blew off the high glaciers to the west, carrying hard, dry crystals of ice that hissed across their oiled cloaks like blown sand.
Hall Mistress Soran walked second in the file behind Steward Osen Tal. That kept one gloved hand lightly on the back of Ilyra’s shoulder whenever the darkness grew too thick to see Osen’s boots. Seyun walked fourth, right away ahead of Mina. She used his iron-shod ash staff to test every ice-glazed step before his sister placed her weight on it. Meanwhile, Daro Kesh and Instructors Venn and Tarn brought up the rear.
Just as the eastern sky behind the mountain’s shoulder began to turn the color of tarnished pewter, the narrow switchback topped out onto a broad, level shelf cut directly into the northern cliff face. Osen Tal halted at the lip of the shelf, his breath smoking heavily in the freezing air, and stepped aside so Soran, Ilyra. Seyun could see the road ahead.
