Fifty yards beyond the northern back gate of the seal court, the pine trees gave way to the raw, forty-degree scar of the grey shale hillside. She was stationed at the lower ridge turn where the rock wall met the scree. Seyun and Daro Kesh took cover behind a split dark rock tooth to watch the rear approach. Meanwhile, Ilyra and Kes stepped out onto the open half-mile cross.
Six hundred feet above the crest of the ridge, a twelve-foot shard of condensed white light drifted slowly back and forth like a tethered hawk, its flat facets scanning the mountain slope for repeating training rhythms or fixed defensive formations.
Kes moved out across the narrow goat track with the corded crate of eight fever-ash jars balanced high on his shoulders. Of the old Court-inflicted damage to his right leg’s outward channel. Because of that, his stride had a distinct, uneven rhythm. A firm, flat-footed plant on the right heel followed by a quick, slanted side-step on the left toe that tested the shale before committing the crate’s weight.
Ilyra walked three paces to his upslope side with her shortened marsh-iron spear held low at her hip. She fought the deepest habit of her White Heron training at every single step. Ten yards above their heads, a line of weathered granite boulders jutted out of the mountain face, offering natural three-sided pockets where a spearwoman could plant her back against solid rock and fan her Branching White Wake across a narrow…
