Ilyra’s Early Jade spear didn’t shatter the falling shale into splinters, and it didn’t waver on the second beat.
Planting her front boot six inches behind Seyun’s kneeling hip on the narrow neck of stone, she met the dropping lower tip of the pale blade with the full, unforced clarity of her Branching White Wake. The rawhide-bound crack behind her spearhead hummed under the strain. But her intention remained fully fluid—sliding along the Measure’s edge to turn its cutting plane upward into the empty cliff wall while at the same time holding a four-foot arch of calm, clear air around the trailhead exit.
“Mer—through the arch!” Ilyra called, her voice steady and unrushed despite the white sparks showering off her iron spear socket. “Bel, take Seyun’s right arm!”
With one final heave of its iron-shod hooves, the brown pack mule scrambled off the tilting shale onto the solid granite of the trailhead neck, all four burlap sacks of winter barley and salt beans riding intact across its wooden saddle tree. Mer cleared the crack half a step behind the animal’s tail, where young Jek and Kes grabbed the halter rope to steady the trembling beast on flat ground.
Inside the collapsing cleft, Bel Sar slung his heavy staff into the crook of his left elbow, reached down with his thick right hand to hook Seyun under the right armpit. Then he hauled him upright off his bleeding left leg.
