Before giving the nod to start the crossing, Seyun took one slow, complete breath through his nose and let his body map the exact physical layout of the lower seal court without looking back over his shoulder.
Forty feet north of where Mina and Halin stood—past the center granite ring where Daro Kesh waited—a six-foot-thick screen wall of fitted gray granite blocks spanned the northern end of the lower terrace, shielding the stairhead that led down to the hospice path. Mina and Halin stepped behind the thick stone shelter of that northern screen wall with their baskets. Then, the crossing would be complete.
Between the southern archway and that northern screen wall lay two distinct, prepared retreat lanes on either side of the central fighting ring:
To the east, a straight, six-foot-wide flat stone slab hall ran directly between two rows of heavy eight-sided granite pillars. It was the shorter route by four paces, flat underfoot and sheltered on its outer margin by the row of stone pillars. An ideal lane for a fast dash, provided an opponent didn’t step into the twelve-foot gap between the second and third pillars and cork the bottleneck with a blade.
To the west, a slightly longer, curving path followed the outer stone drainage curb around the outer edge of the bronze pressure lens. It had no heavy pillars to hide behind, and anyone taking it had to step over the four-inch granite curbing at the turn, yet because it curved out into the…
