Split in two by Vaska Ren’s refusal to be carried and Seyun’s lateral sprint across the eastern apron, the leftover western two-thirds of the pale crescent struck the granite brow above the central recess at half its intended thickness. At the mouth of the cleft, Hall Mistress Soran planted her permanently bent iron spear beside Ilyra’s White Heron shaft, and together the two spearwomen angled the weakened overhead shear up into the twenty-foot granite overhang. Showers of crushed frost and fist-sized granite chips rained down across the threshold, pattering harmlessly off Bel Sar’s heavy shoulders and Vaska’s boots inside the recess as the broken sweep spent itself against solid mountain bedrock.
Behind the eastern boulder ten paces away, Seyun rolled to his feet beside Daro Kesh and Commander Keth Or, his chest rising and falling in deep, measured foundation breaths as he checked the ash staff in his hands. The middle of the wooden shaft bore a thumb-deep black char-mark from saving Vaska’s throat in the trench, and the iron metal ring was hot enough to sizzle. Just then, a flake of sleet touched it. But the seasoned Ash Reed timber remained straight and uncracked.
“Your calf stitches still holding, Ash Reed?” Daro asked without taking his eyes off the slope, his thirty-inch fire-rib short sword held low across his knee. Meanwhile, Keth Or adjusted the leather strap on his three-fingered right hand.
