On the trailing edge of the fourth commutation beat. Just then, the three orbiting pale blades rotated northward across the upper basin, the eight defenders launched their coordinated lower advance from the dark rock recess. Unlike their wide, thirty-yard scattering at the start of the first watch, this movement covered a compact, carefully measured radius of six to ten paces around the shelter’s stone apron. Every boot-step anchored to Vaska Ren’s four-breath clock and Mina’s pullback rule.
To the west, Hall Mistress Soran and Nara Soth glided four paces out along the granite shelf and planted their boots behind the second dark rock stone support prop. Soran set the permanently bent shaft of her plain iron spear across the upper notch of the rock at a forty-five-degree roof angle, right away drawing the western pale blade down into a chattering, spark-strewn glide that kept its attention fixed ten yards away from the eastern lip.
At the southern mouth of the cleft, Ilyra and Bel Sar stepped two paces onto the shale lip above the drainage trough. The southern ground-return flared in response to Soran’s upper block. Then, Ilyra caught the leading edge of the ground-wave on the marsh-iron cross-lug of her White Heron spear. Then she turned it ten degrees sideways. There, Bel Sar’s hemp-bound Ash Reed staff pinned the sputtering tail flat against the gravel.
