Out at the halfway dark rock stone support prop four paces upslope of the recess mouth, Seyun paid the direct physical bill for the two weapons that had gone down the mountain chute. When all eight defenders had been on the ridge in the second watch, Ilyra’s spear and Bel Sar’s staff at the southern lip had drawn off a full quarter of the lower returning hub’s ground-spill. It allowed Seyun to hold an advanced position four paces out in the center-west lane without being flanked from the south.
Now, with the southern lip empty while Ilyra and Bel raced down the switchbacks toward Mer’s family, the central returning hub poured that uncontested southern ground-spill straight around the flank of the halfway stone support prop to join the main central sheet pressing against Seyun’s six-foot ash staff.
In a dishonest story about martial virtue, making the noble moral choice to let your allies go save a villager’s family is right away rewarded by the heavens making your own battle easier. Your staff suddenly grows twice as strong, or the enemy politely waits while you’re shorthanded. On the frozen black dark rock of the northern ridge, freedom had a real, heavy physical weight measured in bruised bone and lost yards of stone.
