Moving low beneath the granite overhang so the upper blade ring couldn’t track his dark shape, Seyun shifted across the shale floor until he knelt directly between Daro Kesh and Ilyra. At the eastern corner, Daro was leaning his good left shoulder into the rock to keep his chipped short Jade sword across the lower returning groove. At the southern lip, Ilyra held the forearm-length leftover piece of her marsh-iron spearhead angled across her knee. Seyun didn’t put on the confident face of a sect champion rallying his followers for a desperate charge. He spoke with the cold and exact care of an entry in his Account Book. The time for encouraging speeches had ended when Vaska wiped the six out of the stone dust.
Behind them, Hall Mistress Soran tilted her head toward the faint white glow off the snow so she could read Seyun’s lips clearly. Meanwhile, Vaska Ren and Keth Or leaned in from the rear trough and Bel Sar listened from five paces down the junction lip. Thirty paces upslope, the lower returning hub continued to spin six inches above the dark rock, its three pale blades circling the outer edge in tight, hungry arcs. It waited for the defenders to commit to another predictable formation. Every person in the shelter knew that the next excursion into the trough would decide whether the northern sky-slit closed before dawn or locked itself permanently into the mountain.
