Braced against the surviving outer eastern stone support prop of the collapsed recess, Daro Kesh stood in the exact position to see what his earlier willingness to let go had uncovered. Had Daro stubbornly clung to the old front returning plane after Seyun aborted the first run, the collapsing overhang would have buried him or pinned his chipped short sword under the front edge of the ring. He had released that lost opening as agreed and dropped behind the outer granite corner. Because of that, he now looked straight past the turned shoulder of the blade ring into the unshielded rear sector of the lower returning hub.
Twelve paces up the eastern rock seam from Daro’s left boot, the yard-wide bronze drum was spinning at a tilted angle above its stone basin, its rear intake collar and the hairline test seam Vaska’s wedge had weakened earlier standing fully exposed to the night air. All three pale blades were still thrashing in the smoking rubble of the empty recess to the south, trying to haul their returning planes back up the slope. Meanwhile, the ripped-out guide-rod trench beside Keth’s heel spat dead sparks that failed to bridge the circuit.
Daro didn’t try to limp up those twelve paces himself. He knew that his deeply gashed, braced right thigh would buckle on the third stride and waste the window before he ever reached the bronze drum. Instead, the veteran teacher of the Black-Roof School jammed his good left boot into the eastern…
