The descent from the northern ridge ended at the scrubbed pine threshold of the lower shepherd’s hospice. Just then, gray valley mist thinned into morning light. Seyun couldn’t carry his own weight across the final ditch. Ilyra supported his uninjured right side with her shoulder braced beneath his armpit, the surviving steel head of her broken spear tucked flat into her waist sash. Meanwhile, Commander Keth Or held his left hip after Daro Kesh’s torn thigh gave out on the wet switchback above the orchard. Inside the open doorway, iron kettles of reed-ash water steamed over charcoal fire bowls. The freed testers hurried to clear a lane between two rows of low pine cots.
Daro leaned heavily against the doorpost, sweat cutting clean tracks through the limestone dust on his face. Then he drew a breath to announce to the room that the northern sky-slit had closed and the lower returning hub lay split in half.
Mina stepped directly into the entrance before the first word left his mouth. She held a rolled linen bandage in one hand and a brass thirty-breath sand-glass in the other, planting her boots squarely on the lime-washed line that separated the mud porch from the treatment floor.
