The climb out of the lower gallery was an exercise in slow, deliberate mathematics.
Noll Vey took the risers one step at a time, his slate heels striking the limestone flags with a heavy, measured cadence. He rolled his weight from heel to ball, feeling the copper nerve wire tighten along his stone shins as the counterweights inside his calves shifted to maintain his balance. Behind him, Prit remained in the torchlit passage below, seated on his lime bucket with his snout buried in his ledger, muttering cross-references between the Covenant of Shelter and the third addendum of the High Gate charters.
Tessa walked beside Noll, her hand resting lightly on the iron handrail Edren had bolted into the wall two weeks before. She did not offer to take his elbow. She knew enough of quarry craft to understand that two hundred pounds of articulated slate could not be steadied by a woman’s grip; if he tumbled, the sensible thing was to step aside and let the stone find the landing on its own.
When they pushed through the heavy timber door into the upper courtyard, the high winter wind took them by the throat.
The air was sharp, smelling of freezing pine needles, woodsmoke, and the damp gravel of the river gorge far below. Overhead, the winter stars burned through thin mountain cloud, cold and unblinking, wheeling slowly over the notched battlements of the hill fort.
