A wall of shrieking white dust slammed into the mouth of the canyon, turning the midday sun into a sickly green blur.
The wind roared like an enraged dragon trapped between narrow granite cliffs. It carried tons of razor-sharp salt crystals, each grain hard as crushed glass and caustic as lye. Within minutes of entering the Brine-Glass Canyons, the outer varnish on the ox-wagons was stripped down to bare, pitted timber.
The four draft oxen stopped dead in their tracks, lowering their thick heads.
White foam bubbled around the beasts’ nostrils as the alkaline air burned their throats. Every breath whistled with raw pain. Small pinpricks of blood dotted their flanks where airborne glass-grit sliced through their coarse hide.
Outside, the air tasted of burning lime and sulfuric acid.
Sera Thorne hauled back on her mare’s reins, pulling the animal beneath an overhanging rock shelf. Her face was wrapped in three layers of damp linen, but her amber eyes were red and tearing from the biting fumes. Her leather shoulder guard showed dozens of tiny, frayed cuts where the flying brine crystals had chewed into the hide.
“Get under cover,” Sera shouted over the howl of the tempest. “The salt is eating through the harness straps.”
