The woman waiting beside the northern track had sewn her employer’s name out of her coat.
A pale rectangle showed on the dark wool. Iven noticed it while Ruka checked the route marks against her compass. The woman noticed him noticing and folded her arms across it.
“Leth,” she said. “If you’re the Mercy party, I have a job for you.”
They had left Long Sill before dawn. By noon the plateau was a dark ledge behind them, its working cableways invisible against the rock. They had followed Halen’s marked route across the grazing ground and turned north at a low cairn, keeping clear of the damp hollow where the sheep fed. Sol’s pack carried the survey copies inside two separate waterproof sleeves. Jem carried tools wrapped against dust. Neri had left a third set of records with Mira, and Iven could still feel the surprising relief of knowing that losing his own bag would no longer erase the visit.
Leth stood beside a handcart under a patched shelter. A narrow-faced man sat on the cart’s shafts, holding a blanket around a square chest. Two younger people watched from behind him. Their boots were good, their packs poorly fitted. Apprentices, Iven guessed, on the first journey for which someone else had not carried the heavy things.
