Kesh found the first cut rope beside the quarry path.
It had been thrown into the grass, its fresh end pale against the wet green. Farther on, a drag mark crossed the maintained road and disappeared beneath the higher bank. Nothing in either sign required a clever interpretation.
Something had been taken off the road.
They had walked less than three kilometres from the third shelter on the morning of day seven hundred and thirty-eight. Iven looked back at the animals and raised his hand. Yorra stopped them before the narrow part, where the old service track offered a broad place to wait out of sight.
Kesh climbed the low bank.
Iven followed far enough to see over its broken edge. Below lay a disused quarry floor, partly grassed over, with a stone storehouse built against one face. Three pack animals stood in a line beside it. Their loads had been stripped. Two men and a woman sat on the ground with their hands tied in front of them.
One captive had cloth pressed against his mouth.
A man with a short gun was searching the opened packs. Another stood beside the animals, comparing halters as if the morning’s work were entirely commercial. Beyond them, two more waited by a wheeled cable reel.
