On day fourteen hundred and thirty-six, from the upper shoulder, Rootwell looked almost peaceful.
Mist lay between the pale roofs. A cold stream shone along the northern lip, vanished beneath a bridge, and emerged far below as a broken silver thread. Smoke rose from the occupied terraces. On the western road, a line of small dark wagons moved toward Mael Venn’s store compound.
Iven could count the wagons but not their loads.
Nyla set down her case on the flat stone Safa had chosen. The guide had brought them there before dawn so that they could see the first venting against the colder air. Garn remained below with the lower gauges. A second watcher stood halfway up, within ordinary horn range of both stations.
“Here,” Safa said.
She pointed east, away from the moving wagons.
A seam of white appeared beneath a long shelf. It thickened, hung for a moment, then rose in a column that bent toward them. The sun had not yet reached it. The plume looked blue against the dark slope.
Nyla turned a glass plate toward the column. Moisture gathered on it almost immediately.
