The jagged black ridge of the southern Blackglass switchbacks surrendered to the bitter salt plain two hours before dawn on the twenty-ninth day.
Kezra Venn kept her left palm resting against the smooth ash shaft of the two-wheeled handcart. Meanwhile, Fellis Dain leaned his broad shoulders into the oiled leather front harness. With every hundred strides across the cooling scree. Her right thumb was pressed a smooth boxwood bead along the waxed linen tally cord looped to her belt. One bead for a hundred paces of shattered fiery dark rock. There, the sharp clinker bit through thick cowhide soles. Two beads where the dark stone thinned into grey bitter salt gravel. It rattled against the cart spokes like dry peas in a clay pot. Three beads where the first crust of dried salt water cracked beneath their iron-shod boots with a crisp sound like breaking eggshells.
Behind them, two paces back and half a pace out, Yseld Arken moved through the darkness without a lantern. Her hooked climbing staff tapped the margin of the path at regular intervals. Ahead of the cart, Paxa Sel led their pack mule by a soft braided halter. Her linen medical satchel was tied securely across the animal’s wooden packsaddle to keep the glass vials and baked-clay salve jars from clinking against the spare sounding rods.
