The morning of Day 34 brought a forced halt to all underground survey operations across the Saltglass camp.
The camp had awakened in a grey, windless hush. Beyond the defensive semicircle of nine freight wagons, the salt flats stretched toward the eastern horizon like a vast, frozen lake of white lime. It shone under the first cold rays of dawn. Around the campfires, the routine of forty-two people continued with the unrushed, clockwork discipline of seasoned freighters. Iron tire hoops were inspected for hair-cracks, trace chains were soaked in mutton fat to prevent acid rusting from the bitter salt dust, and two massive iron kettles of very thirsty barley porridge simmered over smoldering cedar roots.
Joric Thane had already walked the outer edge twice before sunrise, checking the three sentry posts on the southern limestone bluff where outriders watched for the distant, greasy smoke pillars of Cairn Host raiding parties.
At the tool wagon, however, the day’s building work ground to a sudden halt.
Fellis Dain tried to lift a two-gallon wooden water pail at dawn. Then, his left arm seized from the shoulder blade to the elbow. The muscles were locked in a violent, shivering cramp after four hours of controlling the friction brake on the lowering A-frame. Paxa Sel had examined the nineteen-year-old rigger with two sharp prods of her thumb, declared his rotator tendons inflamed to the verge of tearing, and taken away his rigging knife until the midday heat.
