The pre-dawn hours of Day 36 brought a bitter, numbing stillness to the high limestone shelf above the Saltglass quarry camp. Two hours before the first pale grey line of dawn would break over the eastern crags, the desert cold had reached its peak, freezing the thin film of bitter salt water in Kezra’s brass sighting level into cloudy crystals of salt-ice.
He crouched beside Kezra on the frost-dusted rock. Caravan Master Joric Thane pulled his heavy frieze cloak tight across his shoulders, blowing into his cupped, calloused hands to restore the feeling to his knuckles. Beside him, Yseld remained motionless on one knee, her short spear resting across her thigh, her dark gaze fixed upon the four amber sparks that still burned two miles away against the black dark shape of the southern dark rock ridge.
“A boy from the lowlands looks at those lamps and thinks of warmth and hot broth,” Joric said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that carried no farther than the stone low roof wall. “He thinks of a roadhouse tavern with cedar logs burning in an open hearth and a stable hand waiting to rub the sweat off his lead mule. He thinks of a bed stuffed with clean rye straw and a dry stable for his beasts. But if you’ve driven freight across the high bitter salt passes for twenty-two seasons, Venn, you look at those lights and you see a dead man’s signed name.”
