To gain a clear, clear sight line above the jagged limestone crags of the quarry rim, Kezra and Yseld scrambled twenty feet higher onto a razor-sharp spine of weathered grey pale limestone known as the Sighting Rib. The wind on the exposed ridge had the bite of sharpened steel, whistling through the rock flutes and threatening to pluck the ruling board from under Kezra’s arm.
Yseld climbed first, planting the iron heel of her climbing staff into natural pocket-holds in the stone and reaching down with her uninjured hand to haul Kezra up the final upright ledge. They crouched together in a shallow hollow scoured out by hundreds of years of blowing sand, shielded from the direct blast of the northern gale by a weathered tooth of fossil-bearing rock.
“Set the tripod flat in the gravel,” Yseld murmured, her breath warm against Kezra’s ear. “Don’t let the brass legs click against the stone. Sound carries across these dry flats like a cracked bell.”
Kezra nodded, her fingers stiff with cold as she unfolded the three short wooden legs of her survey stand. She settled the brass mounting plate into the scree. She pressed the iron shoes into the bedrock until the level bubbles centered in their spirit tubes. Then she attached her long-focus sighting rule.
