An hour before sunrise. Meanwhile, the vast expanse of the Saltglass basin was still drowned in cold, ash-grey twilight, the two figures slipped out of the southern outer edge of the quarry camp. They moved without lanterns, without torches, and without the clinking of steel buckles, their soft hide boots finding the hard, soundless limestone ledges with the gut stealth of hunted foxes.
Kezra had strapped her ruling board to her back and reached for her ash sounding rod, fully intending to lead the scouting herself. But Joric Thane had planted his broad, iron-shod frame directly across the exit path, his heavy hand resting on the handle knob of his belt knife.
“You stay on the stone, Venn,” Joric had said, his voice flat and unbending in the pre-dawn murk. “You’re the bookholder. If an arrow comes out of that dark rock gully and pins a wagon driver’s leg, Paxa can pull the barb and sew the muscle. If an arrow pins you, this entire caravan rots beside forty thousand tons of broken roadbed until our bones bleach into bitter salt chalk. You don’t walk into unmapped dark rock throats in the dark when you have professionals who know the country.”
