It was two hours after nightfall. Just then, the three travelers staggered back into the outer picket lines of Joric Thane’s caravan camp on the upper quarry bench.
They looked like ghosts dredged from a bitter-salt pit. Their hair was matted white with white chalk-stone dust, their faces streaked with black animal fat soot. Their clothing hung in torn ribbons where the crusted iron gate and the dry wash scrub had raked their flesh. Fellis’s splicing knife was missing its hardened point, bent double from prying the pump house hinge. Yseld’s leather vest was split down the spine. And Kezra was limping heavily on a bruised right knee. Her shoulder was locked against the ache in her collarbone.
The outer edge sentries didn’t challenge them with shouts. At the first rattle of loose shale on the path, Harn stepped from behind the chained wheel-rims, his heavy hunting bow drawn to the cheek. It lowered the cord the instant he recognized Kezra’s two-pace ash sounding rod silhouetted against the rising moon.
Within three minutes, the three of them were seated inside the private circle of Joric Thane’s command wagons, sheltered from the cold desert wind by heavy canvas tilts.
Paxa Sel went to work with the silent, furious smooth speed of a master healer.
