Dawn touched the eastern needle crags of the Spine range with the sharp, cold bright glare of new silver.
Kezra Venn knelt at the northwest corner anchor of Site Thirteen, her left knee resting on a flat limestone slab, her right boot planted firmly in the gravel ballast of the road. Her waxed canvas coat was buttoned tight to her throat, her wool collar pulled up against the biting alpine wind. Her bonded survey notebook lay open across her thighs at Page 013 and Page 014.
In her right hand, she held her main ash sounding rod, its polished iron metal ring resting lightly against the center of the northwest benchmark peg.
Fifty paces to her left, on the high rock outcrop between the two parcels, Fellis Dain and Paxa Sel stood side by side. Paxa held the master white clearance banner upright against the morning sky. Fellis had his brass transit tube clamped to his eye. He swept the two-hundred-pace connecting line across the quarry floor.
At the four corners of the broken road on the cliff, and at the four corners of the counterpart bench below, the eight corner watchmen stood like iron statues. Their white linen flags were held straight above their heads.
