Late in the morning on Day 44, the sun stood high and white over the Saltglass quarry. It burned away the last lingering chill of the dawn.
On the western threshold of the newly bridged highway, Oren—Joric’s veteran lead driver—sat high on the oak box of the first freight cart. His callused hands held four leather reins, his weathered face set in lines of quiet concentration. Before him, four heavy grey draught mules stood with their ears forward, their iron shoes resting on the crushed limestone wheel-ramp that the quarrymen had finished dressing twenty minutes before.
Behind the wagon, forty-two travelers stood along the gravel margins in complete, breathless silence.
Master Joric Thane stood beside Oren’s front left wheel. His heavy oak was heavy club tucked beneath his arm. He looked across the sixty-four paces of blue-grey dolomitic limestone that spanned the canyon.
“Keep them to a steady walking pace, Oren,” Joric instructed in his low, gravelly rumble. “Let the lead mules feel the stone beneath their hooves before you ask them for speed. If you feel even a quarter-inch of subsidence under the tires, pull the brake lever and jump.”
“This cart has carried twenty tons of lead ore across the High Pass, Master Joric,” Oren answered with a calm, gap-toothed grin. “If the girl says the stone is thirty-two paces deep, my mules won’t find the bottom of it.”
