Night fell across the high limestone plateau with a huge, calm stillness as the violet twilight of the alpine desert deepened into cold mountain starlight.
Behind the medical wagon, shielded from the biting canyon draft by heavy canvas tilts and double-stacked grain sacks, the four companions—Kezra Venn, Fellis Dain, Paxa Sel, and Yseld Arken—sat around a small, contained fire bowl of aromatic juniper charcoal. The glowing embers cast warm amber light across their weathered faces. It reflected off the polished brass fittings of an instrument resting on a pine packing crate between them.
It was Fellis Dain’s finished masterpiece. A compact, folding signal board made from seasoned three-quarter-inch pine, beautifully fitted with hand-hammered brass strap hinges and an oiled leather shoulder sling. Set into the face of the board were four rotating wooden paddles, each carved from quarter-sawn mountain pine and painted with high-contrast stone pigment:
A solid white square, twelve inches across, painted with calcined limestone whitewash: CLEAR / READY / HOLD MARCHING PACE. A bright yellow triangle with a notched apex, edged in dense lampblack: STOP / HOLD PACE / SIGHTING IN PROGRESS. A white circle crossed by a level black bar: LIVING BLOCKER INSIDE BOUNDARY. A bold crimson X on a field of pale pine: IMMEDIATE ABORT / ANCHOR SHEAR.
