The wind on the upper quarry terrace carried the cold, sharp bite of evening limestone and the faint, bitter tang of sulfur from the exposed mine galleries below.
Around the outer edge of the displaced quarry counterpart bench, the wooden warning posts that Joric Thane’s crew had driven before the Day 44 exchange stood rigid in the hard ground. Strung between them was a double line of tarred hemp rope, marking off sixty-four paces of broken bedrock, shattered roof timbers. The dark, thirty-two-pace deep gap where the collapsed road gallery now yawned beneath the desert sky.
Kezra Venn stood twenty paces north of the corner anchor. Her boots set was wide on the solid shale. She watched Fellis Dain across the full width of the parcel.
The ropewright stood at the southern anchor mark, holding the open box-shaped frame (CLEAR) chest-high. Forty paces to his left, Paxa Sel was leading two of Joric’s camp hounds on short rope leashes along the eastern outer edge, deliberately nudging one of the lean lurchers across the tarred line to test whether Fellis would catch the breach.
Behind Kezra’s left shoulder—exactly two paces back and half a pace to the outside—Yseld Arken stood like a carved wooden statue.
