Under the burning midday sun, the narrow approach track leading up to the second quarry terrace was a hive of intense, rhythmic labor. The clink of stone chisels, the scraping of iron trowels against wet mortar boards, and the grunting heave of men shifting heavy pale limestone blocks echoed off the sheer canyon walls. That created a steady, workmanlike clamor that drowned out the distant howling of the mountain gale.
Rather than standing aside as a magical spectator or retreating to the shade of Joric’s wagons, Kezra Venn worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the masons. Her wool coat was thrown over a wooden barrow, her linen sleeves rolled high above her elbows, her hands white with dry wet lime plaster paste and sharp stone grit.
Between her and the quarry crew lay the talus pile they had cleared on Day 35. Hundreds of rough-dressed pale limestone blocks, four-man foundation cut stone, and dense limestone rubble that had been blasted from the upper workings before the road collapsed.
“Spread the bed mortar three inches thick, lads!” Master Quarrier Branden shouted, wiping sweat from his scarred forehead with a leather sleeve. “Use the fat lime from kiln two, and don’t skimp on the river sand! We’re not building a garden boundary for cabbages. We’re building a low roof wall that must stop a runaway six-mule freight cart in the dead of winter!”
