The dry gravel of the drover’s track crunched beneath Kezra Venn’s boots with a steady, rhythmic grit that shook straight through the thick oxhide soles into the bones of her ankles.
Above them, the sky had settled into the pale, cold slate of mid-autumn in the upland limestone country. Five miles had passed since they turned their backs on the Disused Roadside Weighing Station and its creeping retaining wall. Five miles of nonstop, unbroken walking, logged step by step on the boxwood beads dangling from the leather thong at Kezra’s right hip. With every hundred strides, her thumb slipped down, clicking a rounded wooden bead against its neighbor with a dry, hollow snap that cut through the whistle of the ridge draft.
To her left, the low rumble of the wind pouring down the northern gullies didn’t exist. The air against the side of her neck was cold and rough. But the bass roar of the mountain gorges remained sealed behind the deadened silence of her injured left ear. A flat, muted pressure like thick wool pressed tight against the canal. Fellis Dain called out from the right cart shaft. Then, his voice carried the high, clear pitch of young ash, ringing clean into her good right ear.
