The ramp inside the old limeworking cut climbed like a broken stone ladder, each terrace bench paved with cracked, moss-grown flags that tilted toward the deep pit.
For three hours, the four of them fought the grade. The two-wheeled handcart groaned under its load, the seasoned ash frame flexing with every jolt as its iron tires struck the weathered steps of the stone-haulers’ track. Fellis Dain leaned his full weight into the right harness, his boots slipping on the slick limestone gravel. Meanwhile, Yseld Arken pushed at the right wheel rim, her hooked climbing staff slung across her back.
On the left side, Kezra Venn was drowning in tasks.
Her left shoulder burned where the leather trace dug into her collarbone, but she couldn’t simply lower her head and pull. With every ten strides, her left thumb had to slip down to click the boxwood pace beads at her hip, logging the nonstop walked route that kept their homeward journey legally connected to the Saltglass survey. Every fifty yards. There, the cut bent around a sheer limestone stone support prop, she had to unhook her brass sighting compass, take a polar bearing against the crags, and estimate the grade angle against the cliff wall.
