At first light on Day 62, the frost on the northern terrace was even thicker than the day before, coating the dark stone of the altered lime fire with a crust of rime that glittered like powdered quartz in the dawn sun.
Kezra Venn stood at the southwest baseline stake with her iron sounding rod resting across her shoulder. Beside her, Fellis Dain held the ordinary field ledger open to the parcel worksheet, his charcoal pencil poised above the sixteen-pace grid diagram. Ten paces away on the outer edge, Yseld Arken stood with her arms crossed over the chest of her wool coat, her sharp eyes scanning the scrub slopes below for any sign of distant dust.
“Baseline check,” Kezra said. Her voice was quiet, pitched low for the morning calm.
“True north,” Fellis answered, sighting through the brass compass sights. “Sixteen paces along the western line to the northwest pin. Sixteen paces east to the northeast pin. Sixteen paces south to the backfilled trench. Sixteen paces west along the cart ramp. outer edge closes to within half an inch.”
“Sounding set begins,” Kezra said.
She stepped out along the outer edge. She walked the sixty-four paces of the outer boundary with measured, deliberate strides. Her boots crushed the frozen grass with a dry, rhythmic crunch that she felt through the soles of her feet even though the sound arrived at her left ear as a faint, muffled whisper. At every four-pace interval, she paused, drove the sharp four-sided point…
