The departure from Kilnstep on the late morning of Day 64 was entirely devoid of fanfare.
No village bell rang from the church tower. No neighbors gathered along the main western road with dried apples or woolen mittens. To the casual eye of any stranger watching from the distant fiery ridges, Kilnstep was merely going about its ordinary, gritty autumn business. Smoke rose in thick, greasy plumes from the drying kilns, clay carts rumbled down the rutted lane toward the settling pits, and two apprentices were sweeping dry grog dust from the warehouse loading apron.
Kezra Venn led her party not toward the broad western highway—where a single dust cloud would have been visible to Cairn Host outriders for five leagues—but through the narrow, stone-paved alleys behind her mother’s workshop.
They walked in single file. Yseld Arken in the lead with her hooked climbing staff testing the ground, Kezra three paces behind her with her brass sighting tube and notebook case resting against her ribs, Paxa Sel leading the small, sure-footed pack mule whose panniers carried their medical supplies and dried rations. Fellis Dain taking the rear position with the four painted signal paddles buckled to his belt and his coil of animal fat-treated hemp line resting across his shoulders.
