A cold, needlesome drizzle was blowing across the limestone uplands on the morning of Day 65. That turned the white chalk dust of the cart ruts into greasy gray paste.
Six miles north of Kilnstep, the track rose onto a narrow, tilted raised stone road of bare limestone that skirted the lip of an abandoned marl pit. On the right, the ground dropped twelve sheer feet into a pool of milky, stale runoff choked with dead cattails and discarded kiln crates. On the left, an embankment of crumbling shale rose sharply to a wind-scoured ridge. The path was barely eight feet wide, rutted by seasonal freight wagons and slick as butter under the mist.
Kezra Venn walked with her head down against the drizzle. Her chin was tucked into the collar of her oiled wool coat.
Her tally cord was clicking steadily between her fingers. Four thousand eight hundred paces from the Second Quarry Exit, five thousand paces, five thousand two hundred. At the limeworking crossroads three miles ahead, Joric Thane’s northern carrier was scheduled to meet them at midday with the promised packet of military papers and fresh rations. If they arrived late, the carrier was under orders not to linger beside the public way-shed where Cairn Host horse patrols often stopped to water their mounts.
