At midday on Day 66, the expedition marched north along the wide limestone highway. That left the crossroads way-shed behind them.
The rain had finally died away, replaced by a high, pale blue autumn sky across which thin ribbons of mare’s-tail clouds drifted toward the Spine. On either side of the road, the rolling upland pastures of Kilnstep began to give way to rougher country. Broken limestone ridges crowned with stunted scrub juniper, steep ravines where seasonal torrents had carved deep scars through the white marl, and occasional outcroppings of dark fiery dark rock that signaled the shift toward the high mountains.
Kezra walked beside the handcart, her right hand resting lightly on the ash shaft. Meanwhile, Fellis leaned his weight into the forward pulling harness.
Every two hundred paces, her mind circled back to the three flat-topped steps on the Needlehouse thick parchment. As a working land-mapper, she couldn’t stop calculating the sheer volume of stone those steps represented.
“Think about the arithmetic, Fellis,” Kezra said, her voice carrying easily on the open road. “A Reach square is sixty-four paces on each side, thirty-two paces deep. That’s over one hundred and thirty thousand cubic paces of solid rock and earth. A Quarter square is four times wider and twice as deep—more than eight million cubic paces.”
