On the morning of Day 70, the expedition met the most dangerous trick the Cairn Host had yet planted in Hushwood.
Two miles north of the pale limestone bench, the old forester’s track came to an abrupt halt before a massive, tangled windfall. Three huge resin pines, their trunks four feet thick and covered in jagged, splintered branches, had toppled across the trail in a winter storm. That created an iron-hard barricade of dead timber and sharp pine spikes eight feet high.
To the left of the windfall, a well-beaten, smooth side path curved invitingly to the west, skirting the edge of the fallen trees.
At the entrance to the bypass path, carved chest-high into a large hemlock trunk, was a prominent chevron trail blaze pointing down the detour. The cut was darkened with soot and weathered to look ancient, promising a quick, easy bypass that would rejoin the ridge trail four hundred paces ahead.
Fellis stopped the cart, looking at the tangled branches of the windfall. “It will take two hours of heavy axe work to chop through those three trunks, Kezra. The side path looks beaten flat by drovers.”
Yseld Arken didn’t look at the side path. She unslung her short spear and walked to the hemlock trunk.
