Late in the afternoon of Day 70, the mountain air grew sharp as the sun dipped behind the jagged western spur of Knife Ridge. Long blue shadows stretched across the upper charcoal platform, cooling the dark earth and dampening the lingering smell of stone dust that hung over the dark grey rock boulders.
Kezra Venn stood by the two-wheeled handcart, carefully wiping the brass leveling screws and horsehair sighting threads of Fellis’s two-plumb-thread frame with an oiled flannel patch. Beside her, Paxa Sel sat on an upturned firing crate, step by step sorting the botanical specimens she had gathered along the lower trail. She arranged sprigs of subalpine yarrow, dried lungwort leaves, and roots of mountain stonecrop into labeled parchment envelopes, storing them in the cedar partitions of her apothecary chest to keep them dry before the night frost settled.
Fellis Dain knelt in the needle duff near the tongue of the cart, checking the hemp binding cords on the pack panniers. He tested each knot with a sharp tug, ensuring that the four-sided iron sounding rods, the spare steel pins. The lead line-weight-bobs wouldn’t clatter against the wooden slats during the steep ascent planned for the morning.
“Everything lashed tight, Kezra,” Fellis murmured, stowing his marlinspike into his belt sheath. “Ropes dressed, pins accounted for, and the water keg topped from the rock fissure. We have four leagues of climbing before we reach the upper cliffline.”
