Night fell fully over the upright wall of upper Hushwood, cloaking the dark grey rock cliff in cold, ink-black shadow. A biting mountain draft swept down from the subalpine snowfields, tugging at their coat hems and carrying the distant, faint smell of woodsmoke from the valley below.
Climbing the mineworkers’ ascent in the dark was an exercise in total, uncompromising rope discipline.
Every forty paces, the narrow stone foot-ledge pinched down from two feet of gravelly shelf to a boot-width cross cut directly into the upright cliff face, suspended above a hundred-foot drop into the treetops. Decades earlier, the miners’ guild had fortified these terrifying exposed traverses by drilling two-inch holes into the solid dark grey rock and setting heavy, U-shaped iron staples, two fingers thick and eighteen inches wide. It anchored them with molten lead poured directly into the rock sockets.
At the first narrow cross, ninety feet above the upkeep yard, Fellis Dain held up the black wooden triangle paddle.
“Halt the line,” Fellis whispered, his voice steady and calm. “Rope check.”
Yseld anchored herself to a projecting horn of rock with a clove hitch from her climbing line. She held the belay cord taut with both hands. Fellis clipped his leather waist-harness into the running line with a heavy bronze carabiner. He stepped out onto the eight-inch stone ledge to examine the first iron staple.
