The shallow rock recess behind the blind bend was barely four paces wide and six feet deep. A scooped-out pocket of crumbling dark grey rock where runoff had hollowed the cliff face beneath an overhanging seam of shale. Here, shielded from the immediate view of the sentry perched above the deadfall, the four companions huddled together on the damp gravel. Meanwhile, the mountain air filled with the sharp, brazen blasts of the Cairn Host alarm horn.
Fellis lay on his right side with his knees drawn up against his belly, his face gray and slick with cold sweat. His left arm was pressed tight against his ribs, the mangled hand held upright like a wounded bird. From the torn, shredded leather of his climbing glove, dark blood dripped steadily onto the grey shale. It formed a small, dark pool between his boots.
Paxa was already on her knees beside him. Her medical satchel—a stout box of oiled calfskin heavy with copper corners—was open on the gravel. With her left hand, she gripped Fellis’s forearm firmly above the wrist to immobilize the radius and forearm bone. With her right, she drew her heavy razor-sharp shears from their leather sheath. Then she pushed in the rounded lower blade beneath the blood-soaked cuff of his glove.
