The descent down the lee-side service stair was a masterpiece of rehearsed economy. There was no whispering, no pause, and no scrambling for footing on the slick shale.
Paxa Sel moved first. It slid her gloved hands along the fixed hemp guide-line, her body angled backward against the sixty-degree slope. Her medical satchel remained perfectly stationary against her chest, cushioned by its woolen padding. Behind her came Fellis Dain, his right hand working the three-wrap Prusik brake with easy, unconscious skill, his braced left forearm tucked securely inside his wool coat.
When they reached the dreaded dog-leg turn beneath the ancient top door beam—the constriction that had wedged their packs and threatened to snap Fellis’s wrist twenty-four hours before—there was no pause.
Fellis rotated his shoulders forty-five degrees to the left. He stepped his right boot onto the cleared landing where the heavy iron crate had once stood. Then he swung his hips around the ledge-stone with three inches of clean clearance. Behind him, Kezra moved with matching grace, the tube-shaped roll of the twenty-two-pound archive pack hugging the contour of her spine like a second skin. Her left shoulder cleared the stone door post with four inches to spare.
