The hidden recess beneath the outer rock shelf was dry, narrow, and entirely invisible from above. Twelve feet of overhanging limestone ceiling jutted out over their heads like the brow of a helmet, sheltering the ledge from the cold wind that surged continuously up the eastern gorge. Below their boots, the mountain dropped away in six hundred feet of sheer, slate-grey hard speckled granite, vanishing into the billowing sea of afternoon mist that blanketed the valley floor.
Between the service stair landing and their new refuge lay fourteen feet of open sky. There, the cut hemp cross line hung in shredded ribbons against the opposite cliff.
For ten minutes, nobody spoke. The only sounds were the hollow roaring of the wind in the couloir, the ragged sound of four people drawing air into burning lungs. The distant, muffled shouting of the two Cairn Host scouts on the far landing trying to hail their squad leader through the stairwell.
Kezra Venn sat with her back pressed flat against the sound limestone wall. Her arms were trembling from the violent shock that had traveled through her wrists. Just then, the iron needle-point arrow struck the brass plate. She unbuckled the canvas chest straps with stiff, clumsy fingers. She lifted the twenty-two-pound archive pack from her shoulders, and laid the damaged eighth-inch brass profile plate flat across her knees.
