The line of hooded lanterns moved across the high northern shoulder of the mountain with the steady, clockwork rhythm of seasoned mountain troops. Through the sighting cleft, Kezra and Yseld watched the yellow pools of light slide over the blue-black rocks, lighting up the long, dark silhouettes of ten soldiers carrying heavy picks, crowbars, and iron sledgehammers.
At the head of the file marched the corporal who had smashed Nym Correl’s boundary mark six hours earlier. He held his round cedar shield before him, his iron-headed wrecking maul slung across his back, shouting muffled orders into the freezing wind as his squad tramped straight toward the mouth of the collapsed northern carriage road.
“They took the lime dust,” Yseld whispered, a fierce, satisfied gleam in her dark eyes. “The corporal convinced his captain that we crawled through the rubble choke into the northern canyon. He has ten men and six heavy picks. They will spend the next four hours freezing their fingers to the bone, trying to dig a trench through six thousand tons of hardened hard speckled granite.”
“And while they’re digging in the north, what’s Captain Vale doing in the center?” Kezra asked, shifting her sighting compass to track the leftover lights.
