Morning sun struck the upper rim of the Needlehouse gorge at an oblique angle. That turned the frost crystals along the open limestone shelf into a thin, glittering rime that melted beneath Kezra Venn’s boots. Twelve paces across the flat stone bench, Ulvan Dret stood with his weight settled calmly against an eight-foot graduated ash leveling staff. Behind and above him on the broken low roof wall of the service court, Captain Hest Vale waited beside two orderlies, her hands resting on the handle knob of her belted sword. Meanwhile, a white truce pennon snapped softly from the leg of a brass transit tripod. Hest had stayed fifty paces back, far enough that the wind pouring down from the northern Spine carried away ordinary speech while leaving the shelf in clear sight of her archers should the parley sour.
Kezra kept her safety harness clipped to the taut hemp belay line running back into the dark recess where Yseld Arken, Paxa Sel. Fellis Dain held the anchor. The line was knotted with a secure alpine hitch that Fellis had inspected with his uninjured right hand before she stepped onto the exposed rock. She tested the bite of the hemp around the iron ring. She didn’t look up at Hest or the glint of the orderlies’ helmets. Instead, as she stepped into the cold sunlight, her gaze went right away to the older map maker’s hands.
