The shadow of the upper court low roof wall had lengthened across the parley shelf, cutting the limestone bench into two sharp zones of blinding sun and freezing shade. Up on the coping fifty paces above, Captain Hest Vale leaned over the stone, her gauntlets resting on the worn cut stone.
Beside her, Ulvan Dret had already turned his back on the cliff edge, his leveling staff clicking softly. He walked toward the company command tent. He had delivered his terms, had warned Kezra of the talus on Coldwork Bench, and was now stepping back into his role as senior observer. But Hest was a company captain whose promotion depended on delivering an active Horizon mapper to Marshal Krail before the first blizzard barred the pass. She wasn’t a scholar of boundaries. She was a soldier who understood that a cornered quarry often accepts a small compromise when an outright surrender feels too bitter.
“Wait, mapper,” Hest called down, her voice cutting sharp and metal through the gorge updraught. “Ulvan speaks like a scroll-keeper who has all winter to read old logbooks. I’m an officer with eighteen horses to feed and a column to marshal. Let’s make a practical soldier’s arrangement.”
