The ascent of the high scree rib was brutal, unglamorous physical misery.
For forty paces above the repaired draught stair, the mountain presented an unbending forty-five-degree slope of frost-shattered hard black rock and loose grey slate that lay in shifting, unstable plates over smooth fiery bedrock. There was no path, no goat track, and no vegetation to provide handholds. Only a vast, tilted field of razor-sharp scree that hissed and slithered beneath their boots like dry grain pouring through a hopper.
Yseld Arken took the lead, probing each foothold with the iron-shod spike of her climbing staff before committing her weight. Behind her came Fellis Dain, his braced left forearm lashed tightly against his wool vest with a linen band to keep the broken finger-bones from jarring. His uninjured right hand gripped a knotted hauling loop on Yseld’s belt. Paxa Sel climbed third, her heavy medical satchel slung across her chest, watching Fellis’s shoulders for the telltale shudder of shock. Kezra anchored the rear. She carried the twenty-two-pound bundle of Nym Correl’s brass archive plates strapped across her pack frame, her boots digging into the slate debris until her calves burned with a dull, sickening fire.
Every three paces up the rib, the slope stole one pace back. The slate plates slid on the underlying stone with a dry, grinding rasp that carried across the ravine. That forced them to pause every fifty paces and crouch flat against the shale. Meanwhile, Yseld scanned the lower court for sentry movement.
