The wind that whistled over the granite rim of the eagle’s-nest was thin, sharp, and freezing cold. He carried the clean scent of high-sky snow from the Spine’s northern icefields.
In the sheltered hollow behind the overhanging crag, the four travelers sat with their backs pressed against the living stone. Nobody spoke of their aching muscles or the blood drying on Kezra’s torn trouser knees. In an expedition through contested mountains, physical pain was an expected constant. What mattered now was the arithmetic of what remained inside their packs.
Paxa Sel unbuckled the horn toggles of her oilskin medical satchel and spread a square of clean, raw, unwhitened linen across a flat granite slab between their knees. With the brisk, cold and exact economy that had governed her clinic in Kilnstep, she began turning out the contents of their leftover inner pockets.
“Inventory,” Paxa said, her voice dropping into the quiet, unbending tone she used when allocating medicine after a mine cave-in. “Count what’s real, not what we wish we had.”
Fellis Dain leaned forward. His braced left arm was held carefully against his wool vest. Then he emptied his inner coat pouch with his right hand. Yseld Arken unclasped her belt-wallet and laid three small canvas rolls on the cloth. Kezra reached into her breast pocket and set down her emergency trail tin.
