On the morning of Day ninety, the high Spine was locked in a brittle, crystal-clear stillness. The wind had dropped to a faint whisper. The autumn sun rose like a polished bronze shield above the eastern jagged peaks, throwing sharp, ink-black shadows across the vast stepped floor of Coldwork Bench.
Kezra Venn knelt on the stable native pale limestone bedrock outside the southwestern corner of Coldwork Bench, her cold chisel poised above the stone.
Beside her, Brenn held the four-pound striking hammer, his massive arms steady as iron.
“Strike,” Kezra commanded.
Clang.
The hammer dropped with crushing force. Orange sparks leaped into the cold morning air as the chisel bit deep into the crystal-clear stone. Over the course of thirty minutes, moving between the three chosen corner stations outside the two-hundred-and-fifty-six-pace square, Kezra and Brenn cut three amazing Quarter-scale anchor marks into the living rock.
Each anchor was an equilateral triangle, twelve inches on a side and an inch deep, with a central earth-measuring locator bore driven three inches into the apex. These were not the modest six-inch marks of a Reach parcel. These were massive anchors engineered to hold the earth-measuring tension of a mountain move.
Cutting massive Quarter-scale anchors into native rock was the most physically demanding stonework Kezra had ever undertaken.
