The communal supper hearth burned in a sheltered recess of the central limestone terrace. There, two massive cut stone retaining walls met at an angle that deflected the dropping night wind. A great iron kettle, three feet across and blackened by decades of pine-knot fires, hung from an iron tripod. It bubbled with a thick pottage of dried grey peas, crushed barley, and yellow winter turnip chunks seasoned with wild mountain savory and a handful of coarse grey salt.
Around the fire sat the people of Alderfast. Both the eighty-three who had marked the slate for the road and the forty-three who had chosen to remain on their terraces. They sat side by side on low benches of split larch and flat stone slab blocks. They passed wooden bowls and horn spoons from hand to hand without distinction.
Kezra Venn sat between Davren and Adra Pike, her tin spoon scraping the bottom of her bowl. Beside her, Davren rested his braced leg on a bundle of dry oat straw. His ash stick leaned against the bench. Across the hearth, Branoc the blacksmith, who had voted to take his coughing boys south, was in deep conversation with Garek, the seventy-year-old mason who was staying.
