Dusk settled purple, cold, and heavy across the northern throat of Alderfast on the ninety-eighth day. The wind blowing down from the Spine carried the sharp, crystal-clear bite of high-sky frost, freezing the ruts of the road into iron-hard ridges.
At the northern toll circle, Kezra Venn, Adra Pike, and Yseld Arken waited in the gathering darkness beside a small fire of dry peat and larch chips. The flames sputtered low, throwing flickering orange light across their boots and the empty ground where the three taken away baskets of silver-lead galena had stood that morning.
“They should have returned an hour ago,” Adra said, checking the position of the evening star above the western crags. “It’s barely eight hundred paces from the toll circle up the rubble ramp to the outer gatehouse gate. Even pushing a loaded handcart down the grade, Marn and Tella should have been here before the second watch changed.”
Kezra rested her hand on her sounding rod, her right ear straining against the wind. In the distance, above the dark, looming dark shape of the mountain stone base, the creak of ungreased timber axles and the iron-rimmed rattle of heavy wheels echoed down the stone ramp.
