By mid-afternoon on Day 110, the tremors in Kezra’s limbs had subsided into a dull, heavy ache that centered in her lower back and behind her eyes. Wrapped in two thick wool blankets, she sat propped on a low cedar cot in the common hall sick room, sipping hot mutton broth through a hollow reed. Meanwhile, Paxa checked her skin turgor and pulse.
On the next-door cot, watchwoman Cressa was awake. Her wounded shoulder was bound tightly in fresh linen. A faint, wolfish grin split the veteran’s weathered face as she listened to the shouts of celebration echoing from the upper terraces.
“They ran, didn’t they?” Cressa asked, her voice raspy but full of satisfaction. “Vale saw thirty feet of granite and turned her horses around.”
“They marched back up to Stonewake in full formation,” Yseld Arken said. She stepped through the doorway and hanging her snow-dusted wool cloak on a wooden peg. She pulled up a three-legged stool beside Kezra’s cot. “Hest Vale is many things, but she’s not a fool. She knows the difference between an assault and a slaughter. She would have lost half her cohort trying to force that castle wall with ladders.”
Adra Pike walked in behind Yseld. She carried a heavy, tube-shaped brass message case that smelled of horse sweat and wet leather. A weighted lead sinker was tied to its lower loop with braided rawhide.
