The path climbed out of the second clearing along a narrow, wind-scoured spine of dolomitic limestone that divided the Alderfast gorge from the eastern deep pit.
On their left, the sheer cliffs dropped eight hundred feet into the shadow-filled bowl of Alderfast. There, the tiny stone roofs of the cottages looked like scattered grey pebbles. On their right, the eastern headwall fell twelve hundred feet into an unmapped gorge choked with black scree and unending ice. Between the two precipices, the limestone ridge was barely four paces wide, its crest glazed with brittle verglas where the northwest gale drove freezing mist across the stone.
The wind was relentless now, blowing at thirty-five miles an hour from the high peaks, carrying a high, sibilant hiss that Kezra’s right ear heard clearly. Meanwhile, her left ear caught only the faint, rhythmic buffeting of the gusts against her coat. Every gust brought fine pellets of hard rime that stung their cheeks like sand.
Voss moved first on the rope, testing each limestone bedding block with the point of his pry-bar. Wherever a seam looked fractured by winter ice, he drove an iron piton into the live rock, clipping the trailing safety line through bronze carabiners so the party had a nonstop handrail across the knife-edge cross.
