The wind off the northern drops had risen to a sustained, drumming roar by the time the four climbers pulled back fifty paces down the southern slope of the watching ridge. In the lee of two massive banded rock erratics that sat wedged together like the gables of a sunken barn, the air was suddenly still. Even so, the gale screamed through the notch twenty feet above their heads with the fury of a blown fire chimney pipe.
Voss dropped his heavy pack onto the frozen gravel, leaning his back against the cold stone with a heard groan of relief. His wool coat was frosted white where his breath had frozen against his beard, his mittens stiff as bark.
“Six months ago,” Voss muttered, his chest heaving as he fumbled with the frozen buckles of his bedroll, “you would have pushed us across that saddle, Kezra. You would have told us that an ambitious map maker never sleeps until her rod touches the boundary stone.”
Kezra unslung her survey pack, placing it carefully in the driest recess beneath the overhanging banded rock. Her shoulders burned with a deep, dull ache from hauling the iron rods and the measuring chain up the upkeep cut. Her left knee throbbed where she had bruised it against the sandstone stone support prop.
