At midday on Day One Hundred and Thirty-Two, Kezra Venn and Yseld Arken climbed the rocky watching crest that rose six hundred paces south of Empty Choir’s boundary.
The crest was a sharp, razor-backed arête of shattered amphibolite that stood like an open watchtower between the high plateau and the southern valleys. To the north, the entire thousand-pace square of Empty Choir lay spread out below them like a mason’s drawing board. The three stepped northern risers, the dark roofs of the two whistling stone shelters, the central shaft small roof-dome. The small gray canvas tent where Voss, Bram, and Orel were stowing their firewood. To the south and west, the mountain spine dropped away in dizzying upright precipices toward the snow saddle of Windpit, three miles distant along the jagged ridge.
This wind-swept crest was Relay Station One. The first and highest sight link in the three-station signaling chain that would connect Empty Choir to the ridges above Stonewake Citadel.
Yseld slipped her heavy pack from her shoulders and wedged it into a cleft between two upright granite slabs. She drew Davren’s brass clinometer and transit from its padded case and set the tripod into a level pocket of weathered gravel.
