The timber-framed community hall of Alderfast was quiet when Kezra Venn, Yseld Arken, Paxa Sel. Fellis Dain walked through the heavy oak doors on the morning of Day One Hundred and Thirty-Eight.
The hall smelled of dried chamomile, linseed oil, shaved pine shavings, and woodsmoke from the large central hearth. In the center of the room, four long frame stand tables had been pushed together into an expansive drafting bench. Arranged neatly along the western wall stood the four wheeled litters that Davren and Fellis had built during the three weeks of the alpine expedition. Narrow, low-slung stretchers of ash and stretched rawhide, mounted on broad wooden wheels bound with hooped iron tires, each equipped with hand-lever friction brakes and padded leather chest-straps.
Standing beside the nearest litter, running a rasp over the smooth curve of a locust-wood axle-tree, was Davren Venn.
Kezra stopped two paces inside the doorway. Her throat tightened as she looked at her younger brother.
Davren had changed across the four months since his secret departure from Kilnstep. The boyish, reckless restlessness that had once driven him to carve secret rabbit-path marks on Blackglass had burned away, replaced by the lean, hard maturity of an adult who had looked death in the face and survived. His left leg was wrapped in a heavy said clearlybrace of boiled leather and blackened iron bands, strapped tight around his shattered kneecap. He leaned his weight on his peeled ash walking stick, the wood carved with his signed name split-triangle…
