Late on the afternoon of Day One Hundred and Thirty-Eight, the central table of the Alderfast community hall was cleared of compasses, rasps, oil-rubbed sighting rods, and empty tin mugs to make room for the master working protocol. Outside the high, unglazed embrasures of the hall, the late autumn wind rustled through the bare orchard boughs. It carried down from the high limestone pass the steady, rhythmic thrum of military kettledrums sounded on the castle walls of Stonewake Citadel.
Around the heavy frame stand table stood the six individuals who held the survival of the valley in their hands: Kezra Venn, Yseld Arken, Paxa Sel, Fellis Dain, Davren Venn, and Adra Pike. Between them lay the great topographical plan of the northern pass, weighed down at four corners by dressed river stones so the draft from the valley wouldn’t flutter its margins.
Kezra picked up a thick, stitched folio of heavy linen paper from the document chest beside her stool and laid it squarely into Adra Pike’s weathered hands. The folio was bound between two stiff leaves of split pigskin and bore Kezra’s personal split-triangle field mark stamped into red sealing wax across the braided linen cover string.
‘What is this document, Kezra?’ Adra asked, looking down at the red seal. Her fingers, scarred from thirty years of handling pit timber and steel chisels, rested flat across the pigskin casing.
