Davren came up the final three stone treads of the ramp with the slow, steady beat that had become his second nature over the past eighteen months.
His left leg was wrapped in a said clearlybrace of blackened iron hoops and boiled ox-leather, strapped securely from midthigh to the heel of his heavy trail boot. At every forward step, the twin brass hinges at the knee joint gave a soft, dry click. It locked the joint at thirty degrees of flexion before his boot heel struck the gravel. In his right hand he carried an ash walking staff, its head carved into the clean, split triangle that had marked every route cairn, every water spring. Every unmapped pass he had explored since fleeing Kilnstep.
He stopped two paces from Kezra, leaning his weight onto the ash staff. His breath rose in brief, shallow puffs. The chronic lung scarring from the winter he had spent trapped in the high Needlehouse drifts made his voice slightly raspy. But his shoulders were broad, his eyes clear, and his stance upright.
‘Adra gave you the council’s terms?’ Davren asked, looking past Kezra toward the twin white truce lanterns burning on the approach road below.
