The wind coming off the high limestone crags had turned bitter with dusk. He carried the sharp, cold scent of new snow from the peaks above Alderfast. On the western castle wall landing of Stonewake Citadel, thirty paces above the sheer talus drop, Fellis Dain set down the wooden frame of the narrow chair harness with a dull wooden clatter.
His left hand was still bound tight in Paxa Sel’s rigid ash-wood splint, the linen wrapping greyed with stone dust and grease. But his uninjured right hand moved with the fluid, unrushed certainty of a craftsman who had tied ten thousand knots before he ever saw a military guard post. Behind him, leaning heavily upon his ash walking stick carved with the split-triangle mark, came Davren Venn. Davren’s breath rattled faintly in his scarred lungs as he crested the outer ramp, his left leg stiff inside its hinged iron-and-leather brace. But his grey eyes were clear and sharp as he studied the spiral descent.
Two broad-shouldered basin stone-masons, sent up by Adra Pike from the lower sorting yard. It was followed with coiled hemp lines slung over their wool coats.
“The passage narrows at the fourteenth tread,” Davren said, his voice quiet against the mountain draft. He didn’t step toward the carrying poles, nor did he make any gesture that suggested he could shoulder a corner of the load. Eighteen months in the high basin with crushed joint padding and torn joint cords had stripped away any impulse toward reckless…
