The medical tent pitched in the lee of the outside freight wagons smelled of crushed wintergreen, boiled vinegar, and the sharp, clean pungency of pine rosin. A single brass oil lamp hung from the central ridge pole. It cast a steady, warm circle of yellow light across the rough deal table where Paxa Sel sat with her splint knives and rolls of boiled bandage.
Outside, the mountain wind rattled the heavy oiled canvas with relentless fury. It drove gusts of sleet against the roof edges. Through the tent flap, Kezra Venn could see the distant, dark mass of Stonewake Citadel looming over the ridge, its high curtain walls blocking out half the northern star-patterns.
Kezra sat opposite Paxa, an unrolled sheet of heavy drafting linen spread out between them. On the linen, drawn in dense India ink and colored washes of red iron oxide and willow soot, was the second complete copy of the genuine Empty Choir retreat-road packet.
“Voss has the main folio sealed in his oilskin case at the high camp,” Kezra said, her bone metal pen tracing the steep, hairpin curves of the northern descent. “He’s stationed forty paces beyond the northern outside corner anchor on the Empty Choir bench, well clear of the thousand-pace boundary plane. If everything goes smoothly at sunrise, Voss will step forward with the water maps and the mountain guides the moment Krail’s sentries open their gates.”
