The two-wheeled wooden handcart bumped gently as its iron-banded ash wheels crossed the ramped southern seam. It rolled off the native gravel of Alderfast and onto the smooth, pale limestone carriage way of the arrived Empty Choir bench.
Wrapped in two thick wool cloaks with a heated river stone resting beneath her boots, Kezra Venn kept her fingers resting lightly on the cart’s side rail. Beside her hip, securely buttoned inside the waxed inner lining of her travel coat, lay her bonded survey notebook. On its rag pages, nineteen days remained on the twenty-one-day Horizon cooldown lock. Four hundred and fifty-six hours during which she couldn’t move a thimble of sand.
Ahead of her rolled the four wheeled medical litters, their oiled canvas hoods arched like grey sails against the mountain wind. Riding a steady, sure-footed pack mule between the second and third litters was Paxa Sel, her medical satchel slung across her handle knob, her sharp eyes flicking constantly between Old Halric’s breathing and the grey-faced child tucked beneath sheepskins in the fourth cart.
Pulling Kezra’s own handcart were two nineteen-year-old orchard workers from the lower hamlet, Joram Pike and his cousin Bran. They walked with the rhythmic, swaying stride of youths who had spent their lives hauling fruit baskets up terraced slopes, their wooden clogs clattering rhythmically against the hard-packed gravel.
