By sunset on Day 155, the homeward column had established camp in the walled courtyard of the second western carrier station, twelve miles up the river road from the foothills junction.
The evening was crisp and cold. A broad iron fire bowl burned in the center of the flat stone slab yard. It cast dancing orange shadows against the whitewashed limestone walls. Above the timber rooflines, the jagged blue silhouettes of the Spine were receding into the eastern distance, their highest snowcaps catching the last violet glow of dusk.
Kezra Venn sat on an upturned wooden apple crate beside the fire bowl. A small inkpot was resting on a next-door flat stone slab. In her lap lay the oilcloth-wrapped parcel of thirty-eight silver coins she had prepared that morning. With a fine reed pen, she was carefully lettering the recipient’s name across the waxed surface of the cloth:
Master Orin, Potter of Kilnstep — Payback in Full for One Two-Wheeled Oak Cart and Forty-Two Glazed Vessels Lost to Military Seizure on Day 58.
Fellis Dain walked over from the horse troughs, drying his good right hand on a rough wool towel. His braced left forearm was braced against his chest in its clean linen sling, the said clearlyleather cuffs holding his healing knuckle and fingers in steady posture. He settled onto a low oak bench opposite her, watching the ink dry on the parcel.
