The retreat to the Upper Arch was a two-mile march through shadows that seemed to lean toward them with cold, stone hostility.
Tomas walked in the center of the file. His left arm was held tightly against his ribs in an improvised linen sling. The carbolic vinegar wash Sera had packed for him was doing its brutal work. The sour, stinging acid had burned the limestone dust out of the torn forearm jagged cut. But the raw flesh throbbed with a pulsing, rhythmic fire that matched the heavy thud of his boots on the chert stairs.
Behind him, Captain Sile Rook moved with the stoic, clockwork pace of an old soldier who had marched thirty miles on bleeding feet more times than he could count. Sile carried the empty wicker cage in his left hand, its door swinging open, the little yellow corpse wrapped respectfully in a scrap of clean linen inside his bread pouch.
Nessa led the way, her brass sound horn unhooked and swinging from her fingers, her sharp eyes scanning every ceiling joint and timber shore they had passed on the descent.
They emerged from the dark inside of the cave onto the high scree slope of the Upper Arch. Then, the outside world was drowning in a sea of alpine cloud.
