The morning sun rose over Mount Sunder. It cast long, golden shadows across the stepped slopes of Split-Stone. Where two days ago the valley had looked like a cracked baked-clay bowl filled with dry gray bones, it now gleamed with the vibrant, dark emerald of soaked loam and rushing water.
Tomas Reed walked the stone low roof wall of the Seventh Terrace, his cart driver boots biting into the damp gravel path. Beside him walked Elder Ronald. It leaned on a peeled hazel stave. Nessa Vale, whose leather field satchel bulged with tuned measuring flasks, litmus papers, and survey slates. Behind them marched Captain Sile Rook, his heavy hooked pruning blade resting casually across his shoulder, his watchful eyes scanning the lower highway where the guild’s toll-houses stood empty.
Tomas’s left arm remained bound in its calfskin wrist brace. But the swelling had subsided under the nonstop application of cold water and willow-bark healing wraps. The jagged scar along his inner forearm was a tight, purple line across the muscle wrapping. He gripped a stone or leaned on his walking stave. Each time, the ring and little fingers lagged behind his thumb, reminding him of the permanent thirty-five percent grip deficit that was the permanent tax of his trade. Yet in the cool, moisture-laden air of the terraces, the ache was clean and manageable.
