Waystation Three sat perched on a wind-scoured limestone spur at seven thousand two hundred feet, exposed to every gale that blew across the northern cirques.
The expedition rounded the shoulder of the ridge at mid-afternoon. Then, Tomas saw that the mountain had claimed half the shelter. The western stonework wall, built of rough-cut limestone blocks laid without lime mortar, had buckled outward under the thrust of an old ice-sheet, spilling twenty tons of rock down the cliff edge. What remained was a three-walled stone pen roofed with torn, frost-bleached strips of old military duck canvas that snapped in the wind like pistol shots.
Kael led the exhausted mules through the breached entrance. The animals crowded together against the intact eastern wall. Their breath condensed into a shared cloud of white vapor that right away froze onto the stone blocks in a thick fur of rime.
“We don’t unhitch the sledge,” Kael said, his voice hoarse from shouting into the gale. “The deck stays lashed. If the wind takes the canvas roof tonight, the sledge will act as a windbreak for the beasts.”
Tomas set his pack on a dry slab of stone. His right hand was numb. The thumb and index finger had lost sensation during the final haul up the ridge. He sat down right away on the snow-crusted flat stone slabs, pulled off his outer leather mitten. Then he inspected his fingers.
