The dust of Canton Vane was different from the river silt of Low Bellwether. Rather than clinging in damp cakes to a cart driver’s boots, it rose in chalky clouds that smelled of baked limestone and dead roots, coating the tongue with the bitterness of scorched weed.
Tomas Reed paused on the crest of the irrigation levee, easing his ash-wood pack frame. The seventy-pound load—two bronze measuring chains, four boxes of dark oak-ink and approved thick parchment, forged chisels, and rations of rye biscuit and salt pork—settled against his back with familiar gravity. His left forearm throbbed where the white scar pulled against the muscle tissue. He unbuckled the calfskin brace, working his fingers thumb-to-index, thumb-to-middle, thumb-to-ring, thumb-to-little finger, breaking the morning stiff scars before tightening the strap against the tendon sheath. No miraculous draught was coming to mend the nerve damage. There was only carriage, the buckle, and the weight.
Beside him, Sile Rook halted, his tall oak body-shield slung across his back. Across his right ribs, beneath his linen tunic, the keloid tissue from chemical fire pulled taut with every breath. That forced him to keep his torso rigid as he surveyed the valley.
“Look at the barley,” Sile said, his voice like gravel between millstones. “Three weeks without soaking. The stalks are pale as parchment. If the heads don’t fill before the dog days, the lower canton will be eating weed mash by harvest.”
