The wind in the basin kicked up blinding clouds of sodium flour as the survey party reached the base of the rubble mound. The mound rose six feet above the bitter salt crust, a shapeless heap of gray scree and crumbling lime that looked fully out of place against the flat horizon.
Tomas Reed set down his ash pack frame, unbuckled the canvas side-sleeves, and withdrew two iron trenching spades and a five-foot steel crowbar. Four refugee wagon drivers stepped forward from the wagon track, their hands wrapped in coarse hemp rags, ready to clear the debris.
Nessa Vale set up her earth-measuring transit twenty paces back, leveling the brass tripod with deliberate care. She checked the plumb-bob: the lead weight hung motionless over the dry salt crust. “Caleb Thorne’s specifications for a royal country milestone needed a cubic foundation of dressed limestone set four feet into native bedrock. The pillar itself was four thousand pounds of Black Crag granite. If this mound is Thorne’s monument, the stone should be sitting squarely on solid rock.”
Old Kaelen Brant drove his iron spade into the top of the mound. The metal struck no solid granite. Instead, the shovel sank smoothly into a soft mixture of broken river gravel, dried horse manure, and crumbling white chalk-stone plaster. A plume of white dust billowed out, smelling of stale wood-ash and damp rot.
