Dawn broke over the Green River valley with a soft, pearl-gray light that revealed a landscape fully alien to the refugees of the bitter salt basin. Here, the air was sweet with the scent of wet willow bark, damp river loam, and wild mint. A gentle river, thirty paces wide and clear as melted ice, curved through broad river-bed meadows dotted with ancient valley oaks.
Tomas Reed, Nessa Vale, Sile Rook, and eight refugee wagon drivers walked along the crest of the high river bluff. They pushed through dense thickets of wild blackberry brambles and river alder. In their hands, the men carried five-foot iron probing rods. It was sharp-pointed steel bars used to locate buried stones in river crossings.
“Thorne’s map points place the milestone within forty paces of this bend,” Nessa said, checking her pocket sextant against the morning sun. “Height four hundred and twelve feet. It should be right at the shift where the gravel terrace meets the river silt.”
Old Kaelen Brant drove his probe into a mound of earth covered with tangled thornbushes. The iron struck soft river silt. Three paces farther, another wagon driver drove his rod into the ground with a soft squelch.
