By the time the carriage crested the second switchback, the sleet had turned into a driving, level gale that scoured the exposed canyon face like broken glass.
The road here was barely twelve feet wide, cut into a shelf of crumbling grey shale that dropped two hundred upright feet on the left into the raging tailrace of the Diverter. To the right rose the upright dark rock wall of the canyon, weeping gallons of muddy runoff that washed across the road in sheet-floods.
Tomas marched at the front of the bridle, his coat frozen into a stiff, crackling shell of ice across his chest. His breath came in heavy, rhythmic plumes that were instantly torn away by the wind. Every muscle in his legs burned with the buildup of muscle burn. But his stride remained locked to the twenty-beat rhythm of Sile’s gong.
Behind him, the carriage was climbing slowly. Its steel-shod sleds left two deep, polished ruts in the shale. Master Gault stood on the rear timber deck, an eight-foot steering lever clamped to the trailing axle to keep the carriage from drifting toward the sheer edge of the deep pit.
Suddenly, a sharp, hollow CRACK echoed from beneath the carriage.
