The Northern Karst Mountain Pass was a jagged throat of white limestone that split the northern cloud line six leagues above the valley floor. Here, the Great Northern Turnpike ceased to be a broad wagon road and became a narrow, blasted shelf cut into the sheer rock face, overlooking a thousand-foot deep gap filled with churning gray mist. A howling blizzard had dropped out of the northern wastes at dawn, driving needles of frozen sleet horizontally through the pass and coating the stone low roof walls in an inch of slick, crystal-clear ice.
Tomas Reed walked at the head of the expedition column, his boots wrapped in chains of twisted manila rope to bite into the ice. His ash-wood pack frame was strapped tight to his shoulders, covered in a triple-layered tarpaulin of greased steer-hide that protected thirty reams of fresh ruling paper, two gallons of vinegar-steadied iron ink, and the master duplicate registers for Sector One. Beside him, Nessa Vale trudged through the snow, her brass level-transit packed in an oiled sheepskin case slung behind her, her velvet-rimmed aimed hearing horn held to her right ear as she listened to the sound echoes of the canyon walls.
Behind them, Sile Rook and twelve independent watchmen led four sturdy mountain mules, their packs lashed with double diamond-hitches to prevent the loads from shifting on the forty-degree grade. Apprentice Olla brought up the rear, her woolen muffler pulled high over her nose. Her hands were tucked deep into sheepskin mittens as…
