The northern night dropped upon the Ashen Valley not with the clean, velvet darkness of the southern heavens, but like an iron cooking pot inverted over the dying embers of the world.
There were no stars visible through the dense fine dust canopy. Above the canyon, thick clouds of aerosolized sulfur and crushed bone drifted in sluggish heat currents. He blotted out the sky spheres. Below, the jagged dark rock bluffs formed a maze of razor-sharp ridges, narrow defiles, and dried riverbeds crusted with bitter white bitter salt salts that crunched like broken glass under foot.
Lin Tao moved along the eastern ridgeline, his boots stepping lightly upon the frozen shale. His dark wool traveling cloak was drawn tight against his neck, blending seamlessly with the shadows of the rocks. Behind him, Tie Shan moved with uncanny silence for a man of his huge mass. The giant had wrapped the contact surfaces of his boots in strips of boiled goat leather, muffling the metal scrape of his iron-shod soles against the frozen stone. The twelve-pound iron pry-bar rested diagonally across his back, its oiled dark surface reflecting not a single glint of light.
Lin Tao paused behind an outcrop of dark rock that jutted over the canyon floor like the prow of a sunken galley. He dropped to one knee, resting his left forearm against the cold stone.
