The underground chill of the Sixth Peak seeped upward through the linked dark rock slabs like an invisible frost. Beneath an inverted overhang of dense, iron-rich bedrock that jutted twelve feet out from the cliff face, Lin Tao knelt beside Tie Shan. Outside their narrow stone pocket, the air was filled with an unending, high-pitched hiss as stray micro-blades sliced through the falling mist, shaving thin ribbons of granite from the outer edges of the terrace with razor-sharp indifference.
Tie Shan sat with his back pressed hard against the solid stone. His right hand gripped his canteen while his left arm remained immobile in its hemp sling. His leather vest was unlaced, exposing the massive, muscular expanse of his ribs. Across his left flank, a dark, purple-black blood bruise stretched from the sixth rib down to the pelvic crest—the moving price of riding the collapsing scree slope during the destruction of the Seventh Ridge.
Lin Tao opened his wooden medical case, selecting a horn jar of clarified pine resin mixed with rendered animal fat and powdered willow bark. The pungent smell of resin and bitter pine-resin cut through the metal tang of spark-charged stone dust. He spread the dark, fragrant salve across a fresh strip of clean mountain linen.
