Ten steps forward, she opened her hand and let the brass ornament drop with a barely audible thump onto the ground. Then she went down to the spikes as if to test their strength, as Xilsi had. Gripping one of the metal posts, she pushed and pulled, but it was set stout and solid. Nevertheless, to have something to do, she kept a hand on it. Behind her, there came an interval of silence, followed by voices in sharp discussion, fading as the two men explored.

The light winked, caught on something shiny down in the canyon, amid the rubble. She blinked, looked again, and got out her spyglass. With a slow scan, she studied the road, following it back to the place where the avalanche had poured across in a great pile of stone and dirt. There was something strange about the slope. Was that a path cutting up the unstable incline? Had the light winked just where the flattened trail-like ribbon vanished out of sight, over the top of the debris pile?

A dark shape moved just beyond the crest. She knelt, sharply alert, and fixed her spyglass to the spot. A moment later, a goat nosed over with delicate steps, testing the ground. It raised its head as if hearing something behind it, then trotted down onto the road and made a beeline for the village’s untended gardens and their rich, unguarded harvest. A second goat appeared, followed by a third. Elen chuckled. If goats had found a way through, then surely the engineers could not be far behind. Whatever was going on with the princes in the palace, Orledder Intendancy needed the road to be reopened.

From down by the feather-grass tuft came exclamations of surprise and shock. When she saw Xilsi and Jirvy come running with bows at the ready, she, too, hastened to the prince.

The dead griffin lay half hidden by the rocky unevenness of the ground, close to the crumbling edge. A few ells more and the beast would have toppled over the side, perhaps never to be found. The rider lay about twenty paces away, skull crushed and face unrecognizable, just as Oflidu had said. A sad sight, and a grim end. By the state of decomposition, bloating, and smell, the corpse hadn’t died yesterday nor a month ago but sometime in between. As Elen came up, Simo rose from his examination of the rider’s body and shook his head.

“I see no sign of attack. But I don’t understand how her shoulder ornament came to be so far away, and up the slope. Look here. Its leather band has been cut by a blade.”

The haunt said nothing.

Simo added, “Perhaps the rider feared they would plunge over the edge, and she was trying to get down, or to leave a sign.”