Rowan stopped beneath the canvas before joining the others at the fire. Belda was examining the traveler with the head wound. She asked him to follow her finger, then tell her whether the light troubled him. He followed the movement, but shut his eyes when she asked about the light.
“He’s been sick again,” Belda told Phia. “He knew where he was before he slept. I want to see whether that’s changed.”
Phia knelt on the other side. A cool veil of water spread over the clean cloth against his brow while Belda questioned him. He gave his name, then the road, and asked them to move the lamp. Belda did, watching his face. “Here tonight,” she said. Phia nodded. “And we look again before anyone packs him.”
At the other bed, the man with the injured leg watched them. The broader road seemed to have promised him a sound leg as well. Phia went back to him and rested a hand beside the padding, letting him finish his question.
Rowan went outside. Two covered bowls waited beside the fire. He took the nearer one and sat on the stone. His shoulders were beginning to stiffen after the work on the trees. He eased them back and ate. Across the road, a guard stood where the carts narrowed the approach. Someone laughed beneath the canvas and was immediately hushed.
Leth came up from the lower watch after the light had gone. He held his hands toward the fire, his cloak smelling of wet leaves.
“Oris wants to change the padding under one load. The animal’s rubbed.”
“We’ll leave the tools here. That’ll give him room.”
“Are both going south?”
“If we can take the two out. Bedding and food on the animals, people on the road.”
Leth nodded. Rowan passed him the other bowl. Phia came out while he was lifting the cover.
“I thought I’d missed it,” Leth said.
“You were on the watch,” she told him. “You weren’t dead.”
He settled nearer the fire and ate. Phia sat beside Rowan, one hand round a cup that had begun steaming before she drank from it. For a little while nobody asked her another question. Rowan could hear the traveler’s voice within the shelter, then Belda answering him. On the road below, the stream ran beneath the crossing they would use in the morning.
They bound the carrying frame after breakfast. The broad cloth lay flat between its poles, padding secured where the injured leg would rest. The traveler watched from the shelter entrance. When Bren lifted one end to look beneath it, the man leaned forward.
“Will that hold?”
“It will,” Bren said. “We’re checking the ties so it stays comfortable.”
Rowan crouched beside the bed. “You can see the road from here. There’s no climbing round the roots now.”
“I saw them go.” The man looked toward the bank. “I’d like to go too.”
“Then let them finish looking at you.”
Phia came with Belda. They eased the blanket from the foot, listened to what had changed overnight, and spoke together before calling Rowan over. The head-wounded man would stay. The leg could travel with support and pauses; the man with the shoulder could walk the clearer reaches with someone beside him, but he was not to take a load. The new cut from the raid needed another dressing and could wait with the patient they were keeping under the roof.
“I’ll stay with those two,” Belda said. “Phia will settle the leg before they leave.”
Bren would take longer going back with a carried person than they had taken coming up.
“Both animals go,” Rowan said. “Food for another night between the roofs if they need it.”
“That’s better than hurrying him to reach a door.”
Outside, he brought Bren and Leth to Cadd. The remaining Cresting carrier would go south, keeping Rowan’s account until someone could take it onward. Bren and the carrier would take the front of the frame; Leth could take a rear handle. They needed a fourth bearer and someone beside the walking man.
“Oris can walk with him,” Bren said. “He’ll have the animals on the clear road.”
“I can spare one for the frame,” Cadd said. “Not two.”
“One will do.”
Cadd looked toward the carts. His guards still held the upper approach and nearer trees; the remaining Cresting warden watched the lower bend.
“Your people start when mine are in place,” he said. “I’m not moving the watch to help with bags.”
“We’ll load beside the shelter,” Rowan said. “Your bearer stays with you until we’re ready.”
Cadd nodded. “I’ll bring the lower watch up once they’re clear. Someone can keep the bend from the wall.”
Rowan went to tell the practitioners. When he returned, Bren and Oris were changing the animal’s padding. Rowan held the heavier bag while they slid the folded cloth beneath it. Phia came out with the walking traveler’s coat over her arm.
The man put it on one-handed. Its bound sleeve hung empty. He tried to take his own bag when Bren brought it past him.
“That’s going with the bedding,” Phia said.
“It isn’t heavy.”
“Then the animal won’t object.”
He let Bren have it. Rowan offered his arm on the narrow side, and they went down to the bend together. The man stopped where the first crown had lain. Wheel marks and a pale scrape in the earth were all that remained across the road.
“I came through up there,” he said, looking at the old opening behind the stump. “Before they bound this.”
“You don’t have to go back that way.”
He took another breath and began walking. Rowan kept pace beside him. Below the turn, Oris had laid a folded cloth on a dry place near the stream. The traveler sat without releasing Rowan’s sleeve until he was sure of the ground beneath him.
“Thank you,” he said.
“They’ll be down soon,” Rowan said.
At the shelter, Phia had brought water into a shallow curve above the leg patient’s bed. It glimmered against the lamp, several clear strands moving beneath the blanket as she and Belda eased him toward the frame. Rowan stood beside the poles. When she nodded, he brought them nearer. The water held the injured leg steady while the man shifted his hips; Belda guided the foot onto its padding without twisting it.
His face was damp by the time he lay back. Phia let the water gather in the bowl at her knee and took his hand away from the cloth he had clenched.
“Keep telling us,” she said. “Don’t wait until you think it’s bad enough.”
He nodded. The guard Cadd had released took Rowan’s place at the rear handle. Rowan would walk beside them as far as the stream, with his hands free. Bren said when he was lifting, and the others answered before the frame rose.
The man shut his eyes at the first step. Rowan watched him rather than the road, then looked ahead when Bren called the turn. The bearers walked through on firm ground, with room to keep the frame level. Phia stayed near the man’s head. She spoke once, asking them to pause while the padding was eased clear of the bound cloth.
At the lower bend they set him down on folded bedding. He opened his eyes slowly and asked whether the trees were behind them.
“They are,” Rowan said.
His grip loosened. One hand lay open beside his hip.
Phia checked the binding while he drank. Belda’s care account went inside the frame’s covering; Rowan gave the road report to the carrier.
“Send it on from the first roof,” he said. “If no one there can take it, keep it with you. Don’t leave a bearer to carry paper.”
The carrier put it inside his coat. Bren stood for a moment with one hand on the frame, looking uphill.
“You’ll keep the rest here?”
“Until Belda’s ready for them to move. There’s still the party that went on.”
“Leave the cart repairs to someone with parts.”
Rowan smiled briefly. “I will.”
Leth lifted the rear handle. Oris led the first animal, with the walking traveler beside him; the second followed on its short line. They moved off at the frame’s pace. Rowan watched until they had passed the stream.
Phia picked up the cup the walking man had used. “He’ll want that.”
Rowan took it and went after them. Bren saw him coming and stopped long enough for Rowan to hand it over. The injured traveler smiled at the cup with an astonishment that made Rowan feel he should have brought something better.
Back beside the carts, the lower guard watched from behind the wall. The remaining Cresting warden had taken Leth’s place. Belda sat with the head-wounded man, letting him drink a little at a time.
Rowan gathered the smaller tools and tied them beneath a covered load. Beyond the shelter, canvas had come loose where the wind caught it. He lifted a little moonlight beneath the fastening, drawing the cloth close enough to put the tie back through its loop. The small working faded when he knotted it. Inside, there was more room beneath the roof. He folded the bedding where the leg patient had lain and put it beside the others.
Cadd came to the entrance. “I’ve someone who can show you where they went up after we drove them off. He was watching from the cart.”
Rowan looked toward the upper bank. The trees were quiet. Half the useful hands had gone south, and the people who remained were still within reach of that slope.
“Not alone,” he said. “We’ll look from this side first.”
Cadd went to fetch the guard. Rowan took out his notebook and found a clean page.