Torvin’s Route
At breakfast in Kaldrek, the party finally settled the question of Torvin’s sixty gold. Ilsevir pressed the foreman about the cut wall, the old disturbances beneath the mine, and the circle crossed by three lines on the iron tag. Torvin could offer no answer, but he knew of Warden’s Watch beyond Grayspin Pass, where an old order had once inspected Kaldrek’s mines twice a year. If anyone still held the watch, he believed they might recognize the mark. Torvin sketched a two-day route on the back of a bill of lading, and the party accepted his work. They spent the remaining morning gathering what they could for the cold: Brask grudgingly bought a fur-lined cloak, Yenn bought rope and pitons, and Kettra returned with fur mittens she had not paid for. Faro spent some of his earlier pay on trapper’s spirits, then copied the tag’s mark into his notes before returning it to Kettra.
The Treacherous Pass
The party left Kaldrek at midday and entered Grayspin Pass, a high glacier saddle swept by wind and broken by black rock. With no proper shelter on the open ice, Yenn led them along the eastern edge where the footing first appeared easier. Brask broke through hidden snow crust to his hip, and the rope Yenn had bought was needed to haul him free. They lost time retreating from the crevasse-ridden edge and finding a safer course through the center. Yenn admitted that she had never crossed the pass before when Kettra confronted her about the mistake. At dusk they made camp in the lee of a rock ridge, but the wind robbed them of most of a night’s rest.
Marked on the Ice
An hour into the next morning’s crossing, the glacier narrowed between two rock outcrops and the ambush came. Four masked people waited above with short bows and hand axes, while two frost-crusted wolves bearing iron tags came low across the ice. Yenn struck one archer before the attack fully broke, sending him from the outcrop. The wolves reached Kettra and Brask together; Brask killed one, while the other seized Kettra by the shield arm and dragged her toward a crevasse. Faro caught Kettra’s pack strap as the crust broke beneath them, leaving both suspended just short of the drop. Ilsevir burned the wolf away, and Kettra regained her feet in time to break an archer’s arm while Brask brought down another. The remaining woman fled east along the ridge toward Warden’s Watch, untouched by Yenn’s arrows and too far ahead to catch.
Orders for the Watch
The party was left with two dead attackers, one wounded captive, and the knowledge that one of their number had reached the ridge ahead of them. The young captured archer would not name his group, saying only that the party was too late; he died of the cold that night despite Brask’s efforts. Among the bodies, the party found ordinary weapons and supplies, roughly thirty gold, a carved bone whistle, and a folded sheet of ciphered orders. Ilsevir kept the orders, which showed Warden’s Watch as a destination on a crude map and bore the circle-and-three-lines mark at the bottom. Kettra claimed the escaped woman’s dropped sword, a plain cold-forged weapon with a blue-gray edge that Brask recognized as enchanted. They named it the cinderline blade, and it would cut truer than an ordinary weapon while helping its bearer keep footing on ice. By dusk, the party had crossed to the eastern end of the ice field and sighted the distant fortress on its crag, but chose to camp below the ridge rather than risk the dark route to Warden’s Watch.