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"High Walk and shaft —Skyweaver," Kai said. "Two hundred with rope, hooks, and cloth. You relay wind and word."
Skyweaver's wings hummed. She had never looked so serious; she had also never looked so whole. "With me," she said, voice still ragged from the scream, and her two hundred streamed after her toward the shaft and the high lanes that threaded the mountain's crown.
"Reserves —Flint, Shale, Needle, Vexor, Wolf," Kai continued. "Each of you takes one hundred. Water, heat, and pull-outs where the cut goes too deep. You move where Shadeclaw points unless I call you."
"Aye King," Flint said, already rolling his shoulders under the imagined weight of a man twice his size.
"Aye king," Shale echoed, rubbing his palms together like a cook ready to turn meat.
"Fast feet," Needle grinned, spinning a coil of line so smoothly it looked like water.
"Quiet hands," Vexor added, checking the knots at his belt.
