Hajin stepped over the first crack in the causeway, then waited while Helen jabbed its far edge with her rapier.
"That cart wheel won't clear it," he called, stabbing a finger at the left rut, "unless you want the wounded swimming in that drain."
She leaned her weight onto the loose lip until grit trickled away, "Take them right, and keep the horses off this edge."
Sixty paces wide, the causeway let the carts turn without pushing the wounded beneath cracked statues leaning over its drains. Heat climbed through the cracks rather than falling from a sun, and each downward stretch demanded more water from everyone.
"It was way cooler next to the hounds," Loccy whined, hoisting her hammer clear of a wagon's folded blanket.
Juna sniffed toward the vent beside the next statue, her ears flattening, "That heat comes from below, not from their corpses."
"I wasn't blaming the dead dogs, I just miss their room."
"Their room smelled like burnt dog, and nobody cooked it properly."
