Location:The Gate — the valley mouth, the hall of eight desks, the yard; the valley mouth again
Date/Time:22 Frostforge 9943 AZI, Quenchday, first light → afternoon
Realm:Lower Realm
Wet-straw smoke came down the plain road from the rise at first light, low along the ground in the still cold, and Meifen had been smelling it all night. It was the carts' fires. They'd camped on the far side of the rise at dusk and put their fires out some time after the second bell, and the smoke had hung there anyway, in the hollow, and come down the road a little at a time, until by morning the whole of the valley mouth stank of a wet stable.
