Five disciples stood shoulder to shoulder across the narrow stone staircase, their matching gray robes snapping in the morning wind that whipped off the western precipice.
Pinned to each man’s left lapel was an iron badge cast in the shape of a crashing wave, marking them as enforcers of the Iron Wave Brotherhood. The stone steps below them curved sharply around the cliffside, serving as the sole footpath connecting Cloud Mist Peak to the lower terraces of the outer mountain. Beyond their locked ranks, the sheer drop plunged hundreds of feet into the pine valleys below, leaving no space to navigate around the perimeter without taking to the air.
Caleb Conway paused on the riser five paces above them, his boots resting lightly upon the weathered granite.
He had intended to visit the lowe
