Hajin watched the ridge watch rip through a wagon manifest before waving its factor down toward the staging yard.
Below the milestone, Marrick climbed beside the drainage ditch with two bound registers clamped against his ribs like stolen shields. Behind him, an aide hauled the cedar dispatch case while local sentries kept the drivers above the marked gallery boundary.
Marrick stopped beside the stone and flipped the supply register open against his forearm, "The company factor's stock cleared the western pass before sunrise, my lord, out of their forward depot, not some coastal return already finished."
"Before sunrise?" Hajin whistled through his teeth, squinting at the dust still hanging over the yard, "damn, merchants actually run when somebody's gold waits at the bottom of the hill."
"So what reached the scales?"
