By nightfall the gentle slope of the road became clear and definite. The pale grasses and scrub-trees in that arid (as Oru and many others understood it) place gave way to scales of broken stone the size of houses, which seemed to point the way upward to the pass. Indeed in some places the stones showed evidence that they had been worked in ages past. It was clear that the road itself was made of that material, in these parts the rarer of the two main matters of earth to be seen.
As the last light faded behind the distant forests, which from their height stretched on farther than they could reconcile, they broke train and set up camp.
For Oru and the divine father this was as simple as chewing their yucca and laying their heads against the illhb where they had stopped. Long after the chill winds of night came wandering amongst them, the stones of the road below their beaten backs continued to radiate the heat of the sun. Oru and the divine father shared a prayer of thanksgiving.
Far up the train, if one strained to see past the tents and cooking fires of the lesser nobles, one could see the grand pavillions erected and hear the enticing sounds of the jurus horns, played, seemingly, in time to the soft march of the watch as they went at intervals up and down the line.