Outsider in the End: Breakers

A bump in the road jolted the cart hard enough to force Dana past the edge of near sleep and into wakefulness. She noted that the wheel on the right side had picked up another squeak. At the next stop, she'd have to oil it again or it would grate on her for the rest of the journey. Mjer Madhin, the driver, wouldn't do it. He'd said last time that it was the nature of carts to pick up squeaks and rattles and that he'd deal with it in the city proper rather than risk courting a back ache unnecessarily.

Behind her closed eyes, everything darkened and the air cooled as a shadow fell over Dana, cutting off the warm sunlight she'd been basking in for the last hour. Cracking one eye open, she tilted her head back to find the source of the shadow.

“What is that?” she asked, looking at a twisting shape of a thick stone pillar that towered taller than any tree she'd ever seen.

"They call them breakers, though what they break, I don't know. Get used to them, you'll see lots more before we reach the gates of Ohmwari."