Two hundred feet above the gorge floor, the stair passed behind a curtain of fallen cliff rock that blocked the wind and left a dry shelf of flat flagstone.
Pip stopped dead in the middle of the shelf.
All six of its legs locked at once—even the thinner, differently jointed left-middle leg that had regrown at the stone-swift bridge. Its bound antlers jerked upright, and its partial translucent shell gave a faint, dry click as the plates tensed.
Through the bond, the dark limestone shelf vanished for three heartbeats.
In its place rushed a leftover surge from the White Fen stone: not a picture this time, but the overwhelming physical pressure of ten thousand lungs drawing breath together in wet marsh air, the sweet, heavy warmth of rescued families pressing against an enormous flank, and underneath it a cold, iron certainty that every road had to be watched forever or the dead would have died for nothing.
Ysabet’s burned right hand curled against her coat. For an instant she felt a fierce, protective urge to throw an arm across the tunnel mouth and forbid anyone—Chaska, Osha, Pip itself—from moving a step until she had checked every stone ahead.
“Pip,” she said aloud. Her voice sounded small and flat against the rock.
