With the lamp burning bright again—though she knew the two tablespoons of oil would not last fifteen minutes—Chaska knelt beside the young predator’s head and brought the improvised brass tongs within three inches of the pinned feeding slit.
The moment the cold metal entered the air near its snout, the young beast’s heat-pits twitched.
Even half-strangled and stiff with river chill, its body recognized the sudden shadow of cold brass against the warmer cave air as something unnatural. Its neck jerked sideways in a blind, spasmodic thrash, slamming the wedged quartz shard against the slate floor and making fresh, smoking foam bubble from the corners of its slit.
Chaska pulled the tongs back before the crystal could tear the inner flesh worse. “It’s shaking too hard from the cold water,” she said, wiping a fleck of sour foam off her leather cuff with a pebble. “Every time the metal comes near its face, it shivers and jerks its head. If I grab the shard while it’s thrashing like that, I’ll rip its jaw open.”
She looked across the pale body at Pip. “Can you warm it up just enough to stop the shivering—without warming it so much that it thinks you’re dinner and tries to bite your leg off?”
