For nearly an hour they climbed through the black belly of the mountain behind the rhythmic thump-thump of a baby monster’s tail.
It was slow, deliberate work that left no breath for talking. Pip walked three paces in front of Ysabet, keeping ten yards of empty tunnel between its snout and the young quartz predator ahead so the little creature never felt hunted. Whenever the path narrowed beside an unseen drop or turned sharply around a slick limestone pillar, Pip stopped and tapped one front foot twice on the rock. Ysabet would reach forward with the tip of Suth’s ash staff until the wood lightly brushed the solid curve of Pip’s shell—careful not to jab the sensitive fringe of filaments along the seam—read the angle of the turn from where Pip stood, and pass a quiet word back to Osha, Chaska, Lilt, and Ashaun.
Twice the young predator paused at forks where cold snow-water had rotted the limestone floor into treacherous mud-sinks. Each time, its heavy tail knocked three times against the stone, its heat-pits tasted the rising draft, and it skirted the rotten rock by a dry upper rib that no human eye could have spotted in the dark. Once, when Osha’s boot skidded on a wet patch of clay and her heavy archive case banged against the wall, the little beast up ahead froze for five seconds; Pip immediately stopped too, keeping the whole line motionless until the young predator decided the noise was not a pursuit and…
