Pip let go.
It did not ease the pattern down slowly or wait until the boy’s boots were safely on the bank. The instant Ysabet’s question hit the bond—bringing with it the sharp, unmistakable sensation of Rethi’s small mind shoving wildly against the intrusion—Pip snapped the shared-will connection shut as if it had bitten down on hot iron.
The gold-green bar of light beneath its shell vanished.
Immediately, the physical danger rushed back in at full weight. Released from the lock, Rethi gasped, lost his footing on the slick willow root, and dropped hard onto his belly across the wet bark. Beside him, the yearling deer let out a hoarse bleat, thrashing sideways as the gray silt sucked its shoulders down again.
The deer’s iron-hard hind hoof raked across the softened right flange of Pip’s extended shell. Weakened by the biting spring mud, a broad strip of green-and-white mineral armor—four inches wide and nearly a foot long from shoulder to hip—split along the old Little Harbor seam and tore completely away, sinking into the bubbling gray slime with a hiss.
Pip let out a raw, whistling scrape of pain through its scarred throat, dark mineral sap welling from the exposed gray flesh beneath, yet it kept its front feet locked on the willow root so the boy would not slide into the hole.
