On the bridge, the tear did not stop widening when the wolves left.
The bitter almond scent of the crushed beetles was spreading outward on the wind, and every insect that breathed it pulled its horns free of its neighbors in blind alarm. The four-pace span between Ysabet and Kiv had thinned to a twisted ribbon no wider than a plank, sagging three feet below the hemp guide rope and shedding white shells from its underside by the hundred.
Kiv hung with one arm wrapped around the rope on the southern side of the gap, his boots skidding on loosening shells as the strand beneath him began to part from the northern half.
“Go on, Ysabet!” Kiv shouted, his knuckles white on the hemp. “Take the beast and run for the north shelf before the whole middle drops! The rope won’t hold both of us if the arch goes!”
Ysabet looked down at the frothing break between them. If the central span snapped, the sudden whip of the forty-pace rope would fling anyone hanging from it straight against the granite canyon wall. And Pip was not moving toward the northern shelf.
Pip stood planted at the ragged lip of the tear, all six legs braced wide on the trembling shells. Every fine filament along its green-and-white patchwork rim was extended to its full length, vibrating with the panic of a hundred thousand small bodies losing their grip at once.
