A cold downdraught tore a window through the canyon mist for ten seconds, and the moonlight struck the southern cliff wall below the bridge abutment.
Thirty feet down from the southern rim, a narrow shelf of rotten black shale jutted out above the sheer drop to the river. Part of the upper parapet had collapsed onto it in a fresh fan of rubble. Wedged near the outer lip of that shelf lay Tern, his iron-grey hindquarters pinned flat beneath a tilted slab of limestone and the sprawled legs of a man in a sheepskin vest.
As Kiv leaned out over the northern edge and gave a low, questioning whistle, Tern lifted his dark head and answered with a muffled, strained whine, thumping his tail once against the gravel.
Beside the wolf, the fallen bounty hunter stirred. His bow hung tangled by its leather sling across his bruised shoulder, the windlass lost in the slide, and as he twisted his chest up from the rubble, moon-glint caught the six-inch blade of a skinning knife in his right fist. He jammed his left elbow against Tern’s pinned ribs and pressed the flat of the steel directly under the wolf’s jaw, right against the pulsing throat.
