Water still dripped from the hems of everyone’s coats, smelling of wet cedar roots and river silt. The dry limestone cavern fifty paces beyond the Upside Ford had a flat floor of packed gray sand and a low ceiling blackened by old drovers’ grease-lamps, which was enough to make it feel like a palace after two hours of bracing timber under an overhead river.
Ysabet sat against a dry boulder, using her good left hand to unlace her boots while keeping her right palm turned upward on her knee. The old burn scar across that palm was tight from cold spray, and her two bent outer fingers ached in the damp. Beside her, Pip lay curled on a heap of limestone chips, licking a gray crust of calcium from between its front toes. Its green-and-white patchwork shell gleamed faintly, and its branching lattice antlers threw crooked shadows across the sand whenever it shifted. The original field mouse sat at the lip of its half-covered wooden box near Pip’s warm flank, chewing a dried oat in both front paws before tucking its stiff hind leg under its belly.
Further along the wall, Kiv was checking Tern’s scraped hock where the canyon ledge had barked the skin beneath the wolf’s iron harness. Siv lay with his scarred muzzle on his paws, watching the dark tunnel toward the river, while Moth circled the sand three times before flopping down near Lilt’s folded wing-tip. The big gliding sandray gave a single warning click of…
