Around noon they halted in the lee of an overhanging slate crag to chew cold oat-cakes and melt snow in the small tin kettle. The air coming up from the northern end of the ridge smelled stronger now—wet iron, warm limestone, and the sharp, chalky tang of the Wild Cradle’s outer springs less than three miles ahead.
Twice during the last hour’s climb, Ysabet had noticed Pip stepping out of line to press its left flank tight against the cliff wall, turning its head away from the rest of the party while its shoulders gave a hard, silent shudder.
Now, as Chaska tossed Pip a flat slab of Kesh quarry chalk, the creature caught the stone between its front paws and bit down. Hunger and the smell of the valley vents hit its blood together. Before Pip could tuck itself into the shadow of the crag, a brief, involuntary sketch of another body rippled across its green-and-white shell: for the space of two heartbeats, the pale green light inside its seams flared into the outline of heavy, overlapping fortress-plates five feet wide, and the tips of its branching lattice antlers threw a ghostly, translucent shadow against the rock wall shaped like a curved crown of broad spear-blades.
