Down on the lower nursery shelf, the water in the pools had turned from lukewarm turquoise to scalding gray chalk in less than a minute.
Ysabet waded knee-deep through the churning overflow, her boots sliding on boiled algae as she used a broken plank held in her useful left hand to turn three blind stone-newts away from the cracked middle terrace. Every time she twisted to shove a panicked animal toward the western side passage, the old trap-line bruise across her left ribs stabbed like a hot awl, and the steam stung the healing burn scar on her right palm.
Ten yards ahead at the mouth of the narrow western rock chute, the pig-sized burrow beast was struggling up the dry rubble ramp. Because its stiff, mineral-ribbed wings stuck out four feet on either side of its shoulders, it could not turn corner-wise without wedging a wing-tip against the limestone wall.
High above them on the fractured western buttress, Chaska dragged herself to the lip of the overhang on her knees. Her face was the color of wet salt, and her left arm hung crooked and limp against her ribs where the recoiling crossbeam had smashed her left shoulder into the stone, but she braced her chin on the rock and waved her good right arm toward the left-hand cleft.
