Kiv came down the terraced steps from the upper retaining wall with two iron pitons and a short-handled mason’s hammer tucked under his arm, followed closely by the limping drill engineer Ashaun had pulled from beneath the beam. Six more temple laborers huddled near the mouth of the west gallery with soot on their coats and blankets wrapped around their shoulders, watching the steaming hole where their machine had vanished.
“The upper path to the Quiet Spring is still clear,” Kiv said, setting the iron spikes on the cable drum beside Chaska. “The rockfall took out the outer crane staging, not the goat track. If we move the workers and the basin creatures now, we can have them behind the spring ridge before the lower vents cool and drop the ceiling.”
Chaska looked down into the torn mineral chute, then back at Lilt, and let out a short, bitter breath through her nose. “Lilt can’t spread six feet of wing in a four-foot drainpipe anyway,” she said, tapping her bound left wrist against her ribs with her right knuckles. “And with this shoulder tied up like a trussed goose, I’d only be one more sack of meal for somebody to haul up a rope.”
