That settled the division of labor without another word of argument.
Ashaun would carry the dagger and press it into the cage’s collar groove in short, timed intervals; Osha would walk at her right shoulder to keep her oriented with real names and places; and Ysabet would manage the haul ropes and watch Ashaun’s body for the first sign that the strain was locking her muscles.
Before they pried the cage loose, another deep tremor shook the chute, dropping a slab of wet shale six feet behind Edris’s head and sending a crack racing across the low roof.
“If this ceiling comes down when the next steam pocket bursts, nobody in this trough walks out,” Ysabet told Edris, pulling two heavy six-foot shoring planks from the debris that had washed down from the upper drill frame. “We’re lashing these planks together with wolf traces for a sled. You ride out to the causeway with us, or you stay here and get buried under fifty tons of wet lime.”
Edris looked up at the fresh crack weeping muddy brine overhead, then at the black-stone cage ten feet away. “If the chamber collapses on the cage, the pressure will crack the clapper,” he said grimly. “Put me on the planks.”
