Kiv did not waste time swearing. He picked up the iron pry-bar from beside the gravel troughs, handed Osha two flat slat-baskets lined with wet moss, and jerked his chin toward the cool-water shelves.
“Start with the blind crabs and the mud-snails,” Kiv said. “If you crowd the crabs into the same basket, they’ll pinch each other’s legs off before we reach the warm cavern. Two to a division. Chaska, keep your left arm in that sling—use your boot to slide the dry box.”
“My feet work fine,” Chaska muttered, already nudging the crate of bristle-backed burrowers toward the dark cleft at the back of the cave with the side of her boot while her right hand steadied the mouse’s half-covered box against her hip.
Osha worked fast, her fingers numb in the cold seepage as she lifted the heavy-shelled snails one by one onto damp moss. Behind her, she heard the scrape of pine wood on limestone as Edris dragged himself upright with his crutch. He did not move toward the rear cleft. Instead, he hobbled down the three broad steps toward the outer mouth of the Quiet Spring, where the path narrowed between two columns of yellow flowstone.
