“Feet first,” Ysabet whispered, backing down the narrow gutter on her elbows while guiding Ashaun’s bruised shins through the rotted gap in the sump bars. “Let your weight rest on my shoulders until your hips clear the iron.”
Ashaun did not argue or pretend she was steady enough to manage alone. Her legs were stiff and trembling from hours bound in the cold damp, and she used her stone left forearm as a skid along the wet limestone wall while her right hand gripped the back of Ysabet’s coat collar. Inch by inch, scraping skin and wool through the icy silt, they wormed backward down the eighteen-inch drain toward the dim grey arch where Pip waited.
Ysabet’s boot heels cleared the outer opening first. She rolled sideways onto the wet ledge, reached back with her left hand to hook Ashaun under the right armpit, and dragged her clear of the settled limestone arch just as a shout rang out from the lake shore below:
“Drop the main pin! Take up the slack on all four cables!”
Across the subterranean basin, the great iron winches released their ratchets at once. The suspended clapper settled into full tension above the dark water, and a worker struck the cross-beam to test the alignment.
