At the base of the dry chimney stair, Ashaun tried to lift her right boot onto the first high limestone shelf, and her knee buckled inward before she could take her weight.
Only her stone left forearm striking the rock wall kept her from pitching face-first onto the steps. She stayed leaned against the limestone for three breaths, her jaw clenched over her broken teeth and cold sweat beading under the bruise on her cheek.
“Not the chimney,” Ysabet said at once, stepping down a rung so Ashaun could lean her right shoulder against Ysabet’s good left side. “The rungs are two feet apart higher up, and you’ve had no water since yesterday.”
“The lower runoff channel adds half an hour,” Ashaun muttered, though she did not try the step again.
“Half an hour walking beats carrying you up a ladder with a broken neck,” Ysabet said.
They turned away from the steep stair and waded ankle-deep into the gently sloping lower drainage channel that wound around the eastern flank of the valley. Pip walked two paces ahead in the shallow brine, holding the dented tin cup in its sideways jaw by the rim and setting it down at every feeder crack so the glassfish scale could float free.
