“All right,” Ysabet said, reading the sequence of taps without needing the bond to dress it up. “You counted what the mortar needs, and you’re only giving your share if the rest of us strip our gear too.”
Pip gave a single, firm click of its sideways jaw and returned to the first depression.
Nobody argued about keeping spares for the road home. Chaska went over to the long canvas bundle resting beside Lilt’s flank, knelt on one knee, and used her good right hand to unpin the four detachable curved metal struts that held the outer cargo-baskets of her gliding frame rigid in rough wind. She laid the bright alloy rods on the stone beside the depression, while carefully re-tying the broad waxed sailcloth and the main spine-pole back onto Lilt’s saddle pack.
“Don’t bend the pin-sockets if you can help it, Kiv,” Chaska said, her voice tight for a second as she looked at the dismantled struts. “Took me two winters of salt-fish runs to pay the tinker in Bent Reed for that rig. The struts can frame the mud-wall between the hot and cold pans.”
“I’ll wedge them in clay instead of hammering them,” Kiv promised. He walked over to Siv, Tern, and Moth, opened the canvas saddle-roll Moth carried, and lifted out the three heavy spare iron breast-plates he kept for the wolves in rockfall country. He set the curved iron plates down along the outer lip of the second depression to form a retaining wall…
