Gevren had kept the harness because it had cost him money.
He carried it out of the storehouse with the careful resentment people reserved for expensive things that had failed them. Leather straps dangled from an iron ring. Beneath the ring hung a curved plate covered in short inward points.
“Quarry master said this would quiet a drake,” he said.
Ysabet did not take it.
The shape was familiar. Not the same tool, not the same size, but the pressure would fall in the same place: behind the jaw, against the organ that swelled when an animal called. The points would keep the plate from slipping as the throat moved.
“Did you use it?”
“Once. With help.”
“What happened?”
“It stopped charging.”
“What else?”
Gevren looked at the harness. “Broke two teeth on the ring. Nearly dragged Pel down the face.”
“And then?”
“We let it go.”
He spoke the last words as though confessing poor workmanship.
Ysabet touched one of the leather straps with her left hand. Old chalk had worked into the holes. A fresh strap would not alter where the plate pressed. She remembered the noise Oru had failed to make after the crowd scattered. Her damaged right hand began to ache before she realized she had closed it.
“We won’t use this.”
“You haven’t tried it.”
“No.”
Ashaun stood in the doorway, silent. That silence mattered. She had seen the drake charge. She could have called refusal a luxury, and Ysabet could not have answered by claiming there was no danger.
“We need room to get away,” Ysabet told Gevren. “Ropes. Smooth stones. A board long enough to bridge the wash. We’ll pay in work if the honey doesn’t cover the use of them.”
“You’re already working.”
“Then stop offering to pay twice and find the board.”
He blinked, then laughed unwillingly. The harness went onto a high shelf.
The day turned into a collection of insufficient objects. Gevren’s longest rope had a rotten middle. They cut it out and joined the sound ends with a knot Chaska disliked but could improve. The board had a split along one edge. Ashaun shaved it back with her right hand, pinning it under a boot and the weight of her stone forearm. Suth went to the stream to look for roots that could take a pull without uprooting the bank.
Ysabet worked at the table while the bird slept nearby. It had taken three grubs since morning. Its right wing still drooped. Gevren wanted to put it in the orchard so it could hear the others when they emerged.
“There aren’t any others yet,” Ysabet said.
“There will be.”
“I hope so.”
He placed the sieve near the window instead.
Pip spent the afternoon stealing smooth stones from the pile intended for the drakes. Each time Ysabet recovered one, it brought a rougher replacement from beneath the storehouse. After the fourth exchange she found a separate dish, put clean clay inside it, and moved the drake stones out of reach.
“That was a difficult negotiation,” Chaska said.
“You could have helped.”
“I wanted to see who won.”
By late afternoon the tools were ready enough to reveal how much they still lacked. Chaska needed a way of turning the flute stakes after setting them, from a place beyond the drakes’ straight runs. Ashaun needed three clear retreat passages. Suth wanted drinking water brought to the quarry; she could work roots into the stone cracks, but roots could not put water where no water existed.
Ysabet wrote the list on the back of an old invoice. It looked discouragingly like every other working day she had ever had. That steadied her.
Near sunset Gevren took them to the old tally shed above the quarry. A high whistle came from a crack in its wall. Pip stopped, head raised. The note descended until the loose boards rattled.
Beneath it came the young drake’s wheeze.
Pip made the same movement with its throat as it had on the ridge. Air passed through a fold along its neck. The resulting sound was poor, almost comic.
One of the wheezing animals answered.
Ysabet saw the fold tighten. “Careful.”
Pip tried again. This time the note held. Its six feet spread against the boards. The little creature seemed to draw the whole evening through itself, body narrowing until the loose skin lay taut.
Ashaun moved closer. “Is that hurting it?”
Ysabet put down her list.
The note broke, returned, then roughened. A clear drop appeared beneath Pip’s jaw.
She had seen such fluid on newly grown tissue before.
“Pip.”
It did not turn. In the quarry the young drake had stopped wheezing and begun to breathe in small, even pulls.
Pip forced another note through the trembling fold.