The pop of Seyun’s left shoulder dislocating under the bronze pipe rim’s impact was still echoing in his teeth. Just then, the forged marsh-iron cross-lug of Ilyra’s eighteen-inch spearhead hooked cleanly under the heavy leather harness strap on his right shoulder. Throughout the four watches on the ridge, that twin-lugged marsh-iron head—the surviving tip of the spear Ilyra had broken saving Mer’s family on the hillside—had served as a block bar, a ground wedge, and a close-range pin between the hub’s lower vanes. Now, in the aftermath of the fourth breath, its curved side-lug served the simplest and oldest purpose of a mountain tool: pulling a friend out of a rockslide.
With both her rawhide-wrapped hands locked around the six-inch ash stub and the point of the spearhead braced safely away from Seyun’s neck, Ilyra dropped her hips into a deep White Heron anchor stance on the western granite apron and heaved backward with every ounce of her leftover Early Jade strength.
Seyun used his intact right boot to kick once against the frost-slick stone in rhythm with her pull, keeping his out-of-joint left shoulder and scorched left arm tucked tight against his chest so they wouldn’t snag on the rubble.
