The watcher had seen a crawler at the river cleft. He had not seen the person behind it.
The horn had found Iven with two hundred and twenty-four charges left from the working day. He had eaten no second supper, taken no long rest, and found no charging station hidden in the rain. At the sheltered doorway he cleared ratchet lock for spring step and clamp bridge for lattice shell: plate, spring, winch, bell, hammer, lattice. He kept the new shell unformed until he needed it.
Iven reached the slope with Eda and Tel just as the crawler forced its head between two rails of the temporary screen. It was the smaller animal, the one they had led away with bait. Its pale plates were streaked with dark mud, and a length of cord trailed from one hind limb.
“Who tied that?” Tel asked.
A figure rose behind the rocks across the cleft. The person wore a dark rain cloak and carried a long pole with a hooked end. They pulled the cord sharply. The crawler hissed and backed away from the screen.
“Don’t pull it toward the river,” Eda called. “There are people on the lower bank.”
The figure did not answer. Instead, they raised the pole and struck the crawler across its back. The animal twisted, caught the cord in its jaws and bit through it. It ran uphill, away from the cleft and toward the workshop.
