Whitewake's right runner crossed loose snow beyond the salt road, its bone edge aimed at the blue wall. From the pressure gorge, white spray burst as one ice shelf ground beneath the other.
Jiang pulled harder on the brake line.
Leather pressed the old split at his beak tip. The sled slowed enough for every jolt to become distinct, yet the steering pin kept choosing the straight channel whenever a contact rune flared.
"Open the cage," Aylin said.
Dagna looked from her to the gorge. "You defended its mind. Its beak can still open a throat."
"His beak is the reason you are braking."
Tovin leaned his weight across the yoke. The right runner bucked against him and carried the sled farther from the curve.
"Captain," he said, "I cannot turn this."
Dagna pulled the black cloth tighter over Jiang's breast, then dragged the cage bolt free.
"Line first," she said. "Release him into the gorge if his beak reaches anyone."
Aylin met Jiang's gaze through the ribs. Her injured hand rested beside the opening, palm up, asking rather than reaching.
Jiang tapped once against the bone.
Dagna stripped a broad band from the slack capture net. She passed it beneath Jiang's lower belly, crossed both ends above the root of his tail, and tested the cradle with a pull. The load settled behind his legs instead of climbing toward his neck.
Tovin wrapped the free line around his forearm.
"Around the rail," Dagna ordered.
"I need to feel when he slides."
"You need the hand after he slides."
Tovin took one turn around the rail and kept the rest in his fist.
Dagna swung the cage door outward.
Cold wind caught Jiang before his feet reached the floorboards. His failed flipper lifted from his side and twisted at the open shoulder. He dropped his weight at once, trapping the limb against the cage lip before it could swing farther.
Aylin saw the problem. She pulled a flat leather stay from the folded net weights and laid it along the loose flipper without forcing the joint.
Jiang struck once when she looked at him.
Cool Natural Essence moved through her bandaged palm. Frost silvered the leather, leaving it stiff enough to hold the flipper against his body without tightening around the wound.
"That will crack," Dagna said.
"Then he should finish before it does."
Jiang stepped out of the cage.
His left foot folded on the first landing. The sled floor struck his belly, and his chest slid toward the open side. Tovin caught the line before the net cradle reached Jiang's hips.
"I have him," Tovin said.
Jiang found the floor with his right foot and shoved. A belly slide carried him beneath the side rail, over the curved lip of the sled, and into the wind below it.
The world became bone, ice, and a narrow strip of road moving too fast.
His body fit between the runners. A human shoulder would have struck the crossbar. Jiang's back passed under it with feathers to spare, putting the contaminated housing directly ahead of his beak.
Then the wind found the edge of the leather stay.
The failed flipper lifted inside it. Jiang spun toward the right runner, and the safety line crawled from his belly toward his throat.
Tovin hauled the tether sideways.
The line shifted down Jiang's breast before it reached the salt cloth. His belly slapped the road. Ice burned over wet feathers, and the right runner passed close enough for its rune flare to whiten the side of his face.
"Hold him there," Aylin called.
"This is not holding," Tovin said. "This is choosing which part gets crushed."
Dagna leaned over the opposite side and drove her spear hook into the road's hard rim. The point skipped, caught, and ripped a white groove behind them.
Drag pulled the sled left.
The jammed right runner fought back. Its steering pin lifted under the next flare, black-green filament tightening around the shaft before the guide channel could receive it.
Jiang watched the pin drop straight.
Another buried seam approached. He saw its pale line through the thin snow, felt the growing tremor in the housing, and knew what would follow.
Pale light ran beneath Jiang's face. The filament drew tight and lifted the pin, opening the curve channel beside it.
Tactical Strike painted that opening blue.
[OBSERVED OPENING: RIGHT STEERING PIN]
The mark gave Jiang the same thing the skill had always given him: a place he had already earned the right to fail.
No strength arrived in his neck. The road supplied no kindness. His safety line still wanted his throat, and the failed flipper kept trying to become a sail.
One foot launched him toward the housing. As the blue mark appeared, he slid beneath it and drove the side of his beak into the open channel.
Metal struck the old crack and sent pain through his jaw.
The pin descended against him.
Jiang turned his head and let the narrow channel take his beak deeper. For one breath, the pin, his skull, and the road argued over which would break first.
"Now, Jiang!" Aylin shouted.
Her palm closed over the frozen leather stay. She drove another cold pulse through it, holding the failed flipper against Jiang's body as frost split across the brace.
Dagna dragged the spear hook until both arms shook. Tovin pulled the safety line away from the runner and kept the net cradle low on Jiang's belly.
The black-green filament tightened around the pin.
Jiang bit the filament.
Rot and bitter salt filled his mouth. The strand stretched without snapping, anchored inside a thin metal collar beneath the bead socket.
Jiang planted the edge of his beak against that collar. Blue light held on the place where the pin had lifted. Leverage remained his, so he spent it in a hard twist of neck that tore the collar from its bone screws.
Contaminated metal struck the road and bounced away beneath the sled. Freed from the strand, the steering pin fell into the curved channel.
The right runner turned.
The turn came too hard.
Both runners bit the road at once. The sled snapped left, climbed onto its outer rail, and lifted one whole side above the ice.
Jiang swung beneath it.
Tovin's line crossed the rising bone edge. His glove caught between leather and runner, pinning his hand while Jiang's body swung toward the gap.
He could release the line or lose the hand.
Tovin pulled with both arms.
The glove tore away. Bare skin dragged across the runner before his hand came free, leaving blood on white bone. He caught the line again with both arms and hauled Jiang beyond the falling edge.
Dagna ripped her spear from the road. Its hook struck the raised rail and pulled with the sled's weight.
Both runners took the sled's weight with a crash. Aylin caught herself on one knee while Dagna struck the floor shoulder-first. Through it all, Tovin kept his bleeding hand wrapped in the safety line until Jiang's belly stopped sliding.
For several breaths, all four of them listened to the runners scrape along the proper curve.
The pressure gorge passed on their right.
Jiang released the torn collar from his beak.
Black-green filament spilled from it, thin as wet hair. The strand touched the old salt seam at the road's center and raced inland through the shallow groove. It remained visible only where the pale runes flared beneath it.
"That thing is going home," Tovin said through his teeth.
"No," Aylin replied. "It is going ahead of us."
The safety line lay loose across Jiang's back.
Downhill, the road forked toward the distant ridges where Black-Crown had taken the colony. Jiang could have kicked onto that slope before Dagna recovered her spear. His right foot still answered. Gravity would do the rest.
Aylin knelt on the inland side, one hand pressed to the floor. Tovin's blood marked the rail. Beyond them, the black-green trace kept running toward people who had built their roads to hunt creatures like him.
Jiang turned his body inland.
He climbed onto the sled without waiting for the line to tighten.
Dagna rose and opened the cage door all the way. "Carry him beside it. Door stays open. Line stays on."
The line still bound him, but the open door left enough room to choose the next direction.
The old road climbed between two wind-cut ridges. A low Whitewake station appeared at their meeting point, its roof crowded with forked racks.
The escaping filament reached the first boundary stone.
Every white sight bead outside the station turned toward it.