The hooked bird missed Bent-Toe by a beak length and struck the sea.
Water climbed higher than Jiang's head. Broad wings beat through the spray, brown feathers almost black against the open lead.
Bent-Toe vanished below both.
"Giant petrel," Aylin said.
She dropped the rear of Jiang's sling and seized the silver at her shoulders. Her voice tore on the name, but her hands stayed quick.
"It hunts the weak from the water. Once that bill holds the head, the wings do the drowning."
The petrel lifted from the water with one heavy stroke. Its tube-shaped nostrils ran along a hooked bill made for opening things Jiang preferred closed.
It circled the dark lead.
Jiang searched the water for Bent-Toe. Black-green light traveled under the ice, and a penguin shape crossed beneath it with the bent foot trailing.
Pale-Cheek called from below.
The recording came through the ice beside Jiang. Out over the colony, the living chick answered much later, its voice thinned by wind and distance.
Bent-Toe turned toward the nearer sound.
Its body rolled during the turn. One foot lost the clean beat of the dive, and the adult rose toward the black-green line rather than the fish flashing below it.
Jiang struck the ice with his beak.
A startled school crossed Bent-Toe's path. The adult corrected enough to catch the last silver body, swallowed it, then broke toward air with the false chick still calling below it.
The petrel folded its wings again.
"Move!" Aylin shouted, spending more throat than the word deserved.
Jiang kicked hard with his working foot. The sling shot across wet ice while his left dragged beside him. Aylin seized the loop behind his tail and swung his slide toward the water.
He reached the edge as Bent-Toe surfaced, empty beak open around a hard breath.
The petrel hit Bent-Toe between the shoulders.
Wings covered the water. Its bill closed against the side of Bent-Toe's neck. The penguin beat both flippers, churning white around the brown body while the swallowed catch stayed inside it.
Jiang leaned over the lip. His own beak reached water and empty air. Bent-Toe rolled beyond him while the petrel spread its wings across the penguin's back.
"It is trying to hold the head under," Aylin rasped.
Jiang saw that. He also saw the problem his body cared about: no hands, one useful foot, and a predator wider than he was tall.
Frost spread over Aylin's knuckles as she reached toward the lead. Jiang slapped the ice, then pointed from the forming skin to Bent-Toe's trailing foot.
She stopped. "I would freeze them together."
The frost withdrew, leaving her fingers bare to the wind.
Jumping into the water would trade Bent-Toe's bad leg for Jiang's. His left foot would steer poorly, his shoulder would fail under the first hard stroke, and Aylin would have two drowning penguins instead of one.
He stayed on the ice and watched.
The petrel bit, shoved, and climbed over Bent-Toe. Each time the penguin twisted free, one webbed petrel foot reached for the ice lip while the other pressed down on black feathers.
Bent-Toe snapped at the planted leg.
The petrel moved it before the beak closed.
Again, the bird spread both wings. Again, one foot searched for the same grip at the edge.
Tactical Strike sharpened only after Jiang understood the pattern.
[OBSERVED OPENING: PLANTED FOOT]
No strength entered his neck. No healthy foot arrived to improve the plan.
The mark would last only while the petrel trusted that grip. One kick could take Jiang's eye; one wingbeat could pull his injured body into water.
The System had pointed at the obvious and left the biting to him.
Jiang approved of its honesty almost as much as he hated it.
"Aylin." His beak could never shape her name, so he hammered the sling ring against the ice.
Her eyes moved from the silver to the ring. "You need the cloth anchored."
His beak struck the ring once.
Aylin wrapped the rear loop around her forearm and lay flat behind him. Her boots dug into rough snow away from the wet edge.
Jiang pushed until half his breast hung over the sea.
Bent-Toe surfaced close beneath him. Pale-Cheek's copy sounded under its belly, and the parent twisted toward it once more.
Climbing over the exposed side, the petrel pressed Bent-Toe down with one foot and planted the other on the ice.
The mark tightened around its toes.
Across the gap, Jiang lunged and closed his beak around the petrel's outer toe. Tough skin filled his mouth, colder than Aylin's silver and fouled with fish oil.
The petrel threw open its wings.
Its first beat struck Jiang's face; the second dragged his breast across the edge.
Around his belly, cloth snapped tight.
Aylin cried out behind him as the loop cut into her arm. Jiang's bad shoulder pulled open beneath its wrap. Blood ran warm under his side, then washed cold where the sea reached it.
He kept his beak closed.
The petrel kicked. Its free foot raked the ice beside Jiang's eye. Bent-Toe drove one flipper between their bodies and raised its head above the water.
The adult swallowed against the neck grip, forcing its one catch back down.
Stubborn bird. Jiang could respect that later, preferably somewhere dry.
The marked foot tore from the ice.
Without that brace, the petrel slid sideways off Bent-Toe. Its hooked bill released the penguin's neck to strike at Jiang.
Jiang let go and pulled his head back.
The bill clipped his beak tip hard enough to fill his sight with white.
Aylin dragged the sling. Jiang's keel scraped over the lip while Bent-Toe reached the ice with both flippers.
Its bad foot found no purchase.
The petrel recovered on the water and paddled toward them with its wings spread. It looked less graceful at sea level and much more interested in finishing the meal.
Aylin released Jiang's sling.
"Keep your eyes closed."
He shut them because arguing required a mouth built for the task.
Silver cracked beside his head.
Light burned red through his lids. Aylin had cast the torn sheet across the wet ice and driven cool essence through its creases. Each fold caught the low sun and threw a broken reflection over the water.
The petrel snapped at one flash, then another. Its broad head followed false movement while Bent-Toe scraped at the lip.
Jiang opened his eyes to a dozen bright Aylins shivering across the silver.
"Pull it," the real one said.
Bent-Toe's neck feathers were dark with blood. Its snapping beak left Jiang one useful grip and one terrible option.
His beak found a mouthful of shoulder plumage high on the adult's side.
Bent-Toe struck his face.
Yes, he remembered the bird hated help. Climb anyway, you stubborn bastard.
The demand emerged as a furious call. The fragment answered with Jiang's cleaner voice from beneath the water.
Bent-Toe went rigid beside him.
Jiang bit harder and pulled.
Aylin hauled his sling while bracing one boot against the folded sheet. Jiang's body came back from the edge. Bent-Toe followed by feathers, flippers, and one frantic kick from its good foot.
The penguin rolled onto the ice beside him.
Its beak opened over the ice.
Bent-Toe gagged once, and silver scales flashed deep in its throat. Hunger pulled Jiang forward before shame stopped him. The adult swallowed its catch back down and struck him over the eye.
Fair enough. It had bled for that meal.
The petrel climbed from the confused reflections and beat upward. Water fell from its wings. One foot curled close to its belly where Jiang had bitten it.
Aylin gathered the silver before the wind stole it. Her forearm showed a dark band where the sling had tightened.
"That bird will return," she said.
Bent-Toe stood on one foot, throat working around the swallowed catch, and faced the colony.
Pale-Cheek called across the white.
Gredudande replayed the chick from beneath them, then sent the same voice racing under the ice toward the rookery.
The petrel banked above the false call.
It followed the line toward hundreds of hungry chicks.
Bent-Toe began the walk home with one fish.
Its hunter's shadow reached the colony first.