The hooked claw tore one of Hest's broken bars from the door.
Iron spun across the chamber. It struck the wall above the mother and fell point-first toward her brood fold.
Jiang caught the bar with the hard side of his beak.
Its weight drove his head into the hide. Pain flashed through the reopened crack, but the iron stopped across his neck instead of the chick.
The mother snapped it away from him and kicked it beyond her feet.
"That was mine," Hest said.
She opened her beak at him.
Hest set his remaining half-bar against the door. "Keep it."
The creature forced its head through the gap.
Rain shone on slate scales. Both forelegs ended in inward-curving hooks meant to pull cliff prey from cracks, and its jaw opened sideways around a tongue covered in white gripping thorns.
"Ridge raker," Valea said. "West road must have reached the high pens."
"Can it go back?" Aylin asked.
"Everything can go back if the road survives the argument."
