Chapter 166: The Father Would Not Ride a Wyvern

Mottle lowered her saddle to the broken arch, and the injured emperor father drove his beak into its nearest buckle.

Leather cracked against copper.

Mottle’s head swung around. Her teeth showed above the male, large enough to close over his whole chest.

Ilex laid one hand in the pale feathers beneath Mottle’s eye. She did not pull the reins.

The wyvern breathed over the penguin, tasted his scent, and backed away from the arch.

"That was his answer," Ilex said.

Rill caught Mottle’s saddle rail before the sloping stone carried it back toward the ledge. "I heard him. I also heard the arch."

Bronze scraped behind the emperor family.

Valea still had her bent road knife under the lower frame. Hest held one iron bar against the upper hinge with both hands. Since the feeder broke, the arch no longer tried to copy a living call. It had returned to being several tons of damaged metal with strong opinions about gravity.

The female stood inside Ninebell with the chick balanced over her joined feet. Her mate lay beside her on folded legs. He could raise his breast long enough to strike a saddle. It stayed too low for him to crawl beneath one.

Beyond Jiang, wyvern parents had cleared the storm-facing ledge. Rain cooled the bare red stone. No warm nesting felt remained there, and none of the adults had placed a claw across its entrance.

The family could stay in Ninebell.

Jiang wanted them on the cold ledge anyway. Ninebell smelled of hot bronze, blood, and roads that had already tried to choose which penguin belonged where. The ledge smelled like rain and feathers. More importantly, it had space for the male to lie flat without a wall deciding to move around him.

Wanting did not put the father on Mottle’s back.

Jiang waddled into the arch.

His bad foot turned under the first step. He caught himself with his working flipper against bronze and felt Bracken’s bite reopen beneath the shoulder wrap. The failed flipper remained tight against his ribs.

The female called once.

Jiang answered with air and a rough scrape too damaged to carry Two-Voice. He lowered his belly to the wet threshold instead.

Water from the nursery ran under his breast. Bronze that fought every upright boot let his broad body slide forward with insulting ease.

He crossed half the arch before the crooked rear claw snagged a seam.

Jiang pecked it free, turned, and slid back toward Ninebell.

Aylin watched him arrive on his belly. "You found a road."

Jiang struck the wet bronze, then the loose leather beneath Mottle’s saddle.

"You found part of a road," she corrected.

Ilex looked past them into the nursery wreckage. The broad homebell cradle she had cut from Mottle’s harness still lay beneath an empty egg board. Its leather was wet, padded on one side, and wide enough for an adult emperor breast.

Rill dragged it free.

The cradle smelled of wyvern, old copper, and the egg it had helped save. The injured male struck at it when Rill pushed the first edge near him.

Rill stopped. "He hates this too."

Jiang pecked Rill’s hook line.

Aylin crouched beside him. "You want the pull attached where he can release it?"

Jiang pecked the front of the cradle, then opened his beak over the leather edge.

"He holds his own front," Ilex said. "We pull the back. If he releases, the leather stops moving."

Valea glanced at the lowering frame. "Give the arch the same courtesy. If I call, everything stops before it takes my knife."

Nobody promised a clean crossing.

Rill cut two narrow strips from the ruined carrying web, leaving Harrow’s body covered. He threaded them through the rear of the cradle and kept both ends separate. Aylin folded the side padding outward so no strap crossed over the male’s back.

Hest poured rainwater over the bronze path.

"Ninebell has built many roads," he said. "This may be the first improved by making it more slippery."

Valea shifted under the hinge. "Do not tell the roadwrights. They will develop pride."

Jiang tested the cradle first.

He climbed onto the padded side, caught the front edge in his beak, and let Rill draw one rear strip. His belly moved. His feet remained free on either side, able to brace or leave.

Jiang released the leather.

Rill stopped before the cradle traveled another feather’s width.

The injured father watched from beside the female.

Jiang repeated the movement. This time he dug his good foot into the threshold and made Rill pull against him. The cradle stayed low. Nothing tightened around his body.

He released again and climbed off.

The father did not approach.

The chick called beneath the female’s brood fold.

She answered toward the cleared ledge. One of the pale nursery parents lowered its head there and returned a rough contact sound, different in throat and shape but offered from the empty space.

The male pushed his breast from the floor.

His legs remained folded. He moved by dragging one flank, resting, then pulling with his beak against the wet stone. The female stayed beside him with the chick. Jiang did not go back to help until the male touched the cradle first.

His beak closed over its padded edge.

Jiang took the other corner.

Together, they dragged the leather under the male’s breast. He never climbed fully onto it. The cradle became a second skin under the body he could still move for himself.

Rill picked up the two rear strips.

The male released his bite.

Rill kept both hands still.

After one wary breath, the father bit down again.

Rill pulled both strips.

Wet leather entered the arch. Jiang crawled beside the male with his sound flank close enough to catch a roll and far enough to leave the beak room.

The first bronze seam passed beneath them.

At the second, the cradle jammed.

Hest’s upper bar shifted. Valea’s bent knife dropped with the lower frame until its back pressed against the male’s crown.

He released the leather.

Rill stopped the cradle.

Mottle moved without a rein. She put her uninjured shoulder beneath the upper arch and lifted. Slate took the opposite edge with his breast, keeping his cut flank away from the bronze.

The frame rose enough for the male to turn his head.

Jiang found the jam under the cradle. One cut strap had folded into the seam. He pushed his beak beneath it, but the angle loaded his cracked crown and drove his bitten shoulder against the male’s breast.

Weight settled onto him.

The father could have struck. Instead, his beak caught the back of Jiang’s loose shoulder wrap and held it clear of the bronze.

Jiang pulled the folded strap free.

Rill waited for the male to bite the front again.

Only then did the cradle move.

They crossed the final seam with Mottle and Slate holding the frame above them. The cleared ledge opened ahead, wet and cold and wide enough for several emperor bodies.

The father released his edge on the bare stone.

Rill laid both rear lines down.

The male crawled off the cradle by himself. His breast crossed from leather to red rock. He rested there, breathing hard, while Jiang remained beside him.

Inside Ninebell, the female looked at the open route.

No one brought the cradle back for her.

She shifted the chick more securely over her joined feet and walked into the arch. Valea and Hest held. Mottle and Slate kept their shoulders beneath the upper frame. Nursery parents backed from the receiving ledge until the female had space to choose each step.

The chick called once from beneath her fold.

Its father answered from cold stone.

The female crossed to him.

When her flank touched his, the male let his breast settle. Jiang moved away before either adult had to ask.

Chainwing hunters brought rainfish from the upper cisterns. They laid the silver bodies on flat stone and left. Bracken ate beside the pale parent and egg. Slate took one without lifting his head from Rill’s hand. Mottle swallowed two, then pushed a third toward Ilex’s boot as if the injured rider had grown a beak during the rescue.

Ilex nudged it back. "Your judgment remains unreliable."

Mottle ate the third fish.

Aylin laid a rainfish close to Jiang.

He swallowed it whole.

She placed another. Jiang swallowed that one before dignity could offer a competing plan. A third followed, then a fourth, until the pressure in his empty belly changed from pain to heat.

The female fed the chick from her own beak. The male accepted a fish only after she pushed it against his mouth twice. Around them, the ledge filled with chewing, wet feathers, and the ordinary suspicion of animals eating near strangers.

Aylin touched one loose feather on Jiang’s breast. "May I?"

Jiang looked down at himself.

The feather had already left his skin. He pressed his beak once against her wrist.

Aylin drew it free.

Dozens came with it.

Old belly feathers slid over her fingers in a broad white sheet. Beneath them, dense dark pins crowded Jiang’s skin between bare, tender channels.

Rain struck the new growth.

Jiang shivered hard enough to lose his footing.

The cataract roared below the ledge, full of food he would soon be unable to follow.