The first net weight struck the dead saddle knot.
The second came down on Aylin.
She caught its line with both hands and staggered sideways. Lead dragged over the ice where her knee had been, pulling the bright rim lower around Jiang.
He tried to roll clear.
His loose flipper stayed under him. The failed limb became an anchor while the rest of his body turned, and a white sight bead slapped against the wet feathers over his prison mark.
Cold light opened inside it.
Every cord drew tight.
Jiang's beak found the weighted rim before it crossed his throat. He shoved upward, gained enough room for air, and saw the outer line bouncing toward the separated tracks downhill.
White-Nape and Pale-Cheek were already beyond the saddle. Torn-Bib's family had taken another path. The weight would reach only abandoned grooves, though every groove could still look occupied from the ridge above.
Spears lowered along the western ridge.
Jiang hooked his beak beneath the rim and dragged it sideways.
Movement tightened the mesh over his back. The loose flipper twisted away from his ribs, and pain ran from the open shoulder into his chest. He kept pulling until the wandering weight struck grey root instead of a living track.
The broken anchor held it.
Aylin lost her grip on the opposite line. It burned through her bandage and snapped toward Jiang's neck.
She threw herself after it, caught the cord against her forearm, and stopped it a beak's width from his throat.
"Hold your cast!" a woman shouted from the lead sled.
The order reached the spear line before another weapon left it.
Bone runners carved down the ridge. Pale runes flashed wherever they touched ice, cutting the speed until the first sled turned across the saddle. Its storm sail collapsed with a crack. A broad-shouldered hunter jumped from the side rail before the sled stopped.
White lacquer covered her coat from shoulder to hip. Salt had roughened the dark skin around her eyes. She planted a hooked spear through the net rim and pinned it without stabbing the body beneath.
"Captain Virr," the man on the lead rail called, "the bead has a full lock."
"The bead chose one body," Dagna Virr said. "Keep every point uphill."
Several hunters shifted their spears away from the descending birds.
Black-Crown stood between two lower ridges, watching. Torn-Bib remained over its chick. White-Nape and Split-Beak held separate ground with their own young. None climbed toward Jiang's net.
That choice hurt less than it should have. It also kept them alive.
Aylin still held the throat line against her arm.
"Your trap caught a prison seal," she said. "The mark is on him. It is not his core."
Dagna kept one boot on the hooked spear. "You speak for marked animals often?"
"He is a person."
The man looked down from the sled. He was younger than Dagna, though wind had already cut permanent lines beside his mouth. One gloved hand rested on the brake bar. The other held a forked frame carrying several white beads.
"It understands you?" he asked.
Jiang met his stare.
Aylin answered him. "Yes."
The man's grip tightened.
Dagna's expression barely changed. "The last mimic we netted understood which hunter had a child. Comprehension keeps the net closed."
There was fear under the procedure, but no pleasure.
She had ordered every point away from the chicks before she knew anyone on the ice. That earned Jiang's attention and nothing softer.
Aylin reached toward the grey anchor remains. Her fingers closed around the basalt chip she had driven beneath the root. One edge was still sharp.
"Then watch what he chooses."
She pressed the stone against the cord over Jiang's neck.
Jiang struck the ice twice with his beak.
Two taps meant no.
Wind, runners, and snapping sail cloth swallowed the taps, so Aylin kept sawing.
Jiang struck twice again, hard enough to wake the crack at his beak tip; this time her eyes moved to him without the old certainty behind them. The severed Spirit Link carried no shape of his alarm into her body.
Jiang pointed his beak along the cord.
The line passed over his neck, through Aylin's hands, and around a sliding eyelet at the weighted rim. If she cut where she held it, the freed end would race through the eyelet and cinch the remaining loop beneath his jaw.
Aylin followed the path with her eyes.
The basalt edge stopped moving.
"Bad cut," she said.
Jiang answered with the single tap for yes. Without moving her planted spear, Dagna watched the exchange.
"Tovin," she said, "black cloth."
Tovin Besk pulled a folded square from beneath the bead frame and came down from the sled without taking his hand off the brake until another hunter caught it. He approached Jiang from the side, where the good flipper could strike him.
At least someone here respected anatomy.
Salt dust fell when Tovin opened the cloth, and Aylin stepped between him and Jiang.
"It only covers the mark," Tovin said. "If the light stops, the rim loosens."
"What follows a failed test?"
"Captain Virr kills what comes through the net."
Dagna left the answer standing.
Aylin looked down at Jiang with both hands clear of his body. He wanted the net loose, yet the chance of teaching Whitewake to spear them both held its own threat.
One tap gave Tovin access to the marked breast and nothing else.
The salt-black cloth settled over Jiang's wet feathers.
White light vanished from the bead beside him. One after another, the beads around the weighted rim went dull. Pressure eased across his back until he could draw a full ordinary breath.
The bead mounted on the lead sled remained bright.
From Jiang's low angle, it was impossible to miss. Its white face had turned away from his covered body and aimed west along the empty road behind the hunters.
Tovin watched the slack mesh while Dagna kept her eyes on Aylin, leaving Jiang's stare unanswered.
Below them, Black-Crown waited until the last family crossed the sheltered ridge. Then it turned downhill. The other adults kept their separate positions as they withdrew, carrying living calls away from Whitewake's spear line.
Jiang could fight now.
The slack mesh left room for his good flipper. A hard roll might put the grey anchor between him and Dagna's spear. Aylin still held the basalt chip. Together they could open one side before the beads found his mark again.
Tovin's gaze followed Black-Crown downhill. A spear behind him lowered by the width of one hand.
Jiang let his good flipper settle.
He hated the decision. Whitewake had mistaken him for quarry, trapped the failed flipper, and made death the result of an uncertain test. Fighting would still expose the families leaving below.
Dagna noticed him go still.
"Lift the rim," she ordered. "Keep the cloth over its breast."
The hunters worked the weights outward rather than hauling one line. A low cage came off the second sled, built from pale bone ribs close enough to stop a larger animal from turning.
Jiang fit inside too well.
They carried him in a cradle of net instead of dragging the loose flipper. Dagna directed each lift without touching him. Tovin kept the salt cloth in place until the cage door shut.
Aylin climbed onto the rear rail beside him.
"She stays off the sled," Dagna said.
"Then the penguin stays here," Aylin replied.
"You do not control the quarry."
Aylin's scraped hand closed around the cage rail. "Neither do you. That is the problem."
Dagna studied the road, the fading flare, and the families disappearing downhill. She pointed to a place beside the cage.
"Under guard. Hands visible."
Aylin climbed aboard without thanking her.
Tovin returned to the lead runner. He leaned down to secure the brake hook while the last hunter folded the loose net.
From beneath the sled came Aylin's voice. "Move!"
The real Aylin had her mouth closed around a strip of bandage she was tightening with her teeth.
Tovin reacted to the warning before he looked. His boot kicked the brake bar free, and he threw himself onto the rail.
The bone runners caught the slope.
Dagna was still on the ice when the captive sled began racing down the old salt road.