Jiang called because the injured male had stopped answering.
Water crushed the first note against his split beak. He forced the second voice beneath it, rough and lower, until both sounds beat against each other inside the narrow road.
Between him and Red Aeries, the white tooth trembled.
His call went through anyway.
On the other side, the chick heard him before any human did.
It had been crouched beneath the female's breast with its burned beak held partly open. Jiang's changing beat reached the basin, and the chick lurched out between her joined feet.
A sweep of her brood fold caught it.
Her body moved before recognition softened anything. She pushed the chick behind her sound leg, turned her breast toward the white fragment, and left her injured mate inside the shelter made by her flank.
Only then did she answer Jiang.
