Dark fluid rose through the brood well with a pale back inside it.
Jiang smelled his own coat oil before the wakehound broke the surface. The scent had entered with the severed counterweight cord and clung to the animal's six gills.
Its blind face turned toward him.
Its circular mouth opened.
Bellwyrm moved before anyone else.
Bellwyrm stepped over the chick and put its unburned forelimb across the front of the family cradle. Its ruined jaw hung above the dead male's feet. The female climbed onto the curved saddle wall behind it, ready to strike over Bellwyrm rather than trust the barrier.
Nobody had commanded either one.
Pale flesh lunged from the well.
One broad fin caught the rim. The other folded under its body where it had struck the Bellmother during the fall. Pale skin dragged over copper-black iron, leaving a wet smear behind.
Its harness hit the nearest empty cradle.
Its split ring dropped into the forked fitting and locked there.
