Got to hurry. They’d be at each other’s throats any moment. Toroca paused in his descent long enough to shout "No!" again, but either the wind was still preventing them from hearing him, or else they were too deep in the madness of dagamant to listen.

He’d reached the bottom of the ropes now and turned back to the rocks, the giant claws on his three-toed feet finding purchase in cracks between the strata. His tail hung behind him, a heavy weight. Hurrying, not taking the care he should…

Toroca slipped. The cliff face curved out enough that he didn’t fall right off, but he did skid down several paces on his belly, the rocks badly scraping the lighter-colored skin of his front and tearing open two of the many pockets that ran the length of his leather geologist’s sash. He clawed frantically for purchase, but the slide continued, down, down, belly over rocks, skin tearing…

More climbing ropes. He shot out his left hand, the five fingers seizing the web. His arm felt like it was going to tear from its socket as he suddenly braked to a halt. He looked briefly at his belly: it was badly scraped but was only bleeding lightly in a couple of places. Too bad: it probably would have been a lot more sanitary to actually have the scrapes flush themselves clean.

Madly, he hurried down the ropes, feet finding homes in the large squares made between intersections of the braided beige fiber. He looked again at the two surveyors, just in time to see it happen.

Delplas lunged, her whole body darting forward, her jaws split wide, showing the serrated white teeth that lined them…

The other Quintaglio — Toroca was now low enough to see that it was Spalton, a male surveyor a bit younger than Delplas — tried to avoid the bite, but Delplas had no trouble connecting, her jaws slamming shut on his shoulder, scooping out bloody red meat…