Chapter 309: Preperations

The weighted dummy folded in the middle and slid out of Evan’s grip.

Bram caught its head before it struck the ground. Jory still held both feet, which left Evan staring at an empty stretch of sling while Kelan laughed hard enough to lose his own hold.

Nella made them put it down properly.

"That would have been a person."

"A very loose person." Kelan said.

She looked at him until he stopped laughing. Then she rolled the dummy onto its side and showed them how the sling had twisted. They had pulled the handles in different directions. More strength would only have dragged the cloth tighter beneath the injured person’s ribs.

They tried again with Bram calling the lifts. Evan supported the upper body, Jory and Kelan took the lower corners, and Nella walked beside them watching the load. They made it through the practice doorway without dropping anything. At the next turn, Jory’s handle struck the frame and stopped the whole group.

"Back." Bram said.

This time everyone moved together.

They had hired the practice space for an hour and were determined to use it. Beyond the doorway stood two steps, a narrow corner, and a low barrier. None looked difficult until they tried moving a limp weight around it without hurting the person it represented.

Evan kept his shield nearby. Halfway through the session, Nella made him carry it while helping. His useful hand became much less useful. They had to decide whether he would protect the others or carry someone, rather than assuming he could do both at full strength.

"I hold the route." He said after the third awkward lift.

"Until we need you to help." Nella replied. "Then someone covers you."

She marked where Kelan should stand during that change. The plan was simple enough to remember when tired, which mattered more than making it sound impressive.

After the session, they checked their straps. Evan found one rubbing against a sharp buckle and wrapped the edge before it cut through. He paid the room fee, divided it among five names in their account book, and left the remaining coin for supplies.

The letter home took longer.

He wrote that Sanctuary was holding a competition, explained who could enter, and named all four companions. He described the rescue event because it was easier to explain than a sanctioned treasury robbery. Then he crossed out the sentence that made it sound as if the competition consisted only of rescue work and added the other events.

His parents would worry. They worried about weather, harvests, and whether he ate enough. He could write clearly without promising that nothing would happen.

Nella knocked while he was folding the letter.

"We found a better price on bandages."

Evan reached for his coat.

"Are you sending that?" She asked.

"On the way."

She waited outside while he sealed it. There was no need to cover the page when she entered anymore.

Rod’s party practiced in another room later that day. Dain carried the shield, Rod took the dummy’s weight, and Lana worked on removing a shutter without blasting the wall around it. Dirk watched the corridor and reported movement at irregular intervals so the others had to stop and react.

Nessa objected to Rod lifting the dummy by one arm.

"It’s faster." He said.

"If their shoulder is intact afterward."

He put it down and used the sling. Their strength gave them options, but Nessa made certain those options included the condition of the person being moved. By the end of the practice, Rod had found a way to support most of the weight while leaving the injured limbs free.

Lana’s first small spell cracked the shutter’s frame. Her second freed the latch cleanly. She repeated it until she could do so without needing to examine the same joint for a minute. The rescue course might contain no such shutter, but careful control had uses well beyond a competition.

Dirk returned from the corridor with a booklet full of public clarifications. A question about flight had produced a useful answer about roofs. The treasury’s outer boundary would permit entry attempts from above, but equipment had to be carried in with the team. No one would be delivering an airship full of ladders after the clock began.

"Tessa asked?" Rod said.

"Doesn’t say."

Dain checked the weight of their ladder against the rest of the pack. They kept it, then removed two other items nobody could explain a likely use for.

Golden Axe’s rehearsal drew a small audience of guild members.

Matthew stopped it after the first attempt because people outside the chosen five kept calling instructions. Advice from a dozen observers made every decision look easy. Inside the event, those voices would be absent.

He sent the spectators away and ran the problem again.

This time, the team missed a clue, lost time searching the wrong room, and had to agree on who could change the plan. Their equipment was excellent. Their habits still assumed a larger group behind them. Matthew gave the field leader clear authority for the attempt and required everyone else to report facts before recommendations.

They improved during the third run. A locked door became a choice between noise, time, and using a resource. The team chose time, opened it quietly, and discovered they had preserved a tool needed at the next obstacle. Matthew kept the sequence and changed the obstacle for the following day so they could not merely memorize success.

At the Skyyard, the Five Knots finished preparing The Sixth Knot for its berth before sorting competition gear.

Tessa wanted every vessel task complete while they could still discuss it without watching a clock. Min checked the lift systems and covered the exposed controls. Kesh updated the freight ledger and sent notices to customers whose requested dates overlapped the Games. Belda inspected the mooring lines. Orin found one job that would have become urgent in three days and completed it before joining the others on deck.

Their competition pile looked like the contents of a workbench.

"We still need weapons." Kesh said.

"We have weapons." Orin replied.

"We have things that cut rope."

Tessa made room for protective gear and the weapons they knew how to use. Buying unfamiliar ones would not close the gap between them and the leading combat parties. She would rather carry equipment they could handle when frightened.

They tested a compact ladder, rejected it as unstable under a sideways load, and kept ordinary line with a small set of secure fittings. Belda refused to use the new fey rope until its tests were complete. They had good samples, but a competition was a poor place to discover an unanswered question about wear.

Orin assembled a small pulley arrangement from familiar parts. It took longer than a bought device to prepare but could be repaired with the tools already in his pack. Min checked every component and removed two unnecessary spares.

"If we carry enough to rebuild the ship, we’ll be late." She said.

They practiced moving a load through the lower hatch. Tessa timed them, then made them do it with one person standing aside. If someone needed to hold a route or watch a corridor, their plan had to function with four hands missing.

On the last registration evening, Max inspected the list.

There were familiar names, unfamiliar combinations, and several parties whose members had been visiting Sanctuary for months without drawing his attention. Perrin’s group had entered. So had more than one Golden Axe party, each a complete roster rather than a support crew. The total meant the rescue qualifier would occupy several days.

Anna checked the appointment schedule. Separate instances let attempts run together, but the officials, viewing rooms, and receiving staff still needed shifts. Max resisted adding more public screens until they knew how many people would use those already prepared.

Quin arrived with the final test results. Every vault had been entered through at least two methods. Some approaches were faster, but none had survived repeated testing as an obvious answer for everyone. Guards could be defeated. Alarms could be fooled. Escape routes could be lost through careless entry.

"Ready?" Anna asked.

Quin placed a bent practice key on Max’s desk.

"Ready for somebody to surprise us."

The first appointments went onto the board that night. Evan’s party would run the following afternoon. Rod’s party had a morning slot. The Five Knots would go near the end of the first day, with Golden Axe on the second.

At the hall, people gathered around the schedule, copied their times, and argued about where to eat before entering. One team discovered that two members had written different meeting places and corrected the mistake in front of the board.

Evan checked all five names on their line. Jory read their appointment aloud twice.

"We heard." Nella said.

"Making certain."

They stepped out of the crowd to let another party approach. Across the hall, Tessa was asking whether competition packs could be left in a secure room overnight. Rod carried a new sling over one shoulder. None of them looked as relaxed as they had at registration.

Evan folded the copied appointment into his booklet and put both inside the dry inner pocket of his coat. Bram checked the fastening, gave it a tug, and let go.

"Tomorrow, then."

"Tomorrow." Evan said.

They went to buy a hot supper before the crowd reached the food stalls.

Nella stopped Evan before they ordered and made him count the water flasks in his bag. He found four. The fifth sat in Jory’s pack, empty because Jory had meant to fill it after practice. They corrected that before sitting down.

The meal was ordinary and cost less than the special competition supper advertised farther along the street. Bram wanted something he knew would sit well in his stomach. Kelan agreed after hearing the price of the special. They shared a table with a pair of travelers who intended to watch the first day’s rescue attempts rather than enter.

One asked Evan whether his group was likely to qualify. He almost said he hoped so, then thought about their practice and the amount they had learned in an hour.

"We have a chance."

Nella looked up from her plate. That answer apparently satisfied her. She asked the travelers where the best viewing room was, and they explained which screen would follow the afternoon attempts. Jory gave them their team number before anyone suggested that they might prefer watching Rod.

On the walk back, Evan bought a small piece of waxed cloth for the bandage packet. Rain was possible inside a ruined settlement, and he did not want to discover that their supplies had become a wet bundle while they were climbing a roof.