Chapter 108: Eels in the Grate

The severed tendril tightened twice under Dane’s sound-side wheel.

Something hit iron behind the rear wall.

Buk’s fevered breathing filled the silence beside Dane. Then the tendril pulled a third time, mortar spat water across his wheels, and the closed channel flap jumped hard enough to jar his wounded axle.

Fasteners squealed from the lowest filter panel under Orsa’s grip. The slab struck the floor, and opened-fish stink rolled through the shoulder-wide gap it left.

"Keep the sling here," Ada said. "If that wall opens, I want one pair of hands that isn’t busy proving a point."

The injured raker muttered something about owning two hands. "Then keep both."

Buk’s litter creaked. Brant’s boots stopped beside it.

"Don’t," Brant said.

"I was going to offer advice."

"Keep that too."

The litter settled. Serrick’s dry rake scraped once at the doorway and stayed there; Ada’s voice and the square-rake survivor’s tread remained beside the sling. Orsa’s steps descended beyond the opened panel. Dane followed.

His wheels told him more than the wet air did. The steps ended on a ring of stone. Six narrow iron walks ran inward from it, each giving back a different note when Orsa tested the floor. Beneath them, water shoved at a circular grate. Chain rasped around a collar in its center and stopped with a raised flood catch still holding pressure behind the wall.

A skull struck one of the walks from below. The impact bucked through Dane’s front wheels; teeth scraped chain, too many points leaning the wrong way, before a long body slapped back into the well.

"Blind intake eels," a local adult said. "Five, unless the dark has learned to count."

Brant’s next call came from the landing and carried down every spoke. "Six walks. Capstan on the wall. The chain has one tooth left before that red catch drops. We turn it backward once more and clear whatever jams the grate."

"Whatever has teeth," Vera said.

"Five of whatever has teeth."

Orsa knocked her pole against the nearest spoke. The note entered the water. Five separate wakes returned through the grate, followed by one premature strike that rang against empty iron.

"One strike," Brant said. "Then quiet. They hunt vibration. Don’t donate any."

Flat Hands cracked his knuckles beside the wall capstan. "Lye, take the return. I’ll lose the bar before I lose you."

"Try losing neither."

Four coffer feet struck stone around the capstan. Its nose and rear knocked against separate handles while the other four patterns began their old retreat rhythm inside the shell. At the chain return, Voss’s clothes scraped stone and his hook kissed water. Two blade tips whispered above the west spoke as Kril took his place.

Vera fed an ordinary rope around Dane’s sound-side rear rail. Her fingers stopped against the wood.

"Rear rail. If the current takes you, one knock says I tie it."

Dane knocked once. The knot cinched, and a second turn of rope rasped around a dry wall ring. Vera tested the working slack without moving his rail.

He rolled onto the south spoke. Iron bars thrummed below his mouth. His dead front-left rail cleared the low chain, but the split in his right quarter pulled around rod one’s support each time water struck the grate. He had one useful late wheel and one side that could become a loose collection of boards if the current chose well.

Flat Hands grunted and the capstan moved. Wet links climbed; packed reeds tore by a finger’s width before the jam held again. The chain’s note ran down all six spokes, and five bodies turned beneath it.

"Let it kick!" Brant called.

The bar snapped backward. Flat Hands released his wrist while Lye Scar yielded without losing the handle. Four coffer feet struck clear just before the return swept through them, and water erupted under three spokes.

Steel shrieked to Dane’s right. Kril swore as jaws closed around his outer blade. Backward teeth snapped and skittered over iron.

"Second blade," Brant shouted. "Behind the skull!"

Kril’s driving step hit the west spoke. A vertebra cracked through Dane’s wheels; the blade tore sideways, and a body began hammering blood through the grate.

Orsa’s marked pole rang at the same time. A mouth climbed the sound and swallowed the remaining tine. Hook teeth rasped down the shaft toward her fist.

"It has the pole," a local yelled.

"I noticed."

"Tine’s through the roof," Brant called. "Caught at the gill hinge."

The coil yanked Orsa sideways. Her knee slammed the spoke, sending the turn through Dane’s wheels. Boots followed the rotation; wood twisted in her hands and tore across it. Gill plates struck iron, followed by something corded and wet.

The third eel chose Dane’s knock.

He had hit his front board once, harder than the chain, and now the answer came up between his wheels.

The blind head broke water. Its jaw opened wider than his axle. Teeth punched into living Wagon grain and dragged toward the mouth under his front board.

Pain reached him before fear did. Dane opened, caught the animal behind the lower jaw, and let its charge fold the mouth deeper between his teeth. Hooked points carved hot furrows through his wood. He closed until both jaw hinges cracked.

The eel’s body wrapped the grate collar. Every beat of its tail pulled its head against him and him toward the well. The rope burned into his rear rail. His tongue forced up under the skull, found one crooked tooth, and pinned the animal there.

Blood from the punctures reached his tongue. Hunger clenched around it. Dane bit again before appetite could choose the pressure for him.

Bone plates collapsed between his rows. The skull still bucked, so he shifted his pressure and crushed it flatter. Hot salt blood sheeted over his tongue. Dense flesh tore loose behind the gills, and hunger seized everything he allowed it—blood, head meat, the thick neck working against his mouth.

The thick neck worked against his mouth until he stopped feeding it inward.

The relief was obscene. The pull behind his ribs eased by one hard measure, and phantom wrists released his mouth. The punctures still burned; his right-quarter split still tugged around rod one. He merely hurt with less hunger inside the hurt.

Then the dying body convulsed around the collar.

Water punched beneath Dane. His sound-side wheels lifted; his wounded quarter dropped. The rope snapped taut and shook the wall ring, retaining his rear rail while the rest of him lost the iron.

His right wheel slipped into open water. Cold drove through the axle split and worried beneath rod one’s supported line. Dane tried to reverse. The late wheel spun without touching anything while the eel’s body beat another surge into his underside.

Inside his Wagon shell, tongue and retained weight rested in the hollow where travel had settled them. Dragging that bundle across damaged grain hurt; letting the current roll his split into the grate would hurt once. He hauled less than one handspan toward the sound side and stopped there.

The shift pulled fire through his axle. His heavy side dipped, the wounded quarter rose a fraction, and the late wheel struck something submerged with a jolt—the edge of the catwalk. Dane caught it before the current peeled him away.

For one breath he held the ballast there. The split widened against its support; another full shift would finish what the water had started. He shoved the aggregate back into its supported hollow, kept the wheel planted, and endured the returning yaw. The brief balance vanished with the shift.

"Rope’s holding," Vera said, breathless beside his rear rail. "Dane, give me the wheel."

He backed it once. She hauled with him. Kril hacked the dead eel behind its first thick body ring while Orsa dragged her own ruined head clear. Together they pulled the edible length off the collar.

The capstan gained half a turn before another body struck the return chain. Voss’s hook punched wetly, and the chain snapped straight under the eel’s reversal.

"Under the jaw and out behind the gill," Voss said. "It wants the arm. Give it the hook. When I say pull, feed the bastard to the grate."

A second impact rang from the north spoke. Boots scraped across iron and kicked over open water; four fingers caught the low chain hard enough to sing through the collar.

"Two left," Brant called. "North is hanging!"

"Pull!" Voss shouted.

The capstan bar groaned under Flat Hands and Lye Scar. Nose and rear knocked the next handle into place, letting the coffer brace them while Brant’s arms and Voss’s ruined legs stayed clear. Chain hauled hook and eel toward the turning teeth.

The fourth animal tried to coil. Iron closed through its middle first. Its belly opened from gill to vent; hot organs slapped the links and began winding into the mechanism.

Kril’s boots stumbled off the west spoke. "Gut on the chain."

His blade severed the winding loop before it could jam the links. Two heavy halves hammered different walks as the fifth eel struck north again.

"One hand left!" Brant shouted.

A single step clicked down from the north wall. A rake handle brushed stone; one controlled breath followed, too close to the water.

"Left hand’s fixed half-shut," Brant said. "Let her set."

Cloth shifted as the woman’s chin turned toward the nearest dry stone. A joint clicked.

The rake swept. Its curved back missed flesh, caught cloth below the ribs, and jerked the adult away as the eel’s teeth closed beneath their boots. Cloth strained. The rescued adult cried out when the handle drove into the ribs, but Hest kept turning until body, boots, and rake crashed onto dry stone together.

"Hest," the adult gasped.

The eel followed the sound. Its head hit the north spoke, and backward teeth ground into the narrowing gap until the body hung there.

"Clear them!" Brant called.

Caught cloth scraped over iron as Hest dragged the adult. Lye Scar’s weight drove one bar; Flat Hands caught the next on his forearm, turning the grate under the north spoke.

The first tooth split the eel’s lower jaw. The animal thrashed harder, driving bone against iron until the second tooth crushed its skull behind the vibration pits. Blood and soft skull matter forced through the seam while the body beat the grate and the capstan crew ground the ruined head past the collar.

The raised flood catch dropped with the red-iron clang Brant had promised. Water stopped spitting in the inspection arch. The answer was ragged breathing and the weight of four carcasses, two sheared halves, and loose guts still loading the machine.

Blades sawed coils from the spokes while Voss’s hook dragged entrails link by link. Dane held his sound wheel on the submerged edge and used his mouth to haul the severed south body onto stone, feeling each puncture reopen as the weight came clear.

"Last sixth-turn," Brant said. "Then you can insult the plumbing."

"I’ve been saving my best work," Voss said.

The crew pulled. Grate teeth chewed through reed roots, small bones, and an old length of rope packed beneath the wedges. Debris flushed down the center mouth. The chain seated under the catch with three links left dry.

Water released Dane’s wheel and fell below the spokes.

"Both platforms dry," Brant called. "Pump channel empty."

Buk’s hoarse cheer arrived from upstairs. Ada told him to lie down.

Local blades opened the eels before the bodies cooled, rasping along bone until long strips peeled free. Damaged heads and dark organs struck a separate stone trough. Flat Hands lifted one meat load; the adult Hest had saved took its other end, breathing carefully around the light blow below the ribs but walking dry and steady.

Reed cloth snapped open. "Platforms first," the square-rake survivor said. "Pump room next. Chain crew gets the small wrap."

The bundles left in three directions. No bloody weight or fresh scent stopped beside Dane until the rescued adult’s careful tread returned along the south spoke. A clean strip settled beneath his mouth, close enough that fresh blood warmed the opened punctures in his grain.

"For the pull," they said. "And for not eating all of it."

His tongue leaned toward the smell. Hunger answered, quieter but awake. Dane held still until the eel already inside him settled, then knocked twice.

Careful steps retreated. The strip landed on the pump-room bundle.

Voices filled the inspection arch as meat was wrapped for smoke. Beneath them, the seated grate took one pulse of water, then another. The catch held. Three links remained dry.

At the north spoke, connected gray silt sucked around Hest’s fixed left fingers. Her own rake grip turned under the wet half-closure, working grit into wood before one step carried her back to dry stone.

Her breathing pivoted toward the same dry reference. Click.

The empty rescue stroke whispered across at the same height. Its curved back traced the path that had caught cloth and finished with the same tap beside the dry patch.

Orsa’s wet feet stopped nearby. "Dry the grip."

"Leave it wet."

Wet grit stayed in the handle when Hest’s fingers tightened.

Kril’s blade entered the last unopened stomach. The cut released rot, blood, and a sharper current of cold.

"Cloth," he said. "Gray weave."

The wet strip rasped over stone when Orsa pulled it free. Blood ran toward the ordinary drain, but colder water reached Dane’s front wheel from beneath it. The thin stream slid against the floor’s fall and tugged toward the seated intake, denser than the warm runoff around it.

The abraded cloth rose with a wet rasp. Water ticked into the trough from both worn ends.

"Older water."