Chapter 117: Teeth in the Wheel

The second tooth struck before Marda finished her report.

Iron drove through the wall into Dane’s wounded frame. Beyond the lower door, a slab ground across the bypass and stole another handspan from the only dry exit.

"One body wide, if they turn sideways," called the barefoot adult Marda had seated by the opening.

"Keep calling what fits," Marda said. Her wounded left boot slipped once, found stone, and stayed planted. "Plate six stay behind the near chain. Two move the lowest blankets above the seep. The rest of you keep twenty-four sleepers breathing and this landing empty."

Boots and reed answered her. Orsa took the far guide and started down.

"Wheel room has two iron walks," Marda continued. "Upper meets the axle. Lower meets the buckets, twelve feet down. Dry stairs reach both. Teeth run along the right side, and neither walk has a rail there."

Flat Hands and Lye Scar took Dane down the dry access one jolt at a time. His sound wheels struck each stair; the late one arrived after every impact and twisted the axle before the lines straightened him.

Below, gray water lifted full buckets through a wheel broad enough to shake both catwalks. Above, wood knocked an iron pawl in a worker’s rhythm—pull, pause, release—though Dane heard no breath between strokes.

Orsa touched the near wooden handle with her broken sounding pole.

The handle snatched it. Wood slammed iron, the pole hit a rail, and another tooth shoved the shutter.

"Grip is warm," Orsa said. "Wet, too. The handle pulled after the bucket slowed."

Across the axle, its twin completed the same stroke half a beat later.

Voss lowered himself onto the upper catwalk until one hip met riveted iron. His two ruined legs stayed lashed behind him; the one good hook rang against the axle housing. "Give Kril the water drive. Leave me enough axle to hate."

Kril descended to the lower walk. The coffer followed with two awake ends choosing separate rivet plates while four habitual feet scraped back toward the stair. Flat Hands looped a dry line through its frame and turned that useless retreat into tension against the wheel.

Dane opened a low Door-derived edge beneath the lower catwalk’s loose middle bracket. The bracket’s beat entered his old right-quarter split. Rod one received the load late and pressed deeper along its familiar line.

His dead front-left rail hung on the dry side, close enough to feel water strike iron and too far away to help.

"Bucket cresting," Orsa called.

Kril’s blade punched through one wet hide lash. Water crashed across the wheel face before the bucket reached the top. Rotation staggered. Every bolt above Dane jumped in its socket.

Voss drove his hook into the exposed axle notch.

The wheel stopped.

The empty handles kept working.

Pull. Pawl. Release.

Their strokes spent the loose play left inside the shaft. A third tooth entered the rack while Voss cursed and held a wheel that had already ceased turning.

"Shoulders scrape now," the barefoot adult called. "No pack comes through."

"Good thing the pack kept my boot," another plate survivor said, voice high with fear.

Marda put that voice on the near chain. "Save the other boot and keep counting."

Flat Hands wrapped dry fungal felt around the near handle. The warm grip dragged cloth through his hands, completed its stroke, and returned wearing the felt like a sleeve.

The pawl fell again.

"Grip is covered and it still pulls," Flat Hands said.

Vera crouched high on the stair with her stiff left elbow against her ribs. Her right hand scraped a short blue line beside the near collar. Spray jumped from the marked strip, leaving a dry path two fingers wide while water continued around both ends.

The next handle stroke carried warmth through the collar and darkened the felt from inside.

"The grip is being wet again from the iron," Vera said. "My line can hold one edge. It cannot circle the collar."

Orsa pinned the end of her broken pole against the damp joint. "Then we strip the wet connection. Both collars."

The wheel shoved once against Voss’s hook. His hip skidded toward the tooth side.

Brant set one boot against the upper post and caught Voss with his good shoulder blade. The useless right arm remained strapped low. His splinted left forearm stayed curled across his belly, clear of rope and rail.

"Near collar first," he said. "Far felt goes after its handle rises. If both of you reach through the same stroke, it takes two bodies."

Lye Scar folded the first square around the near collar while Vera held her narrow dry strip against the spray. The handle dropped. Cloth snapped tight around Lye Scar’s fingers, and he tore them free with skin still on them.

At the far side, Orsa caught a second felt square on the end of her pole. Dane opened one Stall-fine rib from sound grain and reached across the upper rail.

The rib stopped one palm short.

"I cannot reach your felt," Orsa said.

"Set the pole on me."

She laid wood against Dane’s thin contact. His rib supplied pressure; her pole supplied length. Together they pushed the felt toward the far collar as the upper catwalk trembled under another bucket.

"Next tooth is touching the rack," Marda called. "It seats on the next full pull."

"Hold the far square outside the handle’s path," Brant said. "Kril, take another bucket after Voss has the lower notch."

Voss dragged his hook down by hip and spine. Metal caught.

Kril cut the second lash.

The falling bucket struck the submerged side all at once. With a quarter of the water drive gone and Voss holding the axle, the shutter’s weight kicked wheel and shaft backward.

The reversal hit Dane through the bracket. His Door edge buckled into rod one.

Above him, Voss’s hook tore free. A boot slipped. Brant’s shoulder left Voss with a violent scrape, and the upper rail rang under a body turning across it.

The splint cracked.

Brant made one sound, low and bitten off. The reversing tooth stopped. His trapped weight loaded the catwalk until two bolts began pulling out of the wall above Dane.

"Brant’s left forearm is in the return gap," Ada called. Her voice sharpened rather than rose. "Tooth above the wrist. His curled hand is against the outer rail."

Iron crept another fraction under the shutter’s weight.

Brant’s breath broke twice.

"Middle and ring knuckles split against the rail," Ada said. "Blood is running over the small finger."

Warm iron smell reached Dane through the wheel spray. A drop struck the upper edge of his Door grain, followed by another.

Brant’s right shoulder hit its restraining strap and stopped there.

"Leave me in the gap," he said. Each word cost a separate breath. "Dry the far collar before you move this tooth, or the handle drives it back through me."

"One shoulder and a hand still fit the bypass," Marda called. "You have this pull."

The far handle descended.

Orsa’s pole bucked. Dane’s thin rib bowed but kept the felt centered. The warm grip dragged across the cloth, smearing fresh sweat from wood to iron.

On the near side, Vera drove her dry strip to the collar while Lye Scar twisted felt around it. Moisture ran away in gray drops. The handle jerked hard enough to knock his wrist against the housing, then slowed before the top of its return.

Lye Scar pressed a thumb to the wood. "Near grip is cooling. The collar stopped wetting my cloth."

Across the axle, Orsa hooked the pole behind the far felt. Dane held its center while she pulled the square through the joint. The wet thread stretched, broke, and slapped his rib.

The copied stroke lost its rhythm.

The far handle rose halfway. Wood hovered above the pawl, warm against Dane’s contact, then cooled under Orsa’s wet knuckles.

One expected pull passed. Lye Scar kept his thumb on the near grip; Orsa kept hers on the far. Neither handle knocked the pawl.

Brant coughed against the rail. "Move the wheel toward my hand. One tooth only."

Voss found a lower cross-hole. Flat Hands took his line. The coffer’s two awake ends chose opposite braces while its four habits hammered uselessly toward the stair. On the lower walk, Kril jammed the cut bucket’s iron rim beneath a spoke.

They pulled.

The wheel moved forward. Wet friction rasped across the rail as the tooth released Brant’s forearm, and blood smell thickened in the spray.

Ada caught his vest before his knees hit the walk. She laid the left arm across her thighs with the hand still curled and the forearm aligned inside the cracked splint.

"Keep the wheel off him," she said. "Brant, tell me when I touch each finger."

Her thumb worked from smallest finger to thumb. Brant named all five through his teeth. At the middle and ring fingers, his voice broke lower, but sensation remained.

"Open the hand as far as it goes."

Index and thumb moved. The last two fingers stayed curled around empty air. Ada pressed cloth to both split knuckles while Brant’s breath hitched with each attempt.

"Leave them there," Ada said. Dry cloth circled the hand without forcing it flat.

Below, the cut bucket rim squealed as it bent. Older water still loaded the surviving paddles, and Voss’s hook grated toward the edge of its hole.

"The water drive is taking the wheel again," Kril called.

"Then we take the first tooth out and lock the spoke," Brant said. Pain slurred the middle of the order; the direction survived. "Voss low. Orsa through his hole. Flat Hands, put the coffer’s two minds on your line and let the other four hate the stairs."

Orsa planted her broken pole through the cross-hole above Voss’s hook. Flat Hands shifted the line. The coffer split against two rivet plates, choices holding while habits pulled the wrong way.

Dane raised his Door edge one grain beneath the loose bracket.

The whole lower walk leaned toward the water. Rod one ground into the old split. His grain tried to fold away from the pressure; he held the one grain and gave them a floor long enough to pull.

Wheel and axle turned backward.

"First tooth clear," Marda called. The bypass shutter scraped wider.

"One body and a hand," Marda called. "Hold that width."

Kril drove the bent bucket rim deeper beneath a spoke. Voss locked his hook across it. Orsa jammed the pole into the same cross-hole from above.

Older water loaded the wheel. The improvised brace bent, screamed, and held while no copied pull answered from the pawl.

Marda sent one plate survivor through the bypass with a fold of dry felt. Stone rubbed both shoulders as the adult squeezed past the shutter. The near chain jerked once from the far side before their voice returned.

"Stable floor. I can take a chain."

The second adult fed the near chain after them. Its weight came tight from stable floor beyond the shutter.

Ada wet a short line in the channel and laid it across Brant’s wrapped left palm. "One bounded test. Close as far as the hand allows."

His index finger caught the rope. The thumb arrived late. Middle and ring trembled inside the cloth and stayed curled above it.

Flat Hands added the weight of one forearm.

Wet line slid from Brant’s grip and rasped across the wrap.

He swore once, without volume.

Ada took the rope. "The fingers are warm and they feel. Wet pull belongs to another hand from here."

Brant rested his good shoulder blade against the rail. "Then stop putting lines where my mouth cannot reach them."

Marda sent the next adult through before Orsa could answer him. Lye Scar kept two fingers on the near handle; it never warmed. The jam gave one long groan while the chain took another adult’s weight, then held.

Four impacts traveled down the dry rim into Dane’s braced edge, one above another. Each point caught, scraped higher, and took weight.

Kril’s voice came down from above them. "Four hooked legs on the dry rim. They are taking weight."