Chapter 118: Filter Centipede

Four hooked legs hauled at the dry wheel rim.

Their weight traveled through the stopped axle, down the loose catwalk bracket, and into Dane’s open Door edge. One contact scraped upward. A second struck wall iron. The last two climbed beyond the upper walk and loaded something broad enough to make both rails complain.

"First body plate is over the rim," Kril called. "It scrapes both sides of the walk."

Pond rot reached Dane a breath later, mixed with old blood and the smell of metal left in a butcher’s bucket.

More hooks took the wall and the dry filter ribs above the pipe gallery. Each new grip changed the current against Dane. Moss, reed knots, and small bones rattled from overhead into waist-deep water.

"It is using the wall, ceiling ribs, and wheel at once," Lye Scar said. "Third and fifth ribs carry the drain wall. Lose either and the gallery comes down."

Kril’s boots backed across the axle housing. "Head is clearing. Two chopping plates for a mouth. White feelers are combing Brant’s blood off the rail."

The mouth plates closed once.

Rust shook from the alarm pipe.

Brant drew breath through the pain in his wrapped left hand. "Clear every body from beneath those ribs. Ceiling, wall, water—call which surface takes its weight before you cut."

Marda already had the near chain moving. Two plate survivors beyond the bypass hauled blankets from the far side. On the wheel side, she put one adult on each of the original six while the barefoot survivor kept the gap call.

"One body and a hand still fits," the barefoot adult said. "Clear the chain. The good foot gets one speed."

"Use the wall and keep the good foot under you," Marda told them.

The filter ribs bowed.

Load left the wheel so quickly that Dane’s braced edge lifted. A chopping impact struck stone where the bare foot had scraped a moment earlier.

The next hit entered the wall rib and came through Dane like a hammer.

The barefoot adult screamed.

Their body stayed upright because one hooked leg had punched through the LEFT outer calf and curled around the iron filter rib behind it. Blood ran with the current. Dane tasted it in spray before Marda reached the belt.

"Barb turns upward around the rib," Marda called. "Hold your weight. Flat Hands, shoulder under them."

"I asked for the line where my foot could stay planted," the adult managed.

"You found it. Keep both hands on the rib."

Above them, the creature dragged sideways. Shell overlaps rattled through the gallery. Each scrape showered Dane’s rim with reed knots shaved into short, wet pieces and pulled the pinned calf toward the ceiling.

Flat Hands took the adult against his shoulder. Marda shoved a strip of broken bucket iron between flesh and barb.

"I lift. You turn the ankle toward me and push on the good foot."

The adult’s good heel struck stone. Their hands tightened on the rib.

Marda levered upward.

The hook tore back through skin and a thumb-width of outer calf muscle. The adult’s scream flattened against Flat Hands’s vest; their good leg kept pushing until the barb left flesh.

Blood hit waist-deep water in hot ropes.

"Move the ankle," Marda said.

The wounded foot turned once, shaking. The adult clamped both hands over the open track and hopped on the good leg while Flat Hands gave a shoulder rather than carrying them.

"It moves," they gasped. "It can hate me later."

The centipede shifted its weight from wall to ceiling.

Two filter ribs bent low enough to strike current. Dane received the impact through the gallery wall; his right-quarter split answered with a wet crack of its own.

"Third rib is taking the head," Lye Scar called. "Fourth body joint is loose over the wheel. Fifth still holds the wall."

Kril climbed toward the loose overlap. His folded blade entered with a hide-cutting sound, then dragged along something softer. Clear fluid pattered onto Dane’s rim, thick and bitter on his tongue.

Voss lay supported across the stopped axle, both ruined legs bound along the dry side. His one hook rang into the belly behind Kril’s cut.

"I have the fourth joint," he said. "It offended me first."

He pulled by hip and spine.

Weight came off the third rib. The head crossed the upper walk toward him, mouth plates chopping against rail. Orsa rammed her broken sounding pole between them.

The bite drove the pole down. Her wrapped LEFT knee folded under the change in leverage, and her right hip hit iron before the joint could take more.

"Calf is free," Marda called. "Open the mouth side."

Orsa’s moss knife scraped one chopping plate. Vera laid a short blue line across the wall with her right hand, LEFT elbow held against her ribs. The ward touched the feeler side without cutting shell.

"Left feelers have folded away from the mark," Vera said. "It is finding the wall with the right."

Brant’s voice came thinner from the upper rail. "Kril, drive the fourth joint right. Give Dane the head when it follows."

Dane opened his mouth.

The gallery flooded him with targets. Human blood ran warm through the current below. The centipede’s fluid tasted cold and sour. Hook impacts gave him body length and speed, while the chopping plates knocked their path through the upper rail.

Kril kicked the opened joint.

The head charged the change in load and crossed Dane’s rim. His teeth caught one mouth plate. Shell cracked. A ceiling hook punched into his upper edge and ripped the head away before his jaw reached neck.

One plate hung broken. The neck escaped whole.

The loose fourth section struck the wheel. The impact came around the axle and caught Flat Hands across his back. The wounded adult, still clamped to his shoulder, pitched forward.

They fell across Dane’s open bite.

Torn LEFT calf landed between two lower teeth. A palm struck his tongue. The mimic body found the pulse at once: meat already opened, one jaw-width thick, severable before the good heel could find stone. The plated neck passed above his upper rim at a harder angle and demanded twice the closure.

His lid chose the calf.

Dane drove his tongue into the old wound at his right corner. Pain twisted the hinge. The closing teeth cut cloth and stopped with living muscle outside them.

"Rib," the adult said into his mouth. Terror stripped the voice raw. "Give me the inside rib."

Dane opened one Stall-fine contact beneath their hand.

They caught it. One palm hauled; the other stayed crushed over the calf track. Their good heel found his Door edge, shoved, and dragged the wounded leg clear of every tooth.

The adult rolled behind his sound rim under their own effort.

Above them, the clean neck angle vanished. The centipede climbed the ceiling ribs and tore Orsa’s pole in half as it went.

By the time the adult rolled behind Dane’s rim, the neck was three ribs above him. Its chopping head dropped toward Voss. He rolled on his back, keeping the hook buried while both bound legs slid clear by the width of a boot. The mouth sheared through the empty line loop beside his hip.

Three wall hooks released together. Body weight crashed onto the ceiling ribs. Third and fifth bowed; the copper alarm pipe along the dry wall rang under falling rust.

"Make the open joint carry it," Brant said. His breath snagged after `joint`, and he forced the rest through. "Keep weight off three and five."

Marda pulled the wounded adult behind the axle while Flat Hands turned back toward the fight. "Ada has your leg. Both hands stay on the hole until she replaces them."

"I can hold it," the adult said. "Use him."

Flat Hands left his shoulder beneath the adult until Ada’s forearm took the pressure, then went.

Ada packed dry fungal felt around the barb channel without closing its upper track. Her wrap ran knee to ankle, tight enough to slow blood and loose enough to leave the foot warm.

"Good heel on Dane," she said. "Turn the wounded ankle once."

The ankle answered. The adult set their good heel against Dane’s sound frame and kept both hands over the dressing while the gallery shook.

The coffer climbed the wall.

Two awake ends chose separate shell seams around the opened fourth joint. Four habitual feet tried to retreat toward the bypass. The opposed motions twisted the centipede where Kril had cut it.

Its head struck down from the ceiling. Flat Hands threw his coat over a filter rib and yanked away. Three hooks punched through empty cloth and buried in iron, anchoring the front half one span lower.

"Head is on the wall side," the wounded adult called from behind Dane. "Broken mouth plate first."

Vera moved her blue mark along that wall. The remaining feelers recoiled. The head snapped at the dry line and missed Voss’s hip.

Voss hauled down from the belly. Kril cut upward. Orsa, working from her right hip, drove the broken half-pole into the soft fourth joint. Flat Hands put both hands on the coffer’s frame and turned its four retreating habits into a pull away from the load-bearing ribs.

The open joint took the creature’s whole bend. The crack reached Dane through wall, wheel, and water before shell fragments struck his tongue.

Clear fluid and black gut water struck Dane’s tongue, hot axle, and catwalk. The beast thrashed. Its three coat-pinned hooks tore iron curls from the rib but stayed caught long enough for the rear body to sag into current.

The chopping head dropped within Dane’s bite line again.

"Neck is open below the first plate," Kril called.

Dane closed on it.

Upper teeth cracked through shell. Lower teeth found the soft band Kril had exposed. The centipede pulled toward ceiling and wall; Voss’s hook, Orsa’s half-pole, the coffer’s two choices, its four habits, and Flat Hands’s weight held the fourth joint low.

Dane bit through the plated neck.

The severed mouth snapped twice against his rim. Kril cut the last pale cord that kept head to body. Orsa and the coffer dragged the rear sections from the filter ribs while Voss held the opened joint away from the fifth support.

Hooks struck stone one after another.

Dane held the neck until the last scrape stopped.

"Head is separate," Marda said. "Legs are still."

He crushed a bounded mouthful of neck meat. Eel fat, sour pond flesh, and rust spread over his tongue. Hunger released the wounded adult’s pulse first. It did nothing for his dead rail, late axle, rod pressure, or split.

Kril opened the pale underside with his existing blades. Lye Scar dragged an iron tray from beneath the tender’s shelf and set it over axle-heated stone. Vera kept one tray-width strip dry with her blue line.

Fat spat against the iron tray.

The smell changed the gallery. Pond rot gave way to browned fat and smoke. People beyond the bypass stopped whispering and began asking when the next strip would come.

Marda put the first hot piece into the wounded adult’s hands. "Eat before the shaking takes more heat."

They bit, sucked air through their teeth at the burn, and chewed anyway. "Better than my boot."

"The stone kept that. This is yours."

The next strips crossed the bypass. One waking adult burned two fingers, swore, and ate the piece before it cooled. Kril laid fresh meat down faster than the tray emptied.

Flat Hands and Orsa freed three intact shell sections from the dead body’s side. Each one reached Dane as weight and curve rather than loot: long plate, paired holes where filter ribs had passed, overlapping lip at one end.

Orsa set the first along his outer side. Two of Dane’s ribs entered separate holes while the curve left his damaged axle clear. A second plate overlapped the first without opening a straight seam.

Flat Hands shoved the upper edge.

Pressure spread across both ribs. Dane’s body held lateral force without rolling around a single contact point.

"Three of these can brace an open side," Orsa said. "The holes take cross-ribs. The overlap carries the twist."

She lifted the plates away and laid them loose on dry stone. They remained unfitted, outside Dane, and heavy enough to need hands.

The copper alarm pipe struck once from inside the wall. Four Pump Nine blows split its square joint and burst older gray water across Marda’s wounded boot.