Chapter 132: The First Private Watch

Dane’s late wheel skidded before the last of Buk’s litter cleared his rear.

The ferrule’s outer fiber cooled. Grit ground under the sound wheel as he put his weight there instead, stopping with the damaged quarter a palm from a damp seam in the balcony.

The ordinary rear guide tightened in Vera’s hand after Dane’s weight had settled.

"Black line on your right," she said. "It runs to the lip."

Below that lip, the central fall struck stone in Dane’s ugly diagonal. The root-bed spill moved cool air along the balcony’s left end. Reed scent climbed from the right. Both freed routes kept running without a hand inside them.

Marda and Kril lowered Buk’s litter against the rear wall. Ada rolled cloth beneath Lye Scar’s straight left leg and left his warm heel exposed for the next check. The coffer set its two chosen feet under Voss while four habitual ones worried at a slope that no longer needed climbing.

Voss tapped the nearest two with his closed hook. "Sleep downhill and I will break you for parts."

All four stopped. One started again after a breath.

"That one has beliefs," Buk murmured from his litter.

Brant settled on a folded pack with both arms bound clear of his weight. Serrick put a dry shell scraper and a square of folded cloth beside the narrow watch spur, then took the driest place at the rear turn beside a half-height service door. Orsa lay near the reed air. Marda spread her blanket at the root end, the full length of the balcony between them.

Kril set both sheathed blades beside the watch mark. "I’ll take the fall first."

"Second," Vera said. She unhooked the guide from her right hand. "I want first."

Kril tried both sheath grips. Fingers cramped from the axle levers slipped off the second.

"You can argue after they stop curling," Marda said. She lay back without waiting for his answer.

Dane rolled toward the watch spur.

His sound wheel reached the narrow stone and stopped on the scored mark while the guide hung slack.

Kril picked up his blades and went to the rear wall. "Wake me if the water grows hands."

"If it grows hands," Vera said, "you’ll hear me object."

The balcony narrowed around a spur overlooking the central fall. The inner strip stayed dry from wall to tip, but it was scarcely wide enough for Dane’s Wagon body. He took it lengthwise with the ferrule inland and the dead rail hanging over empty stone.

Vera squeezed into the wall-side space behind his sound wheel.

Cloth rasped. Her boot found a shallow notch. She leaned left to see around his axle and stopped when her shoulder reached its cold limit.

"Move," she whispered. "I have an excellent view of you and none of the water."

Dane shifted his sound wheel toward the lip.

The central fall opened to Vera for one breath. Cold entered the ferrule’s exterior loop before the late wheel finished following.

Dane reversed.

Vera flattened her right palm against the wall. "The loop touched. I could see for one breath. Nearly useful."

He returned the ferrule to dry stone and held there.

Vera stepped around his front to take the lip side. A strip of travel ration sat in the wrap at her belt. Salt and old fat reached Dane first. The warmer beat beneath her right wrist followed.

His lid band tightened.

Teeth rose behind the closed rim. Vera’s next step would put her forearm across the place his tongue expected food to enter.

Dane turned his mouth into the rear wall.

His dead front-left rail caught the hem of her wet cloak during the turn.

The cloak snapped tight across Vera’s shoulders. Her right boot skidded toward the lip while her left side refused the reach that would have caught the wall. She dropped the ration, stamped the boot sideways, and stopped its sole against the scored watch mark.

"Stop moving. The coat is losing."

Dane locked both wheels.

Vera worked one arm free, twisted the clasp with her right hand, and pulled herself out of the cloak. The dead rail kept the garment. Her breath went still for a long moment; then she tugged it loose and threw it behind the dogleg.

Buk’s short, offended snore joined the other sleeping breaths.

Crosswise on the spur, Dane put his mouth to the wall. The ferrule stayed a palm inland of the damp seam, the sound wheel rested at the lookout tip, and the dead rail hung beyond the stone, clear of cloth and body.

Entirely on stone beside the sound wheel, Vera tucked her left elbow against her ribs. The central fall lay open past her knees.

The leather of her right boot scraped the wheel every time she shifted. Dane lost two small water strikes beneath the squeak and knocked the rim once against stone.

Vera lifted her whole leg. "Too close?"

Dane held still.

Wet leather scraped again when she lowered the boot. The rim gave the same single knock.

"The boot," she said.

She pulled it off with her right hand. The damp stocking came with it and disappeared into the boot. She wedged both between her knees, then lifted the soaked trouser cuff clear of her ankle.

The next four stream strikes reached Dane cleanly through the wheel.

Vera recovered the ration and put it in a dry wall notch above Dane’s turned mouth, beyond the bite line. Salt and fat remained in the air. His tongue pressed once against his own lower teeth.

A tooth touched the wall. Dane drew it back.

After another center pulse, Vera moved her bare right ankle against the outer face of his sound wheel.

Warm skin found living wood while stone held her full weight. After one test lift, her ankle returned to the wheel.

Dane turned only the wheel face, a shallow fraction beneath her ankle.

Her inhale broke against closed teeth. She pressed the outside of her calf against him and kept her face toward the water.

Cool root air kept flowing from the left while the right return carried reed scent. From the rear line came one rustle around Lye’s wrapped leg, then Ada’s breathing deepened. Four restless coffer feet clicked through their old pattern and folded into silence beneath Voss.

Vera took one bite from the ration. Food drew pressure through Dane’s lid band; against the wheel, her pulse beat faster.

He kept his mouth against the wall and rolled the warm face another fraction under her calf.

"Kril was one bad inch from leaving fingers under that gate," she said.

Dane stopped the wheel.

"I was thinking about putting my hand on you again. Right then. Axle coming out. Gate coming down."

The sound wheel warmed beneath her.

Vera breathed out through her nose. "You’re pleased."

He pressed the wheel face back into her calf.

"I should have let the gate keep your axle."

She pressed her calf harder against him.

Water and sleeping breath filled the next stretch of watch. Vera finished the ration in small bites. Dane’s teeth quit testing the wall; his tongue stayed awake, along with the warm wheel beneath her skin.

The central stream struck sound-side stone, crossed the shelf below, and hit the rear stone. Each pulse kept Dane’s stolen diagonal. It failed to touch the two freed returns.

Buk’s snore lengthened. Brant’s binding cloth stopped rubbing. Kril’s sheath buckles gave one last tick, then silence. Marda’s breath stayed uneven at the root end while Orsa’s deeper pattern came from the reeds.

Cold touched the ferrule loop.

Stone held fixed beneath it.

A thin wet line climbed from the balcony seam and closed around the exterior black fiber. The next central pulse pulled sound-rear first, then across toward Dane’s front band.

Before the bridge could travel, the ferrule loop tightened. Unloading the late wheel, Dane shifted onto intact sound grain as the pull rolled his sound wheel beneath Vera’s bare ankle.

She lifted clear before he could stop it.

"Line on the ferrule."

Serrick’s dry scraper reached her right hand. Its edge passed between wet fiber and living wood, peeling the black film clear of the loop while Dane held the damaged quarter empty and the ferrule stayed seated.

The film stretched toward the seam.

Vera scraped it onto bare stone, covered it with dry grit, and folded Serrick’s cloth over the darkening crack. One heel ground the cloth down while her left arm remained tight against her body.

The wet line parted.

Pressure left the ferrule loop. The central water completed its diagonal below; Dane remained on dry sound grain.

Vera kept her leg clear.

Three pulses struck, then seven. The cloth darkened at its lower edge while the dry grit held. Cool root air passed from the left; reed air moved from the right.

Dane eased the late wheel down. The ferrule traveled home freely; rod one and the old split answered at their established positions.

Vera kept her ankle clear through five more pulses.

Then she placed her bare ankle against the sound wheel again.

The next clean center strike passed beneath them. Only then did Dane move the wheel face one shallow fraction and stop.

Her calf stayed there until Kril woke.

He came around the dogleg carrying both sheathed blades. Marda followed with her empty service cord loop tied close above the stone. Behind them, the other sleeping breaths continued.

Vera lifted her leg and reached for the boot.

"One wet line reached the exterior ferrule loop," she said. "It pulled along the same diagonal. Dane unloaded before the bridge moved. We broke the film here. No second line crossed."

Marda’s boot stopped beside the cloth; stone took her crouching weight without disturbing the seam. Kril listened to two central pulses, then pressed one sheath tip into the dry grit above it.

"Outer routes?" Marda asked.

"Clear the whole watch," Vera said.

Marda rose, the tied service loop brushing her knee. "We’ll keep the dry break under a blade. Sleep."

Vera fought her damp foot back into the boot, collected her cloak, and turned toward the half-height service door beyond the rear dogleg.

"When the rest of them wake," she said under the water, "I want that door."

Dane turned his sound wheel toward it.