Chapter 142: Three Fronts

One current drove Dane’s sound wheel against the inspection stair. Another struck the first gate hard enough to bow Flat Hands over the rail brace without freeing its dry pin.

A boot landed inside the third.

"Marda on the far sill," Vera called. Water broke the words around the stone fin. "Right palm on the arm. She’s wet to the shoulder."

Iron moved through the water wall.

Orsa’s pole fragment met it with a crack. The old gate arm continued across the deeper sill, carrying her wet piece toward the pivot while her straight left leg scraped behind her.

"You should be upstairs," Marda said.

"Serrick’s there."

"You used to check anyway."

The gate arm struck again. Orsa had no breath left for an answer.

At Dane’s rear, the inspection stair filled to its second step. Flat Hands was still below the turn with the crosspiece pressed under his right arm. The three adults above him climbed around one another: torn palms bound wrist to wrist, a bruised shoulder held against the wall, one bare big toe leaving a diluted red mark on every tread.

The water took their ankles and pulled downhill.

Dane turned his wounded Wagon until the ferrule faced the dry stair wall. He opened living sound grain from his opposite side, a low Door face laid along the flooded turn. The next surge split across it, half passing under the first gate’s seated diversion while the rest climbed Dane toward the old right-quarter split.

Rod one scraped without moving.

His tongue rose at the blood washing from the torn palms. Dane pinned it beneath the Wagon floor and lowered the sound edge by one grain. The redirected sheet lost Flat Hands’s boots.

"Move," Flat Hands told the people above him.

The woman with the bound palms glanced back. "Your shoulder’s stuck under the rail."

"It hurts under the rail. Different problem."

He slid the crosspiece out with his right forearm. His flattened hand dragged behind it. The motion turned his bruised ribs toward the wall, and his next breath came out in two pieces. He climbed anyway. The chipped toe vanished around the turn ahead of him.

Serrick put one dry hand high on the wall without touching the runnel below it. His shoulder met Flat Hands’s back for the last step.

"Serrick," Orsa shouted from behind the water. "Kesh road."

"That’s where we’re going." His boots were already above Dane. "Save your breath for her."

The third gate arm slammed Orsa’s wet pole fragment into the floor.

Stone split. A piece struck Dane’s open plane and spun away before his teeth could close around it. Beyond the fin, Marda’s body traveled through the motion Vera had named months ago: right shoulder down, scarred palm set, hip following the curve. The water copied her without making her hurry.

Orsa stepped where the arm should have finished.

Marda shortened the stroke.

The iron stopped early, reversed at Orsa’s shin, and ripped the pole fragment from her hands. Its broken end opened the skin along her right forearm before the current took it under the sill.

"Bad leg first," Marda said. "You still save the right for the turn."

Orsa planted the right foot instead. The wet arm caught her hip, lifted her from it, and drove her upper back against the fin.

Ada splashed toward her.

"Stay with the ferrule," Orsa said from the floor. She rolled onto the healthy knee. Her left leg remained straight, the wrap dark but closed. "She hasn’t taken the joint."

Above the stair, a root snapped against stone.

The impact traveled through the tread beneath Dane. Voices broke over it.

"Leave the third trays," Serrick called.

"Those are the cut shelves. We eat them tomorrow."

"You can argue with them from the road. Get off the bed."

Wood scraped across the terrace. Someone tried to lift a tray too broad for the first boundary gap. Its rim struck the waist rail, came back, and knocked another adult onto the damp roots.

Flat Hands’s voice found the mistake before the fallen person finished swearing. "The line is at your chest. Put it at the hips before you pull them in half."

"The knot won’t pass the root."

"Cut the knot. The root isn’t coming with us."

A knife worried at wet rope. The third wall struck below at the same time, and Marda drove the gate arm across Orsa’s new position.

Kril entered beneath it with both blades sheathed. He crossed the spines over the iron rather than offering an edge to the current. The arm bore down until the guards touched his shoulders.

"Its far end is still over the service sill," Vera called. "Dry tooth behind Marda’s hand. The near end passes Dane by one body."

"It passes where she puts it," Kril said. His knees sank into the water. "Orsa, I need another body under this."

"Use my right side. The left stays straight."

Orsa got her right shoulder below the crossed sheaths. Marda felt their weight and changed the stroke. The far iron twisted. Kril’s left guard skated off and the near end punched his ribs, throwing him against Dane’s sound face.

Impact drove through living grain, folding Dane’s Door plane around the sheath by a finger. Coffin warmth spread along the iron at Kril’s ribs. Before the next current could help his mouth, Dane opened again.

Kril coughed against him. "Still outside."

The first gate convulsed in its dry notch. Flat Hands’s abandoned shoulder brace hammered stone below the empty stair, but the pin held. At the second front, a rope snapped tight and somebody screamed once without falling silent.

Brant stood beside Dane with both arms close to his body. He turned his good ear from one water wall to the next.

"Both diversions are emptying into her side," he said. "The next return comes through that arm."

One buried channel coughed stone.

High above, the cut knot gave way. Rope dropped from chest to hips. The adult on the roots slid toward the boundary gap, hit the lowered line, and stayed on the terrace long enough for two other people to drag them by coat and belt.

The other diversion dropped into a lower roar. Marda lowered her shoulder with it.

The third current hit her arm and came through in the perfected curve. Orsa and Kril lost a full step. The near iron struck Dane’s Door grain broadside and shoved him toward the ferrule wall.

Ada put both hands on dry exterior wood beside the removable shell bridge. "Ferrule clear. Right split is taking the turn."

Vera held the line just taut enough to keep it out of the current. "The arm is above your open edge. If that edge rises, the water gets under the iron. Marda’s fingers are on the far face."

Dane kept the edge low.

Footfalls crossed the ceiling in uneven groups while the boundary rope took weight, released, and took it again. The third current packed beneath the iron and tried to lift Dane’s edge with it. He drove sound grain into the stair stone and held.

"First gap has eight across," a voice called from the terrace. "High line is taking two at a time."

"One at a time if they share a pair of knees," Flat Hands shouted back.

"They don’t."

"Then stop tying them together."

The next rush carried fungus strips down the stair. Pale wet flesh slapped Dane’s tongue. Hunger seized the easy food and dragged it toward his throat while warm blood still moved in the same water.

Dane spat the fungus against the dry stair wall. It stuck there, peppery and useless.

Above him, a tray broke.

The woman with torn palms said, "There goes tomorrow."

Someone beside her answered, breathless and angry, "Tomorrow can pick it up. Move."

Boots left the root-bed floor until one tread remained close to the inspection throat, pressing and releasing as its owner fought the last root tie.

Flat Hands came back down far enough for his voice to reach the square. "Leave it."

"First bed goes if I do."

"The tie is around your ankle. Cut the part attached to you."

The knife struck stone twice. On the third scrape the foot tore free and ran uphill. A root whipped across the terrace, hit the empty stair mouth, and vanished into the backwash. The first bed groaned; its ties kept it down.

"Low ground clear!" Flat Hands called. "They’re still crossing."

Orsa looked nowhere near the stair. Water ran from the cut on her forearm as she forced her right shoulder under Kril’s crossed blades again.

"Dane," she said. "Make her arm carry the next one."

Marda heard her. "He can’t see the stop."

Orsa’s healthy foot shifted against Dane’s wheel. "Neither can you from that side."

Dane raised the low Door edge until the underside of Marda’s gate arm touched living grain. Iron grated across him. The two seated diversions roared beneath the square while pressure tried to choose the old efficient brace: damaged mass behind the planted plane, sound side forward, water passing where Torven had taught it to pass.

Dane moved the contact soundward instead.

The farther diversion emptied into a falling boom. Vera’s line went slack as his chosen edge found the dry base of the fin. Ada kept the ferrule off stone. The coffer’s two chosen feet stepped beneath his sound frame while its four habitual feet kicked backward into Voss.

Voss struck one shell ankle with his shortened hook without loading the bad root. "Two stay with the chest. Four can panic over here."

All six feet knocked together. The chosen pair held.

The third current swelled against Dane’s new face and climbed under the iron. Marda’s perfected curve had already committed her shoulder and hip to the old level, so the arm rose against her scarred palm.

Kril drove both sheath guards upward while Orsa pushed from the right shoulder. At its dry tooth, the arm hesitated and began to settle back into Marda’s hand.

Dane raised his sound edge one grain more.

Pain opened along the old split. Rod one held. The ferrule touched nothing. Water took the last grain and hit the arm past the tooth.

Iron tore free of the old stop.

Marda opened her right hand, stepped backward with the stroke, and caught the far wall on her left; the scarred palm stayed spread in the water.

Behind the stone fin, the freed arm swung through the broken tool rack and smashed it flat before clearing a descending service sill broad enough for Dane’s wounded Wagon.

Kril fell forward. Orsa caught his coat with her right hand and let the empty left leg slide after her. Neither followed Marda.

Water broke downhill over the deeper steps instead of crossing the square.

Vera kept her stiff side against Dane’s sound rear and looked into the opening. "The service descent is clear to the next ring. Marda is one body past it. She’s still on her feet."

Orsa wiped her forearm against her coat. The cut kept bleeding in a narrow line.

Marda stood beyond the current and waited for Orsa to cross.

Above them, the boundary rope took three last loads.

One landed on high stone.

The next arrived sitting, cursing the person who had tied their knees together.

The last hung below the gap while Flat Hands shouted something the water swallowed. Serrick answered from farther uphill, and rope scraped over the first gap, held, then drew one final body across by the hips.

Then the inspection stair filled to its top tread.

"Thirty-eight above the first gap," Serrick called down. Names followed under his breath, too low for Dane to separate. Then his voice rose again. "Road to Kesh is open. First bed stayed in its ties. Third lost the caps, not the roots."

Flat Hands added, "Nobody bring me another tray."

The two seated gates kept roaring beneath him.

The deeper service sill remained open.

Water ran down it long enough for Flat Hands to cough twice above them. Then a man waded into the exposed approach.

Dane felt the steps before Vera named him. They were narrow, placed on stone, and joined to the water by a drag that never left the lower arm.

"Torven is on the sill," she said. Her voice tightened without becoming quiet. "Dark sleeveless shirt. Wet arm hanging low. The hook runs from his right temple toward his mouth."

Torven put one hand on the channel wall. He turned his face and pressed the long scar into its wet groove.

Water crawled from his temple to his mouth. It divided at the short fork below his cheekbone.

The current left the floor.

It rose across the open service descent in one unbroken vertical sheet, carrying gray silt, broken fungus, and Torven’s pulse through water that stood higher than any living body in the square.

The final approach was open from stone to stone.

Torven filled it with water standing upright.