Chapter 1016 The Boat Above The Quay

The fishing boat tore its anchor through the quay and took the winch operator with it.

Ty caught sight of the man’s boots between two gun barrels. A chain swept up after him, peeling stone from the landing. The harbor officer dropped her speaking funnel and seized the back of his coat. For a few steps they both went upward. Her knee struck the winch housing, her grip slipped to his belt, and the belt broke.

Lema was already shouting from Tavra’s rail. Ty missed the words. The boat had turned across the white cloth marking the patients, and its remaining mooring ran straight through their stretchers.

He ran down the last stair with his left shoulder bound against him. Below the bakery, a woman was trying to fit Orren’s board through the door. Ty caught the door before the carrier’s movement shut it on Orren’s foot.

"Leave him inside until somebody clears that landing. The mooring is coming across the patients."

She looked past him and pulled the board back. Orren tried to help with his elbows, then swore at the movement of his hip. Ty left them beside the oven and stepped onto the narrow board Tavra had put toward the mill quay.

The board was moving away from the stone.

At its far end a harbor worker had wrapped the landing rope around a mooring post. His partner, a woman with a sleeve tied above her elbow, was dragging stretchers out of the chain’s path. Ty could reach the rope. Reaching the post would mean leaving the board before he knew which way his bones would fall.

"Take the loose end and bring it round that second post," the worker called. "Keep the board beneath you until I pull you over."

Ty followed the rope with his right hand. The absent index left a gap where the twist kept escaping. He pressed it against his palm with the remaining fingers and hooked his wrist over the edge of the board. Across the quay the harbor officer was cutting a tether that had caught under the winch operator’s arm. The boat carried him toward the sea above them, dragging him along its chain.

The worker hauled Ty off Tavra’s board. Both feet struck the quay, but the left one wanted to stay with the moving city. He turned that knee toward the post and clung there until the worker threw another turn of rope around it.

"Sit against the stone while your legs catch up. I need that post clear of your feet."

Ty got his heel behind him. The post shook as the rope took Tavra’s weight. For a few breaths of the carrier, he could only watch people rush around him. A stretcher wheel caught in the rubble. The one-sleeved woman tipped it onto its side, rolled her patient against her own chest, and dragged both of them out of the way.

The chain struck the abandoned stretcher and crushed it.

Ty pushed upright, testing his legs before he let go. The worker reached past him for another rope. Ty drew his knee back from the post to let the man through and looked for somewhere he could actually help.

The harbor officer climbed onto the broken winch housing. Its mounting bolts had pulled loose on one side. The man above her was clinging to the chain with both hands, his boots kicking below the nearest boat. She shouted for the gun crew to turn a barrel clear so she could bring a line through the gap.

One of the gunners pointed at Ty.

"He’s with the carrier, Sivra. Keep him off our gear until we know what he brought."

"He brought his feet onto my quay. Get the barrel out of my way and bring the spare painter."

Sivra reached for the line the gunner handed her. She threw it toward the man on the chain. The loop fell short. A second throw struck his shoulder, slid across his back, and dropped away while he tried to free one hand to catch it.

Ty looked at the mooring on the other side of the patients. It still held, though the boat was rising and the chain had drawn almost straight. Between its links hung a strip of blue sailcloth. Someone on the boat was lowering a small ladder. Every time the hull swung, the ladder swept away from the man.

"Can they bring the boat back down if that chain stops paying out?" Ty asked the harbor worker.

"We can keep it near the quay. Getting him aboard is the crew’s job, if he can still climb."

The winch drum gave another half turn. Its brake lever lay in the rubble with a piece of the housing still attached. The boat rose far enough for the operator’s coat to flatten against his back. There was nobody on the quay holding the drum.

Ty pulled a length of jaw chain into his right hand. He kept the white ring close to his skull and pushed the collar back against his rib. The loose links rattled over the stone as he crouched beside the winch.

Sivra caught his wrist before he reached its broken side.

"Whatever you wrap round that drum goes with it when the mount breaks. Your arm won’t hold a fishing boat."

"Then show me where the other end belongs. You’ve got a post behind the gun carriage."

She looked from the chain to the post. A jagged bolt was scraping a groove into the drum at every turn. She shoved her spare painter at Ty and waved the harbor worker over.

"Put this through the carriage, below the axle. He can feed his chain through the broken guard. Keep clear when I take the slack."

The worker went on his knees under the gun. Ty worked the unmarked links between the drum and its bent guard. The gap narrowed, trapping his middle finger. He pulled it free before the next turn caught him, then fed the chain with his thumb instead. The drum dragged the first links out of sight.

His jaw tugged toward the housing.

He had left too much loose chain on the wrong side. Ty pressed his skull against the gun carriage while Sivra worked the painter through a link nearer the drum. She doubled it back and dragged it toward the post. The worker joined her. Ty could see their boots skidding but could not get his head far enough from the carriage to check the man above them.

The drum stopped with a bang that shook the gun.

Sivra wound the painter around the post. The worker hammered a wedge beneath the carriage wheel. Ty’s jaw stopped moving. One link had flattened against the drum, and the bent guard had folded over it. He would have to pry it out after the boat came down.

Above the quay, the hanging man tried to reach the ladder again. His right hand slipped. Ty heard a shout from the deck and saw a rope fall beside him, weighted with a wooden block. The man caught it against his chest and wrapped both arms around it.

"Hold your drum where it is. We’re bringing him over the rail, but we need that chain to stay still," a sailor called down.

Ty stayed crouched with his cheekbone against the carriage. The left shoulder strap was biting into the joint where he had turned to feed the chain. Moving away would tighten the links at his jaw. Sivra knelt beside the post and checked the painter for wear. She had a cut across one knee, and blood was soaking through the blue cloth.

The boat swung toward the quay. Its crew hauled the man across the gap to the ladder, stopped when his boot caught behind a link, and lowered him enough to free it. A sailor climbed down to meet him. Between them they got his arms around a rung, although he kept trying to climb toward the quay rather than the boat.

Ty heard Lema arguing with the gun crew behind him.

"There’s an old man on the board under my gate. Your shot threw him off the bench. I need to get him to someone who can set his hip."

"Bring the board now. Use the wall side, past the broken stretchers. Tell the healers it was the carrier jolt so they check his back too," Sivra said without turning.

Orren came ashore between four people. His head was turned toward the boat, though he had to lift it off the board to see. Lema walked beside him, carrying a flour sack and one shoe. Ty watched them pass until the bakery boy blocked his view, straining under a corner he was too small to carry alone.

"Put my shoulder under your end of that board," another worker told the boy. "You can carry his shoe without dropping it in the harbor."

The boy gave up his corner reluctantly and took the shoe. He kept looking back at Tavra. A trail of spilled flour crossed the landing board behind him.

The boat’s ladder jerked against the chain. The man on it shouted. His rescuer had got him halfway up when the hull moved again, leaving the ladder pressed between the anchor chain and the rail. The sailor’s boot wedged in the narrowing space.

Ty started to lift his head. The painter creaked against the post, and Sivra put her hand on his skull to keep him down.

"Stay with the drum until we take your chain out. I’ll get another line up to them."

"The ladder is crushing his ankle against the rail. They need to move it sideways before they pull him."

"I can see his ankle from here, Ty. Keep your own bones out of the gears while I do my job."

Ty put his head back down. Between the carriage wheels he could see a green cabin farther along the quay, with rolled charts hanging in its window. He had meant to ask someone there about Jade’s roadback. The little launch beside it was now helping the fishing crew, its pilot paying out the very line Sivra needed.

Sivra climbed the broken housing again and called directions to the crew above. A girl on the boat disappeared below the rail, returned with a hatchet, and began chopping at the ladder’s fastening. The trapped sailor shoved the rescued man toward her. Two pairs of hands caught his coat and dragged him out of sight.

The sailor stayed outside the boat.

Ty lowered his skull back against the carriage. At the bakery the ovens were shut. Orren was moving toward the green awnings. The patients who had been in the chain’s path were lined along the wall, and a man was searching the rubble for a wheel that would no longer fit his stretcher.

Sivra’s spare line reached the boat on her third throw. The girl with the hatchet tied it around the sailor’s waist, then crawled back toward his trapped foot. The winch mount was lifting out of its last bolts, and the painter had started to fray where it crossed the gun axle.

"Bring me something smooth to put under that rope," Ty called to the worker. "If it parts here, I’m still tied to the drum."