Chapter 942 - 942: Jori Comes Out Before The Stake

Meya stopped Jori's next knock before it pulled Dema's chest belt any tighter.

She trapped the gray cord between her roof knife and the island stone. The braid flattened. Dema's upper body still hung toward the third house, but the black line stopped cutting into the belts across her abdomen.

"Another ladder count will pull my chest line through that house."

"Then Jori gets the stop signal we used as children."

Meya scraped the knife spine once along the cord and pinched Jori's knot flat. One scrape had meant stop climbing after their mother went to bed. Jori usually answered by kicking the wall anyway.

The cord went slack.

One soft tap returned through the stone.

Meya kept her hand on the knot until her nails hurt.

Ruvan's public recall rope tugged from Orra's hide. First warning before second bell.

Dema shifted the hooked cutter into her free hand.

"The maintenance hollow opens behind the lowest black band. Releasing that panel gives the band every load the stone currently carries."

Jade uncovered her damaged eye. White blood ran beneath her palm and followed the side of her nose.

"One living person remains inside the foundation. The lowest band kills him if it closes before his harness clears."

"Can your eye show which direction his harness carries?"

"It shows four deaths and leaves the useful work to us."

Nessa examined the band without bringing her harnessed arm closer. The recovered field finger still held Dema's cutter hook through its stored grip.

"Unload the lowest band onto one chain, then open the hollow before the other three compensate."

Meya looked at Ty's ribs clipped beside Jade.

"Two bones could take the band from separate sides faster."

Ty answered from the coat at Jade's belt.

"Two bones made me forget Jade's name, so speed can wait."

"One chain, one down, and I control every release."

Jade passed Ty's chain around the linked door frames. Meya fed it beneath the lowest black band while Nessa used a wooden handle to keep metal away from her cage. Ty took up the slack in stages, waiting for each frame to settle before he pulled again.

His shadow entered the band while every bone stayed clipped beside Jade. Around them, Dema called her three body loads, Meya answered with the public rope, and Nessa named each band tooth as it rose from the old stake.

On the seventh tooth, Ty took the weight.

The chain drove across his two cracked ribs. Both fractures widened, but his green eye stayed on Jade.

"Ty Hockenson, hold every link on this road."

"Every link remains with you and nobody else."

Meya forced her roof knife behind the maintenance panel. Dema cut the stone packing above it. The recovered field finger kept the hook steady while Nessa guided its chain from outside the black line.

The panel opened toward the foundation's center.

Jori lay inside a cavity barely wide enough for his shoulders. An anchor harness wrapped his chest and hips. His right leg pressed against the stone floor. His left leg floated toward the old stake, bent at the knee and tied by two black cords.

His scarred thumb held the gray braid beside a water tube collapsed by the foundation; four ration seals lay folded under his split lips because loose paper could foul the vent above his face.

"How long since the water tube stopped reaching you?"

"Four days, unless I slept through a fifth."

"Nobody sleeps through thirst like this, and you always count complaints."

"I was conserving my best ones for family."

Meya pressed two fingers against the tube. A mouthful remained trapped past the pinch. She cut the flattened section, caught the water in her palm, and held it where Jori could drink without lifting his head.

"You took long enough. I have been living inside somebody else's foundation."

Meya reached through the opening and checked the cord around his wrist.

"You tied your complaint under my nursery and expected prompt service?"

"I expected Kipra to find it before the loadmaster buried the repair mark."

Ruvan's recall rope tugged again, harder.

Jori tested his right hand against the harness.

"The black cords on my leg tighten when those bands turn. Free the hip buckle before touching either ankle."

Meya passed the instruction to Nessa. Jade watched the remaining death paths. Ty kept the lowest band suspended on one chain.

Dema's helm rang.

The four empty circles above her ear turned inward. No hand touched them.

Across the hanging street, the other blank helms raised their heads inside empty houses.

The three loaded bands tightened around Rillhold's oldest stake.

Stone split beneath Meya's knees. A narrow opening appeared between the foundation and Orra, black at its center and lined with the same square punches as Nessa's shaving.

All nine stolen foundations started moving toward it.

Jori scraped the childhood stop signal twice against the cavity wall. The second scrape had warned Meya that somebody waited below their ladder.

"There is a worker beneath this opening who can hear us."

Dema turned her helm toward the gap. The four circles pulled harder against the skin above her ear.

"That worker is turning my mark through the foundation group. Cutting the route will take the houses, but leaving it open will take everyone wearing a helm."

Ruvan's public rope snapped its third warning across Meya's harness. She looped it around Jori's chest strap rather than accepting the recall.

Dema grabbed Jori's cord.

"The work line is taking the street because we opened a living load."

"Can you stop the mark of four circles from your helm?"

"I can break my neck frame or keep answering it. Those are the controls they left me."

Meya hated the answer and accepted it.

Nessa had her pulse cutter against the exposed band. One deeper cut could have opened the route layer before it folded. She turned the blade and slid it under Jori's hip buckle.

The buckle split.

Jori's left leg pulled toward the old stake. Meya caught the thigh with her good arm while her bad forearm dragged toward the nursery far above them.

Pain twisted her shoulder across her chest. She tied Jori's leg to her own waist and let both wrong directions fight through the rope rather than their joints.

"Right ankle leaves next, and the left cord stays until my chest clears."

Jori corrected the knot at Meya's waist while she hauled him. She slapped his hand away and reached for Dema as the cutter drove through the black line behind her abdomen. The severed line threw Dema's upper body toward Orra's hide.

Jade caught Dema's shoulder loop with the public rope.

"Ty Hockenson, give Dema one link without changing the chain's down."

Ty released one link through the same road frame. Dema reached it with both hands.

The oldest stake moved another foot toward the prison opening.

Every stolen foundation followed. Walls tore from the linked door road. The bowl inside the first kitchen pulled through its straps and broke against a window.

Dema saw a blue door rotating off the fourth house.

"That belonged to my aunt before Crowstep lost its foundation."

She reached toward it. The severed black line pulled her arm the opposite way.

Nessa closed her left hand around Dema's wrist.

"Choose your arm or the door before both leave with them."

Dema let the blue door go.

Meya and Nessa slid Jori through the maintenance opening. His chest harness caught once on the stone edge. Jade saw two deaths return and called his right shoulder down before Ruvan's rope took another pull.

Jori came free with the left ankle cord still attached to the old stake.

The cord tightened across his ankle until Nessa's cutter parted it.

His left leg struck Meya's waist rope while the old stake entered the prison opening.

Ty's chain shook under the lowest band. The band twisted, tore from the stake, and wrapped twice around his middle links.

The other three bands vanished with Rillhold's oldest stake.

Nine foundations followed. Empty houses broke away from the road and fell after the stone that had once held their rooms upright. Dema watched Crowstep's blue door turn once and disappear through the black opening.

Jori tried to twist inside his harness and failed against Meya's waist rope.

"Every burial road from Rillhold was tied beneath that cap."

"We carry the names before we go after the stone."

Dema kept her helm pointed where the blue door had vanished.

"Crowstep's door had my aunt's height marks cut inside it."

Nessa tightened her grip on Dema's wrist.

"Then we remember the door before somebody calls it empty."

The linked door road collapsed behind it.

Ruvan pulled the public recall without cadence. Immediate return.

Meya clipped Jori's chest harness to the rope. Jade secured Dema beside him. Nessa recovered the field finger and left its captured cutter hook with Dema.

Ty kept every bone on one chain as Orra's hide drew them upward.

They returned with two living workers and one torn black band.

The oldest stake was gone.

Halfway through Orra's hide seam, the band around Ty's chain tightened. A fresh stone splinter pushed through its inner edge and wedged against his collar.

The splinter carried the cut pattern of Todd's cracked Cross Link.