Chapter 139: Jiang Swam Into the Bellmaw’s Mouth

Green metal from the torn shutter struck the carrier bell and rolled Jiang off its crown.

Brinn snared the safety cord before the current carried Jiang into the pale mouth. She pulled him behind the crushed bronze while the green sheet spun away through the hall.

Its pale ring came after her mask.

Its blunt plates opened around a circle of soft flesh. Cavefish flashed from the draw. The last bubbles from Pava’s leather skin vanished into that ring, and the predator crossed the distance behind them.

Tir abandoned the broken lever. He dragged Elen toward the black teeth beneath the carrier arch. She caught the first lower handle with both hands and kicked one boot against the wall.

A narrow shutter opened near the floor.

Water tore across the Bellmaw’s approach. Its mouth turned with the pressure, missing Brinn’s mask by the width of the crushed bell.

Brinn took one breath from the green cup. Then she tore the mask away, shoved it beneath the bell’s bent rim, and released the remaining air into bronze.

A little air gathered inside the crumpled dome.

Bellmaw flesh turned toward it.

Brinn looped Jiang’s safety line over a carrier-chain link and pointed up. She seized the chain above the bell and climbed without the mask on her face.

Jiang kicked into her wake.

Suction caught the bell first. Bronze scraped along the wall. The chain snapped tight, and Brinn rose through the throat with both hands closed around it.

Jiang could have followed. His loop ran upward beside her.

Behind the pane, Elen hauled the lower handle to its stop. Tir reached the second release and waited with his damaged hand around it. If both opened too early, the falling arch would meet an empty mouth.

Brinn broke the surface beneath Ninebell.

Hest caught her wrist. Varn took the carrier chain with his bare arm and the shoulder of his torn shirt. Kedra kept the loose drain stone from sliding across their hands.

All three hauled together.

Brinn came up without air in her mask. She coughed against Hest’s shoulder, slapped his helping hand away, and pointed at the bell before taking her next full breath. Whatever fear reached her face had to wait behind the work.

Crushed bronze rose between Jiang and the Bellmaw. Its trapped air moved with it, small but warm, and the pale ring followed.

Pressure reached the feeding notch above. Elen’s forked glass bar squealed against stone.

Aylin put her shoulder beneath Valea’s forearm. Valea kept the exposed fork from twisting. Pava left Jiang’s line around one wrist and shoved the warming stone against the male’s outer foot before it could slide.

Above them, the male shifted over the chick. His leg shook, but the brood fold stayed closed.

Beyond the silver barrier, the returning female called with her fish still held crosswise.

Jiang saw only pieces through the drain: Pava’s hand on his line, Aylin’s bent back, Varn’s empty sleeve, Brinn striking Hest’s wrist and pointing across the throat.

Hest understood. He stopped hauling upward and drove the broken bell rib against the chain as a lever.

Varn dragged the chain sideways.

Across the drowned hall, the last carrier bell swung.

Tir opened the second lower shutter.

Opposed currents caught the bell and carried its air pocket across the Bellmaw’s mouth. Keeping the failed flipper bound, Jiang kicked with the working one to stay outside the pale ring.

Blunt plates closed over bronze first.

Soft flesh sealed around the moving air.

Its mouth folded over the bent rim until only the broken crown and a run of smooth carrier chain remained outside. The bell stopped swinging. Above, Hest and Varn pulled hard enough to make every link jump.

Bellmaw flesh began peeling itself away.

One plate lifted from bronze. Another rolled outward. The crushed bell had caught its mouth, but nothing held mouth and bell together.

Pava pulled Jiang’s safety line.

Around Jiang’s breast, the loop tightened and carried him toward the throat. He wanted it to keep pulling. For one clean instant, he wanted Pava to win the argument and drag him back beside the male before he could make another choice.

A third plate came free.

His good foot caught around the broken crown.

Pressure from the safety line reached his shoulder wrap. He bent his beak to the loop’s release, worried the wet knot loose, and let Pava’s line slide away from his body.

Nothing connected him to Ninebell now.

The loose cord flew up the throat. Pava caught the empty loop and reached down after it. Brinn locked both arms around her waist before she could follow Jiang into the drain.

He pushed along the bell’s outer curve.

Suction flattened his damaged feathers and drew cold water through the gaps in his molt. He carved one sharp turn with the working flipper. His bound side lagged while the backward claw scraped uselessly over bronze.

A space opened between two mouth plates.

It would not have taken Brinn’s shoulder. Jiang’s rigid torso entered with room for water to pass along both flanks.

One plate rolled inward behind him.

He reached the broken crown from inside the closing ring. Carrier chain slid through it whenever Hest and Varn pulled, smooth links crossing bronze without catching.

Jiang pinned one link against a folded rib with his good foot. He seized the next in his beak and drew the chain across the Bellmaw’s inner lip.

Living flesh gave under the metal. A row of blunt plates flexed around his back.

He needed the chain beyond that fold and through the crown again. Then every attempt to peel away would tighten the loop around mouth and bell.

Tir struck the carrier frame behind him.

One uneven blow. A pause. Two blows.

Both lower releases were ready.

Jiang pulled another link forward. His cracked beak shifted under the packing. Blood entered the water in a thin red thread and disappeared into the Bellmaw’s draw.

Bellmaw pressure closed harder.

His working flipper cleared the first inward turn. The bound flipper opened late when the current spun him, and his breast struck the soft fold he had been trying to cross.

His beak lost the chain.

For one kick, the gap behind him remained open. He could leave the chain where it lay and ride the expelled water out between the plates.

Above, Pava pulled an empty safety line through the drain.

Another plate rolled off the bell.

Jiang chose the mouth and turned back.

He trapped the chain with his good foot again, drove his beak beneath the loose run, and shoved it over the inner fold. The backward claw caught one link by accident. Pain went through his leg, but the bad angle kept the chain from sliding home.

He used the bad angle.

Jiang pulled the last loose section through the bell’s broken crown.

Bronze and living flesh met inside the closed loop.

Hest and Varn hauled from above. The chain bit down. The Bellmaw tried to peel away, and its own movement tightened the jam.

Jiang struck the trapped chain once with his beak, then drove two answers with the foot that still bore weight. The changing blows traveled through the mouth and carrier frame. Tir answered with the broken rhythm of his damaged hand.

Every mouth plate closed at once.

Jiang vanished inside with the bell.

Black water crushed him against bronze. The Bellmaw’s inner fold worked beneath his feet, trying to force the trapped bell back out. His bad claw tore free from the link and left his leg numb.

Behind the pressure, a black tooth of the flooded carrier arch shifted in its bed.

Tir and Elen had begun the collapse.

Jiang found one stream of water moving away from the bell instead of toward it. It passed between two inner folds through a slit narrower than a human hand.