Chapter 236: She Would Not Let the Bellmother Take Him

Living flesh closed on the dead emperor’s feet.

Hest pulled the carrier. Valea pushed from the other handle. Living walls met above their backs, soft at first, then hard enough to bow the poles between them.

Nothing in the male’s body moved.

His mate came off the hide with blood on her breast and struck Hest’s burned hand.

He released the handle.

"I agree that this is unacceptable," Hest said. "The wall remains unmoved by my position."

Another heartbeat passed through the fold.

Warm flesh drew apart. The carrier slid free before the opening narrowed again, but pale red threads had curled around the male’s legs. They tightened toward a slit below the road.

His mate bit through the first thread.

It recoiled into the wall. Two more found the blood-soaked hide beneath her mate.

Valea caught the carrier before its lower edge turned. "It is drawing still tissue into the side channel."

"Call him dead again," Hest said, cradling his hand, "and I expect the next bite will improve your diagnosis."

Their chick pushed out from beneath its mother and called against the closing walls.

Every nearby thread bent away from the small moving body.

One broad strand rose beneath the chick’s belly and nudged it toward the dry center of the fold. A thinner strand crept past its foot, touched the male’s cold wing, and wrapped tight.

The Bellmother needed no opinion about grief. Her body separated warmth that moved from flesh that did not.

Jiang wished his partner could not see the difference.

Nothing about the difference escaped her.

One red thread pulled the male’s foot a beak-width past the carrier edge. His mate followed it down, belly scraping the hide, and tore at the strand until red fluid misted her face. The chick tried to follow. She stopped it with one backward foot and never looked away from the body.

Jiang could help her fight the threads or move the carrier before more arrived. The closing road allowed neither job for long.

Her breast covered the male again. One foot trapped the newest thread against the hide. She looked from Hest to Valea, then to Jiang, warning all three without spending a call.

Behind them, white light spread through the wet mouth of the passage.

Behind them, wakehound barbs had found oil in the runoff.

Ahead, the dry fold opened only when the Bellmother’s pulse lifted its roof. Each opening lasted long enough for two human steps or one badly balanced penguin shove. The carrier required more.

Hest tested the bowed pole. "We leave the hide, carry him between us, and gain room."

"Your hand cannot hold his weight," Valea said.

"My other hand has been waiting all day to feel included."

"The fold will strip him from your arms."

"The fold is stripping him from the carrier now."

Hest put his useful hand beneath the male’s shoulders to test the weight. His burned palm hovered over the legs and could supply no second grip. When the road tightened, he would either release the body or let the living wall take his arm with it.

Valea touched an old black groove exposed above the side slit. Rust had been polished away in patches by something that once traveled with the Bellmother’s pulse.

"There is rider iron ahead," she said. "Give me one more opening before we destroy what is keeping him whole."

"If the opening closes on the chick, the dead will not be our worst loss."

His partner heard both of them. She pressed her body harder across her mate and made the choice impossible to mistake.

Neither lowered their voice. The female heard pressure in both and answered it with her beak open.

Jiang moved between her and Hest.

She struck his sound wing instead.

Pain drove through his shoulder. He stayed low and put his beak against the carrier pole, leaving her mate untouched.

"One pulse," he said. "If I cannot move the hide, you keep it."

Her eye followed his beak to the narrow space beneath the carrier.

Jiang flattened his belly and pushed his head under the pole. A human shoulder would have filled the fold and stopped. His back cleared the carrier by the thickness of wet feathers.

His partner did not give him room.

He began the family’s changing call and stopped after his own note.

Beside the dead male, the chick answered.

His partner stepped over Jiang. Her breast remained against her mate, but the pole lifted from Jiang’s neck.

That was every concession she offered.

The Bellmother’s next heartbeat opened the road.

Jiang shoved with his sound foot. His straight leg dragged and twisted his hip. Hest pulled with his useful hand while Valea kept the lower handle away from the side slit.

Wood slid beneath the closing roof.

Jiang’s body wanted to press upward into the emperor above him. Huddle instinct recognized breast, feather, and familiar smell before it recognized death. The male gave back no heat. Jiang held the carrier off his spine anyway, because the female had trusted him with the weight rather than the body.

Red threads caught its bloody edge. Jiang hooked one with the thick base of his beak and peeled it from the hide. Another closed around his open flank feathers.

He felt the strand find skin.

Cold air entered before pain did.

Jiang tore himself forward. New feathers remained twisted in the thread when it snapped back toward the wall.

Hide and body cleared the fold.

His partner came through with her breast low above mate and chick. As soon as the roof closed behind them, she turned on Jiang’s flank.

Her beak separated the bent feathers one by one. She found the exposed patch, pressed her breast against it, and called a low angry note into his neck.

"I know," Jiang said.

She made the note harsher.

"I knew before you clarified."

Hest lowered the carrier in a chamber that breathed sideways.

Dry bladders swelled from the walls with each heartbeat, brushed one another over the floor, and emptied into narrow copper-black grooves. Old saddle rails lay inside those grooves. The metal had worn smooth beneath claws, boots, and gripping limbs long before fresh tissue grew around it.

Valea crouched beside the nearest rail. "Riders came through here."

"Riders went through here," Hest said. "The direction matters to my remaining hand."

Ahead, the rail ended at a wall of folded flesh.

Bellwyrm had already gone past them.

Bellwyrm moved along a groove above the floor, burned jaw held away from every swelling bladder. At the closed wall, it placed the sound foreclaw on one copper rib and the burned limb on another.

On the next heartbeat, the first rib lifted.

Bellwyrm pulled the second toward itself.

An old seam opened through the wall.

No rider sat on its back. No bell told it which rib to choose. The creature put its ruined mouth through the gap, tasted the chamber beyond, and withdrew before the seam closed.

Then it waited beside the sound rib.

Valea looked at Hest. "It found the pulse rail."

"It found the thing that stopped moving when it touched it. Let us respect the achievement without founding a religion."

When the Bellmother pulsed again, an old brood cradle appeared beyond the seam.

It hung low between dry sacs, built to receive a loaded hide and protected from the side channels by a curved saddle wall. Most of its leather had rotted away. A bed of pale shed fibers remained inside, carrying no fresh blood or water.

Hest reached for the carrier.

His partner blocked him.

She left her mate only after tucking the chick against his breast. At the old seam she waited for Bellwyrm to work the ribs, passed through alone, and climbed into the empty cradle.

Her feet tested every rail. She pecked the pale fibers, smelled both corners, and pressed her breast to the bed until a heartbeat swelled the dry sacs around her.

Warmth entered the cradle without a red thread.

She returned to the carrier.

This time, when Hest took one handle, she did not strike.

They moved the dead male on her timing.

Bellwyrm opened the seam. Valea entered backward with the lower handle. Hest followed with his burned hand braced beneath the pole rather than closed around it. Jiang crawled under the male’s head, keeping the beak from catching the living wall.

The seam tightened while Hest was halfway through. His burned palm slipped from beneath the pole. Valea dropped to one knee and took the whole lower corner across her injured forearm.

The carrier tipped toward the side channel.

Jiang pressed the male’s beak into the hollow between his neck and sound wing. He could feel no breath there, only the drag of cold feathers. His partner caught the opposite pole with her breast until Bellwyrm hauled the copper rib open again.

Hest recovered his grip. Valea rose with blood darkening the old blister on her arm, and nobody pretended the transfer had been gentle.

His partner walked over all of them.

They settled the carrier in the old cradle.

She checked her mate’s face first, then the chick, then the blood-dark hide. Only after those three did she look at Jiang’s shoulder and torn flank.

The seam closed behind them.

White barb light vanished.

Dark fluid moved beneath the cradle instead.

It filled a round well at the center of the brood chamber and drained with the Bellmother’s heartbeat. Old cradles surrounded it at different heights. Some still held split harness rings. Others had been torn from their rails, leaving pairs of empty holes in the living wall.

Beside its father, the chick called.

Something below answered badly.

Water moved through six cut gills below them. Halfway up, the sound broke into the first piece of a changing bell call.

Bellwyrm brought its ruined jaw close to the well.

On the nearest empty cradle, a forked iron fitting waited with one ring missing.

Its break matched the split harness that had fallen with the wakehound.