The next breath lifted the cord against Orsa’s left wrist.
Her moss knife knocked against the split mineral rib. The other cord dragged beneath the blade from her right, pulling the wet faces of the three fallen slabs deeper while the first current pushed up under them.
All three dry heels scraped in their hollows, carrying the difference through Dane’s sound wheel. The right-hand pull drove stone toward stone. The cord by Orsa’s left wrist took weight off the center floor and put it under the slabs.
Orsa could feel only both cords trying to take her knife.
"I cut blind, we lose three mouths at once," she said. Her right knee stayed on dry stone. The straight left leg trembled above the ring. "Give me a side."
Vera crouched over her with the wrapped right hand held against her own chest. Spray struck her open left eye. "Your blade is centered. I lose both cords two fingers past your hand."
Brant turned his good ear from Orsa to the caught slabs. "One pull is under the heels. The other comes through the wet faces. They cross before the sound reaches me."
The cord at Orsa’s left wrist tightened again.
Lye’s slab rose enough to grind wet crust from its edge. His sound foot slid toward the ring while the shortened left leg remained trapped against Serrick’s boot.
Serrick drove his shoulder higher beneath Lye’s ribs. Both hands stayed pressed to his own chest. "Your heel is still on me. Keep it there and push through the other foot."
"Move the boot and I go with it."
"Then it is staying."
Across the center, Buk’s bent broom handle bowed over the second slab. The coffer’s chosen front foot pressed the wood down. Four habitual legs kept scraping backward beneath the shell, trying to take that pressure with them.
Buk hit the shell once. "The foot holding my broom stays. The other five may argue after I have a floor."
The slow rear foot knocked from behind Voss. It held the slab’s pale edge while the four habits continued losing their argument under the coffer.
Orsa lowered her chin against the spray. "Dane. One knock for the cord at my left hand. Two for the other."
He struck his sound wheel once.
His single impact entered the center floor cleanly, only to split among the standing mouths. One threw it through a mineral rib; another delivered two close blows beneath Lye; the sixth answered beside Torven.
Four impacts reached Orsa from three directions.
"One from Dane," Brant said. "Four reached the knife."
Orsa kept the blade between both cords.
Torven knelt at the sixth rim and put the fork below his cheekbone back against the wet stone. His lower arm followed. Black water climbed to the elbow, and the mouth pulled at the long hooked scar as he leaned his narrow body over it.
The sixth mouth seized the next available pressure before Torven could restore the six-part interval.
Buk’s slab jumped.
His litter slid toward Torven. One broom end kicked free and struck the coffer’s shell. Voss’s hook held the outer litter loop at three, but dry stone flaked away below his right side.
"One notch above the sixth rim," Vera called. "Level with your hook. The rest is wet membrane."
Voss looked where she pointed. "Then I only needed the first part."
He released the litter loop and drove his right hook straight down into the dry notch.
His pelvis dropped one palm. The hitch pulled his torso crooked, then stopped. He kept the hook vertical and caught Buk’s outer litter rope across the base of it before the next draw could take the frame toward Torven.
Hest’s rake struck Kril’s shortened guide. He had looped the dry end around one sheath and laid the free length across Dane’s sound rail; her intact hook swept beneath it with the fixed left hand as she turned her chin. Marda wetted her scarred right palm on the rake shaft and put her shoulder behind the familiar curve.
Kril crossed his second sheath over the wood. Blood warmed the cloth at his right flank without running past Ada’s dry pad.
"Try the line," he said to Dane. "I will keep their hands out of it."
Dane lifted the rope against his sound rail once.
Hest’s rake rolled under Kril’s sheath at the same moment. Marda’s hip completed the stroke and pulled a second time.
The two tugs reached Kril together. The loose end had no wet loop, no fixed pull from the post, and no way to tell him which motion had begun in Dane.
Kril trapped rope and rake against the floor. "Line is spoiled."
"Then stop offering it," Orsa said.
The left cord climbed another finger against her wrist.
The first caught slab lifted at Dane’s side. Its dry heel came out of the worn hollow far enough for water to strike beneath it.
Dane opened the same bounded low Door face into the rising edge. Sound-side and rear grain stayed on the center. The impact drove across living wood and found the old right split without reaching the ferrule.
Rod one scraped in its seat.
Ada put one palm on dry grain above it. "The rod is holding. Do not give that slab a second angle."
Orsa pressed the moss knife harder between the cords. The edge shaved a pale curl from the split rib but touched neither wet strand.
"I still need a side," she said.
Dane opened his mouth.
His tongue rose, struck wood, and slid along the upper teeth. Air scraped past the lockplate without a word.
He pushed Sound Lure through the attempt, and the familiar bright click left his lockplate. The chamber drew it down through the center, carried it beneath Orsa’s knife, and threw it out of the standing mouth at her right shoulder.
Orsa’s blade turned toward the false source before she stopped it.
"That came from the mouth," Brant said. "Dane began it. Torven’s draw moved it."
The left cord drove upward.
Lye’s dry heel cleared its hollow. Serrick’s boot went with it and his shoulder struck Lye hard under the ribs. Buk’s broom cracked along the grain. The coffer’s chosen front foot dropped half a step while four habitual legs surged backward.
The third slab rose beneath Dane’s Door face. Its wet edge ground upward, carrying his sound-side grain with it. The old split pulled against rod one. His right quarter began to shake.
Hest’s rake turned inside Kril’s crossed sheaths. Marda’s wet palm followed. Kril gave ground with his left boot rather than let the stroke reach Orsa’s knife arm.
Torven kept his scar in the sixth rim.
Dane forced his tongue against wood again.
The lure route tried to collapse the whole movement into one metal note. He held the click behind his teeth. Pressure ran back through the lockplate, down the sound rail, and into the quarter bound around rod one.
The split shuddered. The ferrule wedges chattered against their fiber loops.
He kept going.
"Orsa, cut left now."
The voice was rough enough to buzz in the stone beneath her knife. Every word was clear.
Orsa cut the cord beside her left wrist.
Wet fiber closed around the moss-knife edge. She pulled from the right hip, kept the straight left leg out of the ring, and sawed once through the resisting center.
The severed ends whipped apart, one vanishing beneath Dane’s Door face while the other struck Hest’s rake shaft and tore Orsa’s coat scrap from the hook. Hest trapped the wet cloth under her bare heel. Marda released her wet right palm before the recoil could take her fingers. Kril drove both sheaths down and let the broken guide go slack between them.
The lifting pressure disappeared from under the three slabs.
The surviving cord pulled through their wet faces.
Lye and Serrick came down first. Lye’s sound heel drove the slab into its hollow; Serrick’s right boot stayed beneath the shortened left foot until dry stone took both men.
Buk’s slab dropped hard enough to snap the bent broom where it crossed his litter. The chosen coffer foot rode the broken wood down. Its slow partner pressed the pale edge while four habitual legs ran backward without moving the shell.
Dane’s slab struck its worn seat and knocked the Door face flat against the center.
He folded the living grain away before the return could reach his ferrule.
Three dry heels hit bottom.
The caught mouths pulled until their mineral ribs bowed around the seated stone. Their wet faces stayed drawn into the hollows. The broken left cord poured black water into the ring, leaving Torven’s restored interval without its return.
The sixth mouth took the displaced pressure.
Vera saw its mineral ribs move. "Voss, the rim under you is opening."
The dry notch held his hook while the stone on both sides spread. Black membrane rose below the three-notch curve. Voss kept the hook straight, his pelvis still at its single palm of drop, and shifted no farther.
"This is the only place it closes," he said.
Dane tried to send one warning click through Sound Lure.
Nothing left his mouth.
Ordinary iron still rattled in his right quarter, and his wheel still scraped stone. Sound Lure had gone silent for the next sixty breaths.
Ada caught the ferrule’s outer fiber before its vibration could walk a wedge loose. Her other hand stayed above rod one.
"Rod is seated. Split is the same width," she said. "The whole quarter is still moving."
The sixth mouth widened beneath Voss’s hook.