Torven's wet steps had stopped between the dead sixth mouth and the dry stair.
"He's still looking at the stairs," Vera said.
The next pull found nothing to close at the sixth. Its slack membrane slapped water; Voss's hook gave no scrape through the center stone.
"The band stayed out. No rib moved under him."
The remaining mouths answered through the floor. Three slabs ground deeper on one cord; black water turned Hest's rake in her fixed grip.
Torven left the stair side and crossed to Orsa.
Kril lifted his sheath from Voss's shoulder. "His wet arm is out of the dead mouth."
"Keep it out."
Torven's knee met the split rib above her blade. The severed lift cord floated beside Hest's rake; its live neighbor still drew all three caught slabs.
Wet fiber slid across stone. "He has the cut end," Vera said.
Marda's pressure left the rake. "That one has no pull left."
"It lies outside the band," Torven said.
Water took his low arm to the elbow. "Arm between the lower ribs," Vera said. "Fork under the band. Dead cord beside the live one."
Orsa's knife shifted. Hest caught its spine with the rake and ground the wet coat scrap under her heel.
"His hip is on the lower lip," Vera said.
"The sixth cannot return this," Orsa told him. "That mouth still opens."
Torven turned his cheek until the fork held both cords. "It crossed outside."
The mouth opened.
Its lower lip crushed Torven's pelvis against dry center. Both cords snapped tight. "Rib under the wet arm," Vera called.
Torven's elbow struck mineral twice as the forearm turned inward. His shoulder tore out with a wet knock and a hoarse cry.
"Arm is still inside," Ada said.
The cords cinched beneath his armpit and chest. Their pull reached Dane through the lip while the rising rib carried Torven around his trapped pelvis, chasing four breaks through his side and stopping his next breath.
Hest pulled on her rake. Marda caught the shaft below her right hand. "Your hook is under his neck. Lift it."
The teeth cleared him and struck stone.
Another quarter turn ripped wet fiber along Torven's cheek. "The fork opened his scar," Vera said. "The cords held."
A deeper break reached Dane below the ribs and above the pelvis. Separated vertebrae ground once against the lip. Torven's legs hit the floor together and stayed there.
One shallow breath caught above the broken ribs.
The band tore across three rib bases. "It came out with his cheek," Vera said. "Three ribs stayed high. That mouth lost its return."
Orsa set her knife against the surviving draw. Hest's rake scraped toward her wrist, then stopped when gray film reached the fixed fingers.
One chin click. The practiced stroke sent nothing through rake, stone, or cord.
Orsa cut. Three slabs dropped a nail's width into their dry hollows, and their shared pull vanished.
Kril rolled Torven's low arm onto dry center with a sheath. "Gray sleeve to the last standing mouth. This is the last one with a body on it."
His blade opened gray skin and black fibers. Water spread across dry stone as the sleeve withdrew.
"Hand is dry," Vera said.
The last mouth drew local water to the center lip. No film crossed the cut.
Brant listened until it settled. "Mouths are breathing. Nothing is passing between them."
Orsa withdrew her knife from the dead cord. "Then the work is finished here. The stone is not."
A crack traveled beneath Dane's rear wheel.
"Another finger gone from the center," Vera said. "Second tread and rail are still dry."
Kril wound the guide around a sheath. "I can reach the rail. I cannot catch from below it."
"Go. I will catch above," Marda said.
Sheath metal struck rail; Kril's left-weighted pull climbed the loop. Hest followed on her rake hook. With no borrowed stroke in the wet grip, her right hand and bare feet did the work; the wet coat scrap rasped upward beneath one sole. She turned the rake crosswise above.
Marda crossed next. "Send the next body."
Vera rode the loop at her hips while Hest's rake protected the stiff side. Kril released her belt after both boots landed.
Brant refused the line at his chest. "Below the ribs. My arms stay where Ada put them."
Orsa looped his hips. The near edge crumbled under Brant's left heel, dropping him against both bound arms. Marda hauled palm, shoulder, then right hip until his belt struck the rail.
Orsa touched the tail.
"Keep your count on your side," Marda said. "I have his hips."
Orsa let go.
Lye drove from the sound right heel with the shortened left gathered. Serrick shouldered him to the second tread, then crossed on both boots with the guide over his back and his injured hands dry.
Buk and the coffer remained with Ada, Orsa, and Dane. One awake foot pinned the post-wrapped rope; the other held the litter while four habitual feet fought every useful direction.
Buk wedged the intact broom under the shell. "Those four cross as luggage. I am done negotiating with their feet."
The habits kicked wood. Quick foot took the litter head; slow foot answered separately at the rear.
Rope rasped where second tread met rail. Buk tried the broom beneath it, but the thick handle rode above the V and forced rope onto the sharp lip.
"Too fat," Ada said. "Back under the fools."
"It had one chance at honorable work."
The broom returned under the shell. As the upper line hauled, Orsa paid rope around the post and Ada held Buk level. Quick and slow feet struck separate places on the second tread; four habitual legs kicked the crossbar through air.
The broken broom scraped beneath the litter. Lye and Serrick called the rear rung home, and Orsa drew the rope off the post.
Only Orsa, Ada, and Dane remained on the center.
Orsa put Kril's guide beneath her right arm. Her right boot drove from the center; the straight left scraped outside the gap and reached the second tread without Marda's count.
Ada knelt at Dane's unstable quarter.
"The upper line will come across your split," she said. "I can move the shell support outside and take the rod out. Slow weight only after that. One knock if I do it."
Dane struck the dry center once.
Ada loosened the outer wedge, shifted the shallow plate soundward, kept the flank curve behind the late axle gap, and angled the widened-hole bridge across them. Separate loops and two outside wedges tightened three contacts onto living grain.
Dane lowered one fraction of Wagon weight. The old split burned at the same width.
Ada put two fingers around rod one and drew it from the hollow.
The hollow felt the absence. Three exterior plates took the next slow fraction without walking toward the split.
Ada took the rod across the gap. Iron settled crosswise into the narrow inside corner where second tread met dusty rail.
"Rod is in the V," she called. "Bring the upper bight over it."
Rope settled over iron. Its pull drove the rod down and inward instead of sawing across stone.
The lower rope returned around the fixed post and came to Dane along stable grain.
"Slow," Ada called. "If he turns, put him back down."
The line tightened.
Dane's sound wheel left first, his rear wheel following in increments small enough for each ferrule plate to take weight and return it. Beneath the wounded quarter, the missing tread opened on black water that breathed without climbing him.
Kril and Marda took the main line. Lye's sound leg and Serrick's shoulder added force while Brant called the angle. Hest and Vera kept both bights clear.
Dane reached the second tread.
The rod pressed deeper into the corner as his weight remained below it. Iron turned under rope one slow fraction at a time.
His rear wheel crossed the missing edge and touched the upper landing.
The pull changed direction.
The bight rose from below the rod and drew outward across the rail. Iron rolled out of the V.
Ada reached for it.
The taut rope flipped rod one over the broken lip.
It struck the dead sixth rim once and rang against a mineral rib below.
Ada's hand hit empty stone. "Gone into the ring."
The rope landed on the broad dry face of the rail after Dane's full resting weight had reached the upper stone.
No boot approached the gap.
Ada held both ferrule edges while Dane settled. Three slow contacts carried him; the right split kept its old width around raw pain.
"It holds you here," Ada said. "No hard turn. No water shape. No impact."
Dane knocked once beneath her hands.
Behind him, one living mouth exhaled water into the ring. The pulse reached Torven's dry fingers and moved nothing.
"Voss's hook is still closed in the dead band," Vera said.
Marda counted the last set of breathing voices. "All living are above."
Her answer came from the far wall. Orsa's boots stopped at the dusty turn on Dane's other side. Hest lifted the rake from the rail with her own right-hand pull and fixed left grip. Buk's litter rested between two separate coffer-foot knocks while four habitual legs kept objecting to the broom.
"Buk," she said. "Which way is Mother Kesh's road?"