The black-gold boat held the road. Dane turned his wheel toward it, and the plate beneath his wounded quarter slid one nail-width downhill. Dry padding dragged; the outer loop tightened against his split.
“Stop there,” Ada said.
Dane stopped.
She dropped beside the ferrule and shoved two fingers under the plate. “That was you settling. The boat hasn’t moved.”
Wind crossed the hull in cold ticks from rock to drop. One deeper answer arrived late through the ground, carrying old heat.
While Ada unloaded his right quarter, Vera walked west to solid rock and east until gravel fell away.
“Bow’s wedged high against the west rock,” she said. “Stern is down at the eastern drop. The keel sits across every path wide enough for a wheel.”
Something narrow rang beneath her next step.
“There’s a black-gold rail coming out under the south side. It follows the center rut.”
Her boot traced it past Dane and the litter until packed earth dulled its return.
“Leave the rail. I need him to survive standing still first,” Ada said.
The old quick resting lash failed on its first pull.
One awake coffer foot lifted at the low bight for the short correction Voss’s hook had always given. No iron took the rope. Four lighter feet copied the lift too late.
Kril reached toward the empty bight with the back of his blade.
Ada slapped the rope away from the edge. “If you put that under load, you’ll cut it.”
“I know.”
His blade remained out for a breath longer. Then he sheathed it and took the upper line instead.
Ada pulled the first lash apart. The same three plates and separate outer loops made a slow triangle around the ferrule, tied to two plain road pins. Three people tightened it; nobody remained free to catch a turn.
“I can watch the settle. I can’t hold his low side,” Vera said.
Ada bit a loose fiber off the line. “Then don’t. Check it.”
Vera scratched the road beside the plate, took the rear bight across her hip, and pressed Dane’s wheel with her right boot.
The plate crept half a nail.
Ada reset the outside wedge. The scratch crept less on the second test and stayed put on the third.
“Rest load. A straight body-length if I have time to hate every inch. Anything faster can find another wagon,” Ada said.
Dane knocked once under her hand.
“He accepts your warm invitation,” Buk said from the litter.
Ada sat back on her heels. “He can carry you next time.”
“Buk is feverish, not unreasonable.”
The broom-marked road cache under a western slate lip held mushroom bread, smoked root, a stoppered flask, and dry tinder.
In the boat’s lee, the two awake coffer feet chose a hollow beside Buk while four habitual feet kept backing into the hull.
Buk rapped the intact broom across the nearest one. “The road has ended. Buk is eating where you wish to practice. Pick a different mistake.”
The front awake foot stepped over his litter rope. The other five followed in three directions.
His bread tipped off his chest.
Serrick caught it against his dry wrist wrap before it reached the mud.
“Buk saw that,” Buk said.
“Then you can thank my wrist. My hands are busy.”
Eleven careful scrapes crossed Dane’s wheels as Kril cut the bread with his short edge, each ending on waxed cloth.
Orsa counted them without touching one.
“There are ten mouths here that take bread.”
Kril’s blade stayed against the eleventh piece.
“I know,” he said.
He divided it. One piece went beneath Brant’s chin, another to Buk. Orsa set the last two on separate stones twenty paces downhill.
Hest’s rake made one wet click. Marda stopped twenty paces behind the fire.
Orsa ate with her back against the raised bow. The portions stayed on their stones until the fire burned low; then Dane heard cloth lift from each in turn. The distance remained quiet.
The road gave them time.
Brant slept with his bound arms propped on rolled cloth. Ada lay beside the lash and woke whenever the ferrule changed temperature. Lye kept first watch with his short left step against a road pin; Serrick relieved him with a dry right boot and shoulder. Buk slept through one coffer foot climbing onto his litter and woke when it found his ribs.
Rainwater stopped dripping. West Sump faded from their wraps and stayed behind them.
By Vera’s later watch, the flask had gone cold twice. Dozens of small ticks left the boat; slow warmth remained in its keel.
Vera crouched at Dane’s sound wheel. The road scratch had shifted by the width of a hair.
She drew the rear line over her right hip and returned her boot to the wheel.
“Still here?”
Dane brought his tongue against the damaged lockplate.
The first shape caught behind his teeth. He forced it through sound rail, ferrule, and the quarter that had lost the rod. His split shivered.
“Still here. Again, Vera.”
The voice came out rough, metal under wood, but every word reached her.
The narrow route that placed his clicks closed. Iron still scraped where it touched; Dane could no longer set the sound elsewhere.
His right quarter began to tremble. The outside wedge chattered against stone.
“Ada.”
Ada woke with one hand already on the line. She felt both wedge edges, pressed along the old split, and listened to the ferrule.
“The split’s the same width. The wedge stayed,” she said.
Vera let out the breath she had held. “Go back to sleep.”
“I was asleep.”
Ada dragged her blanket over one shoulder and lay down beside the lash again.
Vera kept her boot off the wheel until the trembling eased. Then she returned it by choice.
Two uneven pressures turned Dane’s sound face. Vera waited too long for usefulness, then added the late third.
Dane answered with one shallow turn. It carried no message and corrected nothing.
Her heel stayed there.
Plate struck stone on the far side of the boat.
Brant was awake before the second impact. He rolled onto his knees, both bound arms held close.
“That isn’t cooling,” he said.
Another plate landed higher on the north face. A pause followed. The next contact dragged on its left edge, and the heat inside the full hull answered faintly.
Vera left Dane’s wheel and went to the raised western bow. She lay on her right side to keep her stiff left arm clear and looked through the handspan gap beneath it.
“Woman on the north slope. Lean. She’s joined to a smaller hull below the waist,” she said.
Metal climbed again.
“Black plate with gold seams. The left side is missing pieces. Old scars where the plates should cover her.”
Orsa planted her good right foot beside the gap. “How far?”
“Twelve paces. Uphill. The keel is splitting into flat contacts under her.”
The next left-drag threw grit through the bow gap.
Brant tilted his head through two more impacts. “Ten now. Every step is quieter.”
Ada hauled the three-point line tight. “I can give you one straight length toward that hull. I won’t promise the next.”
Orsa drew the moss knife with her uncut hand. “Then we use the one we have.”
No one went ahead.
Kril took the west side without boarding. The eastern drop stopped Orsa’s straight left leg. Lye drove the main line with his sound leg; Serrick took the upper pull on his shoulder. Vera watched the scratch while Buk worked two awake coffer feet around his litter rope. Four habits scraped behind them.
Hest’s rake came up the road.
Marda followed. They closed the old twenty paces without joining Orsa’s side and set themselves on the rear bight, one wet fixed grip and one scarred palm taking separate parts of the load.
Ada called the first inch.
Dane moved straight toward the full boat. His three supports took and returned weight slowly enough that every loop could complain on its own. The black-gold rail stayed under the center rut beneath him.
On the north side, a metal jaw closed.
“Her smaller prow is in the big hull,” Vera said from the gap. “Locked into a socket. Her right hand is on the boat.”
Gold heat narrowed from the north socket through the full keel, passed under Dane into the south rail, and traveled beneath the road. Each length dimmed behind the next.
The woman’s voice crossed the hull, breath roughened by the climb.
“Three lengths to the rear cam. Two will hold the wet wood.”
The buried rail rang.
Behind Marda, earth broke with a flat metallic crack. A folded spike came up from the rut three paces below her boots. Its hinge opened. The cam struck once and drove black-gold metal deep into the road.
Hest’s rake snapped around toward it.
“Spike behind us. The rail joins it,” Marda said.
Something cold left Dane’s grain.
West Sump water gathered along the seams he had opened for the Hull. Droplets pressed out of wood and ran toward the charged strip beneath him. Wet rope tightened as water left its fibers. Buckles clicked across the group. Vera’s wrapped hand made a startled rasp.
“Pale metal is forming wherever the water meets a seam,” she said.
The new deposit cracked from the exposed edge of Dane’s wheel. Inside the narrow gap, it packed between rim and grain.
Dane tried one shallow turn.
His wheel moved less than a grain and stopped.