Dane’s next sound wheel found no ceiling.
The click climbed through dripping leaves. A scatter of small returns came down from water shaken loose by the wind, then the sound thinned into open air.
His wheels stopped on wet stone.
"Wait there," Ada said. "The soundward plate moved."
Cold fingers pressed the shallow shell back against his living grain. The separate loops tightened in order beneath his wounded RIGHT quarter. Dane settled a fraction of Wagon weight onto them. Three exterior contacts received it; the hollow where rod one had been remained empty.
"Slow turn now. Nothing harder."
Lye shortened his LEFT step beside Dane’s sound wheel. Serrick settled the upper line across his shoulder and kept both hands against his dry chest wrap. The line took Dane around the third bend in increments.
Rainwater ran under his rear wheel carrying leaf mold, broom reed, and the last mineral stink from their clothes. Each turn gave the wind more of it.
Ahead, wood strained inside stone.
Two broom heads rubbed across each other. A chain rose one link, stopped, then slapped back against wet slate.
"Hold the litter short of the tooth," a woman called. Her voice came from below Buk’s head rail. "If that chain gets free, the north half closes first."
Buk’s breath caught once.
"Kesh."
"Still using the litter, then."
The head rail creaked beneath Buk’s forearm. "Buk brought it for inspection."
The chain lifted again before she could answer. Wet reed tore under a short blade. Vera kept the rear line open beside Dane.
"Adult goblin," she said low. "White hair wired out of her face. Chain over her left shoulder. She’s alone at the cairn."
The two awake coffer feet moved to separate sides of Buk’s litter. Four older leg habits scraped toward the slope they had already climbed.
"Breathing?" Kesh asked.
Buk drew air against his flank dressing until the wrap rasped. "Still."
The chain descended half a link. Kesh caught it with her shoulder and reached across the litter. A palm-length piece of old broom wood clicked against Buk’s safe LEFT claws.
"Choosing?"
His claws closed over three work cuts and the drain-burn butt. "Ask before taking Buk’s proof."
"I did."
Kesh pushed the piece back beneath his hand. Water ran from her fingers into the litter cloth.
The north slate tooth shifted behind the crossed broom heads. Its lower edge found the split shaft still lashed under Buk and pressed the wood against his hip.
Kesh’s chain went tight.
"Still Buk?" she asked.
Buk’s claws tightened over the proof.
"Still Buk."
Kesh left the proof under his hand and reached for the split broom.
Buk held it with his forearm. "Which piece do you need?"
"The narrow break. It fits under the north tooth."
"Use the broken one. If you split the good broom too, Buk is walking home and everyone will regret the pace."
Kesh cut the old litter lash. The split handle slid free and knocked the slate. Buk kept its narrow end while Kesh took the heavy end over the rail.
Orsa’s boots entered Dane’s sound field.
"Thirty-eight?" she asked.
Kesh kept the chain on her shoulder. "Thirty-eight reached the long hide. Flat Hands built a waist rail before he let them lie down. The palm burns are wrapped. Nobody went back."
Orsa set the spine of her moss knife beneath the tooth, edge turned away from Buk’s claws.
"Two more women are outside the hide," Kesh said. "One rake between them. Neither gave me a name."
"Ask them."
The split shaft advanced one finger beneath the slate. Kesh changed her shoulder under the chain. Orsa held the knife spine level while Buk pushed from the litter.
Buk spoke over the push. "You asked for Orsa Drel alive. Orsa came alive. She walked here. Ask her the rest."
He took his hand from Orsa’s side of the broom and kept pressure on his own.
Kesh’s wet heel turned on stone. The chain links twisted until each one rang separately.
"Three nights after the Collapse, search hooks were feeling north through every wet answer," she said. "Your first living cut reached my south broom."
"You put it under stone."
Kesh pulled another link through. "Yes."
"What did you do with the next one?"
The north tooth dropped.
Buk’s broom stop caught it, rolled, and drove his safe hand toward the slate edge. The pitching litter struck Kesh’s reaching arm.
Her hand opened. Iron raced through the cairn.
Kesh caught the litter rail against her ribs while Orsa shoved the knife spine between Buk’s claws and the descending tooth. The handle turned across the socket and seated with its narrow split outside the closing line.
The tooth stopped on wood.
Chain struck wet stone behind Kesh and lay there.
Ada’s hand flattened against Dane’s ferrule. "Weight soundward. Stay out of their pull."
Dane shifted one slow fraction. The angled bridge slid along its separate loop, returned, and kept the old split from widening.
Kesh lowered Buk’s rail until both litter poles rested on stone. She checked the claws still closed over his proof before touching the broom trapped in the tooth.
"It opens from either side now," she said.
Buk drew the intact broom against his chest. "Leave it there. Buk has already carried that half far enough."
Rainwater traveled down the trapped handle and dripped through the open cairn.
Orsa withdrew her knife without turning the edge toward Kesh.
"The search hooks left before the first winter ended."
Kesh pulled the loose return chain away from the litter. "They did."
"You kept burying my cuts."
"Yes."
A gust pressed wet cloth against every standing body. The mineral smell on Hest’s rake came from farther back now, beyond the long hide. One chin click answered the wind. Marda’s boots stayed apart from it.
Orsa’s healthy foot moved closer to the cairn.
"My warning kept this road out of the Collapse. You used it, and I woke dead every morning below you. Did you ever mean to tell me?"
Kesh coiled one length of chain at the cairn’s base.
Orsa waited through three links. Kesh bent over a fourth and laid it beside the coil instead of putting the return back through the tooth.
One of Kril’s sheaths clicked behind Dane.
Kesh’s hands stopped on the wet link. "The man who had one hook?"
"Voss killed the sixth mouth," Kril said. "His hook stayed closed after he died."
Kesh held the link through one fall of water from the leaves. Then she set it with the others.
The open cairn breathed cold road air over Dane’s front board. Below its slate, the north channel returned an uneven drag: late to the left, straight for two body lengths, then failed where rainwater struck the next turn.
Kesh put two fingers against the stone and felt the same failed return.
"Your late-left turn is still here," she told Orsa. "The changes after it are gone. Give one to the bed hands and one to mine. Keep the third if you have to."
Orsa tested the north channel with her boot. Water moved around the sole and failed to take the same side twice.
"I will not hand you a road and wait for you to bury whoever knows it."
The broom stop creaked under the tooth. Kesh took her foot off the loose return chain.
"Then what are you offering?"
"I walk the boundary. Different hands learn each turn while I am standing there. When I leave the road, you tell them I left it."
Kesh lifted the chain coil clear of Orsa’s path and set it beside the south broom.
"I choose the turn where I stop," Orsa said.
Kesh stepped away from the north opening.
Buk tucked his proof inside his coat. "North bends wide after the cairn. It was wide when Buk still had two useful brooms."
"One useful broom," Kesh said.
Buk laid the intact handle across his litter. "Kesh may count it after it survives the next road."
Orsa went first.
Her straight LEFT leg scraped outside the wet rut; the healthy RIGHT boot took the rise. Kesh stayed beside the slack chain. Behind the party, Hest’s rake touched the road at least twenty paces away. Marda kept the same distance when Orsa moved.
Ada checked Dane’s three contacts again. "North turn. Slow enough to bore everybody."
Brant listened into the bend. "Broad road. Hard shoulder on the right. Nothing moving across it."
Lye took Dane’s sound-side line through his good leg. Serrick leaned his shoulder into the upper pull. Vera kept the rear bight off the missing rod’s hollow while Dane brought one wheel around, then the other.
His sound wheel entered the north road.
The return struck metal before it reached the far bend.
It climbed a curved hollow face taller than the cairn, crossed overlapping plates, and came down through a keel resting directly on packed earth. Faint ticks moved along the metal as rain cooled it.
The upper line went slack across Serrick’s shoulder. Buk’s intact broom stopped tapping the litter rail.
Vera’s wrapped hand left the rear line without touching the hull.
"Full-sized boat," she said. "Black plate. Gold seams. It is lying across the whole road."
The metal gave another cooling tick.
"There is no water," Vera said. "The keel is on dry ground."