Ferra shouldered through the gear room door as the gear house shuddered and chains began climbing out of the channel.
"Raise it full!" Captain Brann Keld’s voice boomed down a speaking tube from the tower above the wall.
The roof worker pulled the door shut behind her and dropped the bar, then flattened himself against the ladder.
’Twenty breaths before that leaf clears the sill, maybe fewer, so move your ass.’
Four guards hauled on the spoked wheel where the captives stood yesterday, and their leader barked from the stair landing. The big gear above them bit tooth after tooth, dragging the gate leaf upward one screaming notch at a time.
Ferra tore a locking bracket from her satchel, one of the dozen she forged in the Sixth’s yard before departure.
"Not today, you rotten pile of scrap," she snarled, swinging herself onto the frame.
Three Wings snapped open for balance as she rammed the bracket into the working track between two climbing teeth.
The climbing gear slammed against forged iron and stopped dead, and every single chain in the housing shrieked at once. The guards on the wheel stumbled as the spokes kicked backward, and one of them yelped and lost his grip.
"She jammed it!"
"Then pry her off!" the leader roared, snatching a hooked pole from the rack.
Fists pounded on the barred door behind her, and a very familiar voice yelled through the planks.
"Ferra, door, open the door, I come bearing gifts!"
The roof worker scrambled down the ladder and shoved the bar aside before anyone thought to stop him.
Hajin’s head popped through the gap, and his whole face lit up at the sight of the jammed gear.
"Holy shit, look at you, you beautiful menace!"
"Stop admiring and start handing," Ferra barked, shaking blood from a palm the teeth split open.
"Dressings, cloth, and food for the stragglers under that stair, now!"
"One delivery, coming right up," he chirped, eyes flicking across a screen nobody else could see.
[ Earth package | Twenty staple-food packs | 500 credits ]
[ Earth package | Ten dressings | 200 credits ]
[ Earth package | Ten wash and comfort kits | 300 credits ]
[ Purchase confirmed | 1,000 credits deducted from spendable funds ]
[ Wallet total | 5,247,985 → 5,246,985 credits ]
[ Relief reserve | 5,000,000 unchanged | Spendable | 246,985 credits ]
Bundles thumped into his arms, and he shoved them through the gap one after another like a frantic baker.
"A thousand credits for soap and bandages, and my wallet cries again," he whined, "worth it, though."
The roof worker dragged food packs to two freed men beneath the stair, pressing one into each pair of hands. Ferra caught a dressing roll and bound her split palm with her teeth, never taking her eyes off the gear.
She ripped open a wash kit and crammed its thick cloths around the bracket’s seat to stop the iron skating.
’Padding buys a minute, maybe two, and then the river wins this argument.’
[ IronVanguard: She stopped a flood gate with one bracket, are you kidding me? ]
[ HearthKeeper: Feed the guys under the stair first, good, priorities. ]
"Behind you!" Hajin yelled, already shoving his shoulder through the door.
"Stay out," Ferra snapped, "this one’s mine."
He threw both hands up in mock surrender behind the door, "Fine, it’s yours, just don’t fall into the gear!"
The hooked pole swept at her ankles, and she hopped it, landing on the beam beside her jammed bracket.
She clamped two strap brackets onto the catwalk rail as she backed away, fast and sloppy and perfectly tight.
"Come on then," she drawled, beckoning with the hammer, "your captain’s paying, right?"
The leader climbed after her with three guards crowding behind, and every one of them stepped between her bolted pieces. Ferra felt her forged iron wake beneath her Wings, bracket and strap answering through the Masterwork Network like one hand.
The leader lunged first and jabbed the hook straight at her front knee.
She caught the pole against the nearest strap, and the network locked it there as if the rail grew teeth.
"What—"
"Shut up and hold still."
Her hammer swung and cracked into his shoulder, and the bone gave with a sound she felt through the handle. He dropped across the catwalk howling, his pole still trapped in her strap like a hooked fish on a line.
The next guard lunged past him, reaching for her belt to drag her off the frame.
Ferra ducked under the grab and slammed the hammer’s flat into his ribs, folding him against the rail.
"Step left again," she growled at the last two, jerking her chin toward the open gear behind them, "and that thing eats your arm to the elbow."
They looked at the teeth, then at the howling leader, and stumbled backward down the stair.
"Smart boys, now get out of my housing!"
’Nobody lays a finger on my work while the river still leans on it.’
[ Seoul_Tactician: Three guards, one forge lady, zero chance, I love her. ]
[ ashley(mod): Leader’s down but breathing, everybody calm down in the queue. ]
The bracket squealed behind her, and Ferra spun as the cloth padding smoked between the teeth.
The gate leaf hung half raised, and the whole upstream river leaned against it with patient, enormous weight.
’One bracket against a river, no chance, I need a bigger floor under it.’
She sprinted along the beam to the bearing she chalked during inspection, where the platform’s drive shaft met the gate. Two separate machines touched there by accident of design, and the captain never once thought to bolt them together properly.
"Loccy, get on the platform and keep your hands on it!" she bellowed through the slats.
"Already on it, and I’m eating!" Loccy’s voice floated back from outside, muffled around a mouthful.
"Swallow, then brace!"
"Bracing, bracing, stop yelling at my pastry!"
Ferra jammed the long pin through the marked bearing and drove it home in four savage strokes, sparks spraying everywhere. She slapped the last bracket over the joint, hammered the strap tight, and felt the network seal under her Wings.
Platform, beam, counterweight and gate locked together into a single shape she could feel in her teeth.
Outside, Loccy gasped like a child handed the biggest present in the market.
"Oh, oh, it’s all one thing now, I can feel the whole thing!"
The bracket in the gear track stopped screaming as the load spread into a structure built to carry it.
[ Ferra | EXP gained: 1,500,000 | 2,500,000 / 7,500,000 toward Wing Four ]
Ferra sagged against the bearing and dragged a sooty sleeve across her face, breathing like a bellows.
"Huh, that’s a lot of points," Hajin whistled from the doorway, squinting at the row only he could see, "for a fistfight and some carpentry."
"It’s a coupling, you lump, not carpentry."
"Sure, sure, a very angry coupling," he snickered, then sobered as he looked upstream.
"So Loccy holds the platform, and somebody has to stop whoever’s still fiddling with the river up there."
"Then go stop them," she grunted, "and leave me here with my work."
His brows pinched, and he did not move from the door.
"You’re bleeding through that wrap, so come out, and I’ll find something else to hold the joint."
"Nothing else holds it yet," Ferra said, planting her good hand flat against the bracket, "and I’m not leaving until something real takes its place."
He studied her for a long breath, then nodded once and squeezed her shoulder through the gap.
"Don’t you dare get washed away, I still owe you a proper apron, the good leather one."
Her ears burned, and she turned back to the joint before he could see the rest of her face.
"Go, before I throw this hammer at you."
He laughed and vanished, and his running steps faded toward the river.
High above the housing, the captain’s tower platform lurched on its chains and began swinging toward her new joint.