The lower span shook under the loosed river, and brown spray lashed the planks beneath Hajin’s feet.
Behind him, freed workers crowded the housing steps, rubbing wrists that no longer carried anybody’s labor tokens.
Inside the housing, Ferra’s hammer kept ringing against the forged brace she flatly refused to leave.
Above the channel, chains dragged Captain Brann Keld’s tower platform toward her coupling one shuddering link at a time.
"Broadcast fellow, let’s talk like merchants before your forge woman gets crushed," the captain called, spreading both hands over the rail.
"Oh, now he wants to haggle," Hajin muttered, cracking his neck.
"Leave the workers and walk away, and every coin of passage on this road is yours, every season, forever," Captain Brann Keld shouted.
"A maintained road straight to your precious Sixth, think how useful that becomes for a man with friends like yours."
’He wants to sell me the road with the same people he already stole.’
[ IronVanguard: Bro is offering a bribe while his tower is literally moving. ]
[ freight_empress: Classic, buy the auditor with the toll book. ]
Hajin didn’t even look up at the tower again, and he didn’t waste a single word.
He turned to the workers and swung his whole arm toward the steep slope rising behind the old gate house. Juna stood at the ridge path’s mouth with her saber resting across her shoulders, already watching the gate for runners.
"Ridge path, all of you, go, go, go!"
Nobody moved for half a breath, and then the first woman bolted with her skirt bunched in her fist.
"Single file, eyes on my back, and don’t stop for anything you dropped," Juna barked from above, sniffing the wind as the line reached her.
"Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, move your feet, you can cry at the top."
The captain’s knuckles went pale on the rail as his whole yard trickled past the gate and climbed.
"That is your answer?"
"You heard it," Hajin yelled back, jerking a thumb at the climbing line, "I just said it with legs."
A horn blared from the guardhouse, and loyal guards poured onto the far end of the span in a column. Ten shields locked edge to edge with spears jutting between, and a broad sergeant marched behind with a hooked axe.
Six Shards flared around the sergeant’s forearms as he jabbed the axe past Hajin toward the housing door.
"Take the housing, break the forge woman’s hands, and throw the stranger in the channel!"
The stranger hollered over his shoulder toward the housing, "Heads up in there, company’s coming!"
"Keep them off my damn brace," she snarled from inside, never missing a single stroke.
’Ten shields on a plank bridge, oh, you beautiful idiots, you made this easy.’
Hajin planted himself on the span’s narrow neck, the only way inside, and let all seven Rings wake at once.
They blazed around his forearms in a single bright crown, and the planks creaked beneath the pressure of his stance.
[ ShadowMage44: ALL SEVEN, no split, no clone, he’s just going to walk through them. ]
[ TacticalNerd: Narrow bridge, shield wall, and he picked the choke himself, the guards are cooked. ]
"Come on then," he laughed, rolling his shoulders, "nobody gets to the forge without going through me first!"
The column charged with a stamping roar, and the spears came first.
Hajin slapped the leading point aside, caught the shaft in his fist and snapped it like kindling.
He drove his shoulder straight into the middle shield, and the impact folded the whole front rank backward like reeds. Two guards toppled through the rail and splashed into the shallows, while three more crashed into their own second row.
"Hold the line!" the sergeant bellowed.
"What line?" Hajin cackled, ripping a shield off its owner’s arm and flinging it into the next man’s face.
A spear grazed his ribs, and he trapped it under his arm before punching the wielder flat onto the planks.
The column cracked into pieces, guards scrambling backward along the slick span while their spears clattered loose.
Then the sergeant shoved through his own men with the hooked axe whirling, all six Shards blazing white.
The axe came down at Hajin’s skull, and he stepped inside the swing instead of away from it.
His palm caught the haft below the hook, and the sergeant’s arms locked against seven Rings of answering strength.
"Nice axe," he wheezed through a savage laugh, "shame about the guy holding it!"
He wrenched the haft sideways, slammed his forehead into the sergeant’s nose and swept both legs out from under him.
The sergeant hit the planks flat on his back, and Hajin’s knee pinned the axe arm against the boards.
"Yield, and your boys walk out of this with all their teeth."
The sergeant spat blood and twisted toward the guardhouse, where a runner crouched beside a shimmering mouth in the wall.
"Runner, tell the bypass crew to open the upstream cut, all of it, now!"
The runner dove into the shimmer and vanished, and the mouth winked shut behind his heels.
’Upstream cut, a second channel, damn it, so the platform doesn’t even matter.’
"What bypass?" he growled, leaning harder on the pinned arm.
"The old cut above the bend," the sergeant laughed wetly, "and it floods the whole road whether your forge woman holds or not."
Hajin peeled the axe out of his fingers and pitched it far out into the channel.
"Stay down, I’ll be back to argue about your manners."
The remaining guards dropped their spears and fled, nobody eager to test the man who just broke their sergeant.
Up on the tower, Captain Brann Keld stopped shouting about tolls and started screaming at his chain crew.
[ Seoul_Tactician: A second water route, the captain never planned to lose just one gate. ]
[ ashley(mod): Bypass crew is offscreen, nobody post guesses as fact please. ]
Loccy leaned off the freight platform below the housing, one palm on its iron and a pastry in her teeth.
"You broke the whole bridge crew without me," she pouted around the pastry, ears drooping in mock tragedy.
"No time to sulk, there’s a crew upstream about to open a bypass cut, and if they finish, the road drowns anyway."
He jabbed a finger toward the swaying tower platform and the grinding chains.
"I’m taking the bypass, so the captain and his connected gate are yours."
Her ears shot straight up, and the pastry vanished in one smug gulp.
"Mine, all of it, the tower, the gate, and that smug toll goblin," Loccy purred, hefting the mallet onto her shoulder, "no stealing him back halfway."
"Wouldn’t dare."
"Good, Ferra joined everything into one big lump for me, and I’ve been dying to pick it up."
She swung back onto the platform deck, tail flicking, and planted both heels like the whole fort weighed nothing.
Two shapes dropped off the guardhouse wall in perfect step, landing on the span with their daggers already drawn.
"That runner used a short route," Rumi drawled, flicking an ear toward the sealed shimmer, "and this fort is full of them."
"Which means more guards can pop out right next to the bypass crew," Nari snickered, twirling a dagger, "unless somebody rude closes the doors."
"Then be rude, nobody reaches that crew through those shortcuts, and nobody gets a second runner through."
"Rude is my favorite job," Nari hummed, tail swishing lazily behind her as she eyed the guardroom stair.
"She means she wants to seal everything and hit whoever’s left," Rumi translated, already sprinting for the guardroom stair.
Hajin vaulted the rail onto the upstream bank and ran for the bend, seven Rings still burning around his fists.
’Loccy gets the captain, the twins get the doors, and I get the bastards with shovels.’