Chapter 696: Her Heavy Answer

Eirwen’s flag snapped twice on the far ridge, and Loccy’s ears swiveled toward it like a pair of brass weathervanes. River spray drifted over the flood gate, and the evacuated road beneath it lay silent, without a single cart left.

’Nobody’s left underneath anymore, so now I finally get to be rude.’

She hopped down onto the bearing Ferra marked earlier, the chalk cross still smudged beneath a sooty, crooked little thumbprint. She crouched and pressed both palms flat to the joined platform, and the whole shape answered her all at once.

Platform, beam, counterweight and gate hummed under her hands as one lump, and every piece of it was hers.

Above her, Captain Brann Keld’s tower platform shuddered on its chains and slammed down hard against the rusted flood track. The jolt ran through the gate’s iron and into her wrists, trying to rip Ferra’s coupling out of its seat.

"Nope, no, absolutely not, you don’t get to yank my lump apart!"

’If he wants to wrestle, he wrestles right here, on the spot I picked.’

She sank her weight into the bearing and held, and the shudder died halfway along the beam.

Inside the housing, Ferra’s hammer rang twice off a bracket, "Joint’s holding, so keep that platform still!"

"Still is my favorite thing, I’m amazing at still!"

The tower chains screamed again, and this time the captain came down with them.

Brann dropped off the swinging tower onto the far end of her deck and landed there in a wide crouch. Thirteen Shards spun around his forearms, and a war hammer as long as Loccy rested across both his broad shoulders.

He rolled his neck slowly, sizing her up like a toll he meant to collect twice.

"So the hare holds my fort by touching it," he drawled, "and a hare that can’t let go can’t run."

"Who said anything about running?"

"Then stand there and break."

He charged down the deck with the hammer already rising, aiming straight for her planted hands.

’Two hands are plenty for holding, but one is enough if I’m stubborn.’

She peeled her right palm off the deck, kept her left flat on the bearing, and swept up her mallet.

His hammer came whistling down, and she tipped it aside with the mallet’s cheek, straight toward the crossbar beside her. Brann wrenched the blow short a finger from the crossbar, since that timber carried his own counterweight up the tower.

"Oops, careful, that’s your crossbar too," Loccy sang, ears bouncing, "smash it and your whole tower takes a bath."

Brann bared his teeth and shifted his grip lower on the haft, "Clever little rabbit."

"Hare, you toad, rabbits are the ones who run."

Then she answered him properly with every last ounce of four Wings, and she didn’t bother being polite at all. Loccy swung from the hip with her heel locked hard and her left palm glued flat against Ferra’s marked bearing.

The mallet caught his guard square, and Brann skidded backward across the deck until his heels struck the far rail.

’Thirteen Shards against four Wings, and he’s the one backing up.’

"Crank the counter-chain, you idiots," he bellowed over his shoulder, "I can’t steer the gate from this rail!"

Two attendants at the winch fumbled their crank handles, staring between their captain and the small hare holding his fort.

"Don’t look at him, look at me, he’s busy losing!"

Brann came again, faster and angrier, and she met every swing with the mallet before it could reach the bearing. Each clash jarred up her arm to the shoulder, but each also shoved him a step farther from the winch.

He swung low, and she knocked it wide, and he swung high, and she knocked that wider.

’His arms are strong, but his feet are lazy, and lazy feet always lose ground.’

"Stop rattling my strap out there!" Ferra roared through the slats, a wedge clanging home inside.

"I’m winning out here, it’s a little noisy!"

"Then win quieter, this pin isn’t seated for your tantrums!"

Loccy giggled and ducked a backhand that whistled over her ears close enough to ruffle them.

’Ferra keeps the joint from snapping, and I keep the toad from touching it.’

Her next blow cracked into his ribs like a dropped anvil, and Brann folded around it with a wet grunt. He staggered sideways, spat bright red onto the planks, and stopped trying to shout orders at the winch crew entirely.

"You hit like a falling quarry wall," he wheezed, clutching his side.

"Thank you, I practice on pastries."

Brann wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist and tried a different tone, oily and reasonable.

"Let go of my fort, and I’ll forget your face," he offered, "I’ll even pay you a wage, a good one."

"Your wages are chains, everybody on the ridge told me so," Loccy shot back, wrinkling her nose.

’Bribes from a bully taste worse than burnt crust, and I’ve eaten burnt crust.’

---

Brann did not come at her a third time, and his eyes slid toward the counterweight rail instead.

’Uh oh, that’s a thinking face, and I hate it when bullies start thinking.’

He backed onto the rail in two quick backward steps and kicked a rusted catch loose with his boot heel. The sliding counterweight broke free and rumbled down its greased track, and the whole assembly lurched sideways off its bearing.

The bearing under her palm slid a thumb’s width, then two, and the lump started walking away without her.

"Hey, hey, hey, get back here!"

’If I chase it, Worldbearer drops, and the whole thing lands on the road.’

So she didn’t chase it, and she kept her palm planted, and she refused to move a single step.

She dropped to one knee instead, splinters biting through her trousers, and set her shoulder against the wall’s grounded footing. Worldbearer poured through her four Wings and down into the bedrock, and the slide ground to a shrieking, sparking stop.

The joined weight settled right against the edge of what she could hold, and not one stone more.

"How long can you hold it like that?" Ferra shouted through the slats, her voice cracking on the question.

"Long enough, probably," Loccy grunted, "so tell me the strap won’t pop!"

"It won’t pop unless you drop it, so don’t you dare drop it."

Her teeth ached, her knee burned on the planks, and her free hand shook around the mallet’s grip.

Brann laughed from the rail, breathless and ugly, "There it is, the limit, so you can hold my fort or fight me, but never both."

"I can do both, I’m just doing them slowly!" she yelled, ears pinned flat.

"Hold it, then, and stay rooted to that spot while I cut the last chain and walk away."

He lifted the hammer toward the counterweight’s chain, and Loccy’s stomach dropped into her feet.

’He’s right about the walking part, damn it, I can’t take a step yet.’

"Nari, the key, I need the gate locked right now!"

Far below, Nari vaulted the housing rail with the iron key in her fist and sprinted for the manual lock. Two attendants dropped off the winch ladder to cut her off, and neither of them ever reached the lock itself.

Rumi vaulted the winch housing and drove both heels into the first attendant’s ribs before he finished turning.

"Deck’s closing, everybody off, mind the drop!"

The second man swung a crank handle at her head, so she plucked it and flung it over the rail. The rest of the winch crew took one look at her daggers and scrambled down the ladder after their friends.

"Platform’s clear," Rumi called, flicking an ear, "so you’re welcome, and I accept tips in honey."

"Nobody’s tipping you," Nari muttered without looking up from the lock housing.

"Want me to kick him off his rail too?" Rumi offered, twirling a dagger.

"No, he’s mine, just keep the deck clean!"

Nari reached the lock and jammed the key into its slot, then frowned when the teeth caught crooked.

"It won’t seat while the frame leans," she called up, voice flat and steady, "so straighten it, and I’ll turn it."

"Straighten it, sure, easy, I’ll just do that with my knee!"

Brann chuckled and set his heel against the chain’s anchor, testing it slowly like a man testing thin spring ice. Loccy fished the last honey pastry out of her sleeve with her free hand and bit it clean in half.

"You’re eating?" he barked, the hammer halfway raised, "now?"

"Strong girls get hungry, and you’re taking forever."

’After this, I’m eating ten more of these with my head on Hajin’s arm.’

She chewed and thought, and the sweetness cleared the ringing out of her skull.

’I can’t beat the weight by walking, so I beat him by stealing his floor.’

He fought from that counterweight rail, and every trick he owned depended on the rail staying his.

’Take the rail away, keep the lump off the road, and he has nothing left to stand on.’

Far upstream, a tiny figure with seven burning Rings skidded around the bend and reached the bypass.

"There you are," she whispered around the crumbs, ears lifting, "go get them, I’ve got mine."

Somewhere in the river noise she pictured him yelling something rude at a crew of saboteurs, and she smiled.

Her gaze dropped past the rail to the freight yard below, where nothing moved but drifting dust and spilled grain. Every last worker was gone over Juna’s ridge, and the yard waited flat, hard and empty for whatever fell next.

’That’s where you land, Captain, on the empty ground, and nobody else lands with you.’

Loccy swallowed the pastry, tightened her grip on the mallet, and leaned her whole weight toward the yard.