Chapter 698: The Captain Slips

Upstream, a flag snapped twice above the bypass, and the whole platform breathed easier under Loccy’s palms.

The river’s drag eased off the gate leaf, and the coupled frame finally stopped fighting her through Ferra’s new joint. Loccy felt the change in her teeth, in her planted heels, and in all four of her Wings at once.

"He did it, the bypass is shut," she squealed, ears shooting straight up, "oh, good boy, very good boy!"

"Stop cooing and push!" Ferra bellowed from inside the housing.

’Lighter river, same stubborn captain, so now the whole thing finally gets to go my way.’

Captain Brann Keld stood near the platform’s far rail, his war hammer cocked over one shoulder like a fishing pole. Thirteen Shards circled his forearms, and his eyes kept sliding past her toward the housing door and Ferra’s precious joint.

"You’re bleeding from the ear, rabbit," he called, rolling his wrist, "so why not sit down before you fall?"

"Hare, and it’s mostly your guard’s blood."

"Mostly?"

"I didn’t check, I was busy," Loccy chirped, digging her heels into the planks.

He lunged for the housing anyway, the hammer swinging high toward the bracket where Ferra’s pin crossed the beam.

Loccy shoved, and the platform answered her like an arm she grew this morning.

The whole assembly slid back onto its marked bearing with a grinding lurch that threw his front foot out wide. His swing missed the bracket by a hand and slammed into the rail post, splitting it down to the ground.

"Hey, not the joint, not the joint!"

"It’s my joint, I built the damn thing!"

"Ferra built it, and you just paid for the wood," she shot back, shoving again.

The deck tilted toward him, and he staggered three paces backward with his arms flung out for balance.

He swung again, lower this time, aiming at the coupling strap where it bolted down into the frame.

Loccy tipped the platform under his feet before the hammer landed, and the blow skidded harmlessly across the planks.

"Every swing, the same thing," Brann spat, wiping grit and splinters off his lower lip, "you can’t even step toward me, can you?"

"Nope, I can just move the floor you’re standing on."

’One step and Worldbearer lets go, so the floor fights him instead of my feet.’

He looked at the shifting deck, then at the counterweight track behind him, and his jaw went tight.

The sliding counterweight trundled along its rails beside the platform, still rolling loose from the release he yanked open earlier. He sprinted for it, vaulted the broken rail post, and landed on its flat top in a low, wary crouch.

"Running away?" Loccy jeered, cupping one hand around her mouth.

"Moving to better ground, something you can’t do."

She stuck her tongue out at him over the rail, "Better ground is wherever I put it."

’He’s standing on part of my load, and he thinks that makes him safe from me.’

---

The counterweight rumbled along the rails, swinging him past the platform’s edge, close enough for her mallet to reach him.

Loccy kept her left palm pressed flat on the frame and both heels sunk deep into the platform’s scarred planks. Her right hand swung the war mallet in a wide arc, aiming straight for his guard instead of his head.

Brann caught the strike on his hammer’s haft, and the shock rang through the counterweight under him.

"That’s all?" he sneered, sliding his grip down the haft for leverage.

"That was hello."

She swung again as the rails carried him back, and this time the mallet cracked his haft across its middle. The wood split with a sharp pop, and his thirteen Shards flickered as he scrambled to keep hold of it.

"You little—"

Her third swing caught his hammer’s head and drove it straight back into his own chest.

He reeled across the counterweight’s top, skidding toward its outer edge, far from the gear housing and Ferra’s bracket.

"Far enough!" Ferra yelled through the door, "Keep that bastard away from my pins!"

"Working on it!"

Brann spat blood and stared at the cracked haft in his fists, breathing hard.

"You can’t come out here after me," he wheezed, "and I can’t get close to you in there, so we’re even."

"We’re not even at all, I’m winning, and you’re the only one confused about it."

"Then let’s bargain," he drawled, lifting one bloody palm, "half the tolls on this road, every season, and you walk away rich."

"Do the tolls come with pastries?"

"They come with enough coin to buy a bakery."

"Nope, I’d rather bonk you," she chirped, "and then go buy my own pastries with Hajin’s money."

’He keeps trying to sell me the road, like he forgot I’m already holding it.’

His mouth twisted, and his gaze flicked past her, down the slope toward the lower road.

Loccy followed his look, and her stomach dropped straight into her heels.

The last lower-yard crew trudged down the switchback road below the platform, a dozen workers dragging a handcart between them. An old sluice hand limped at their head with a blanket around his shoulders, waving them toward Juna’s ridge markers.

’No, no, they were supposed to be clear before the platform moved at all.’

"Oh, there they are, the ones you came for," Brann murmured, almost kindly.

He raised his split hammer and smashed it down onto the bracket that held the counterweight on its upper rails. Iron shrieked as the bracket tore loose from its bolts, and the stone block lurched sideways off the track below.

The whole connected assembly tipped with it, swinging out over the edge toward the lower road.

"Let me go, and save your workers," he shouted, clinging to the tilting stone, "or keep me and bury them."

’He thinks I’ll drop him to save them, and he’s betting both their lives on it.’

---

Loccy did not drop him, and she did not drop them either.

She slammed both palms onto the frame where it met the last grounded bearing, right on Ferra’s old chalk cross. Worldbearer surged through her four Wings, through the platform, the beam, the gate and the swinging counterweight with its passenger.

The assembly stopped tipping a hand’s width past the edge, shuddering in the air like a held breath.

"Everybody down there, run!" she screamed, her ears pinned flat, "Off the road, now, now, now!"

The workers below looked up at the giant shape hanging over them, and the handcart crashed onto its side.

The sluice hand grabbed two people by their collars and hauled them toward the ditch, yelling the others after him.

Her arms shook to the shoulder, and the old scored ache in her left shoulder flared bright and nasty.

’Feet planted, palms on, one structure, now don’t you dare move, you awful stupid box.’

"You can’t hold all of it," Brann laughed from the tilted counterweight, "not forever, not with the gate pulling too!"

"Watch me."

Then the gate leaf shifted far below, the river tugging at it again, and the frame crept another finger outward.

"Nari!"

"I hear you," came the quiet answer from the gate housing.

Through the gap in the housing wall, Loccy saw Nari crouched at the manual lock with Rumi guarding her back. She worked the jammed iron key until its teeth seated, set both hands on its end, and turned it hard.

The lock bit with a deep clunk, and the gate leaf stopped dead in the current.

"Locked," Nari called up, "but the bolts won’t take that pull for long, so finish quickly."

"Quickly, she says," Rumi snorted, kicking an unconscious attendant off the gate steps, "like hares know any other speed."

"I know a slow one, it’s called lunch!"

’The gate’s pinned, the road’s emptying, so now only the landing is left to choose.’

---

Loccy looked across the slope while the platform trembled against her palms, choosing where all this weight would come down.

The lower road still held three stragglers, and the slope below them dropped into a ravine full of loose scree. But the freight ground beside the yard lay flat and empty, a packed square the captain’s carts used for unloading.

"The freight ground," she announced, mostly to herself, "nobody’s there, nobody but crates."

"You’ll never get it that far without walking," Brann sneered, "and you can’t walk, can you?"

"Shut up, I’m thinking."

He was right about the walking, and she hated that more than the hammer swings.

’I can’t walk it there yet, but soon, and he won’t like what happens when I can.’

The counterweight’s last loose chain swung beside her right hand, its shackle rattling free where the bracket tore away earlier. If it slipped, the stone block would drop alone and drag the whole frame down onto the road after it.

Loccy kept her left palm locked on the bearing and reached out with her right hand.

She caught the swinging chain one-handed, hauled it taut, and hooked the shackle over the platform’s nearest corner cleat herself. Then she drove the pin through with her thumb and bent its end flat against the iron to lock it.

The counterweight steadied, and Brann swayed on top of it, clutching the broken bracket in both fists.

"Is my knot good in there?"

"That’s not a knot, that’s a shackle," Ferra hollered, leaning out the door, "but it’ll hold!"

"Then it’s a good knot!"

The platform settled back into her hands, hanging and connected, waiting for somebody strong enough to move it.

Loccy leaned her cheek against the frame and started humming the camp cooks’ bread song, off key and loud.

"You’re singing?" Brann demanded, his voice cracking, "Now, of all times?"

"I’m holding your whole fort up, so I get a song," she trilled happily, ears bobbing along in perfect time.

Below, the old sluice hand waved both arms from the ditch, and the last stragglers scrambled clear of the road.

’Hajin gets to hear about this later, every single second, with loud sound effects and everything.’

Her Wings prickled under her skin, full to the brim, like a held breath waiting for one more push.

Loccy finished the last verse, tightened her grip on the bearing, and looked straight at the empty freight ground.

"Okay, toll goblin," she said brightly, "let’s talk about where you’re landing."