Chapter 699: Move With Me

Loccy knelt on the last grounded bearing with both palms pressed flat against the tilted platform above the lower road. Platform, gate frame and counterweight leaned into her together, one connected burden held by Ferra’s coupling and her own stubbornness.

"Gate’s locked, but the lock won’t take another jolt like that," Nari called from the gate housing, one hand clamped on the key.

"How long does it give me?"

"Long enough to choose where it lands, and not long enough to argue about it."

Eirwen’s ridge was empty now, but the yard’s gate crew still huddled in the ditch below the platform.

’If I let go now, the whole fort comes down right on top of them.’

Captain Brann Keld crouched on the counterweight above her, thirteen Shards circling his arms, his hammer resting across one knee.

"You can’t walk with it, rabbit," he sneered, "everybody in this fort knows your trick dies the second your feet move."

"Hare," she corrected, ears flattening against her skull.

"Hare, rabbit, mule, I don’t care what you are, you’ll hold that load until your arms tear and then I’ll take my gate back."

Ferra slid out from beneath the coupling with grease to her elbows and a cracked lamp hooked on one finger, "The joint’s sound, the supports are stacked on the freight ground, and I’m not stacking them twice."

"Then I just need to get it there."

"Without moving your feet," Ferra reminded her grimly.

"Yeah, that’s the stupid part."

’Fight him or hold it, and the hold wins every single time those people are underneath.’

Then something inside her contract shifted, a long tally finally closing on every exchange since the gate yard.

[ Loccy | EXP gained: 5,000,000 | 37,500,000 / 37,500,000 toward Wing Five ]

[ Source | Completed fort battle contribution | Recognized before the carry ]

[ Loccy | Evolution threshold consumed | EXP 37,500,000 ]

[ Loccy | Fifth Wing unlocked | Carryover 0 / 187,500,000 EXP ]

[ Base output | 8× ]

[ Innate ability | Moving Foundation | Three grounded steps with one connected burden ]

[ Weight limit | Unchanged | Healing | None ]

’It counted the fighting, every ugly swing of it, and not the catching at all.’

A fifth Wing tore open across her shoulders, and the strain in her arms stayed exactly where it was before. Nothing healed and no strength refilled, but the weight she carried ran through the bearing and waited for her feet.

"Moving Foundation," she read aloud, ears shooting straight up, "three grounded steps, three whole steps with all of it!"

Ferra jabbed a greasy finger at the new Wing, "Three, and then you set it down and pin it before you lift anything else, understood?"

"Understood, understood, stop yelling at my new Wing!"

Above her, Brann stopped laughing and rose to his feet on the swaying counterweight.

"What the hell is that?"

"That’s me walking, try to keep pace."

She rose with the platform still pinned to her palms, and the bearing’s weight followed her like a leashed ox. Her first step landed on packed gravel, and the entire assembly swung outward, away from the crew in the ditch.

Gravel crunched under her soles while the whole frame came along, every bolt and chain and plank agreeing at once.

"Keep moving, nobody look up, she’s got it!" Rumi shouted down the road, waving both daggers at the crew.

"Got what?" a worker squeaked, staring at the tilting sky above him.

"Everything, now run!"

Brann slammed his palm onto the counterweight chain, and thirteen Shards poured hissing into the links.

His whole arm lit up to the shoulder, "If I can’t break you, I’ll break what you’re holding!"

’I pinned that link myself, and it isn’t letting go for him.’

The chain bucked under his Shards but held, the pin she drove through its last loose link refusing to budge.

"Who pinned that?"

"Me, a few minutes ago, while you were busy shouting your stupid bargain."

Nari threw her full weight on the key as the gate housing shuddered with the platform’s swing.

"Lock’s holding, so move faster!" she yelled, bracing one foot against the housing.

"I am moving faster, this is faster!"

’One step gone, two left, and every one of them belongs to me.’

Brann leapt along the counterweight and swung his hammer straight down at her braced shoulder.

She could not dodge without letting go, so she gave him the shoulder and took the angle away instead.

She twisted low under the blow and let it skid hard off her collarbone into the platform’s own bolted spine. The impact went where every load went now, down through her Wings, her soles and the ground into solid bedrock.

"Ow, that’s my good shoulder, you giant ass!"

"You’re supposed to be stuck!" Brann bellowed, raising the hammer for another swing.

"I was stuck a minute ago," she shot back, "try to keep up with the news!"

He swung again, and this time she rolled the platform’s heavy edge up into his path with one braced shoulder. Iron rang against iron, and Brann staggered backward along the counterweight, both arms buzzing to the elbows from the shock.

"You’re using my own fort as a shield?"

"It’s not your fort anymore, it’s my burden, totally different thing."

’Second step, and he’s standing right where my hand can reach him.’

She shifted one hand off the frame, caught his hammer arm and yanked him clean off the counterweight.

Her second step came down with him, and she drove Brann face first into the platform above the cleared landing. Planks split under him, his Shards stuttered, and the swing he was building died halfway out of his right shoulder.

"This isn’t possible, nobody carries a fort—" Brann wheezed, spitting splinters across the boards.

"I’m not carrying it, I’m walking it!"

"That’s the same thing!"

"Is not," she huffed, pressing her palm flatter against the frame, "carrying means I could run, and I absolutely can’t run!"

"One more and you set it on my cribbing," Ferra bellowed from the freight ground, "not beside it, on it!"

"I heard you the first nine times!"

The third step was the slowest, her soles grinding through gravel while the counterweight swung heavily behind her aching shoulders. Brann lunged across the split planks and clamped one bleeding hand around her ankle before her lifted heel could land.

"Take that step and you drag me with you, and down it all goes!" he gasped, Shards guttering around his knuckles.

’He thinks one hand on my ankle weighs more than his whole fort.’

"You’re lying on the burden, you big lump, so you come along with the rest of it," she chirped.

Every muscle in her arms burned like somebody poured hot honey down the inside of her sleeves.

’Last one, and if I miss the blocks, Ferra kills me before Brann gets the chance.’

She lowered the platform onto Ferra’s cribbing one corner at a time until every block of oak took its share. Ferra slapped the last pin home through the counterweight bracket, and the connected burden finally sat still on its supports.

[ Moving Foundation | Three of three steps used | Burden secured ]

"It’s down, it’s pinned, it’s not moving again until I say so," Ferra panted, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Can I let go now?"

"You can let go now."

Brann staggered up out of the broken planks with blood in his teeth and his hammer raised.

"You moved my fort, fine, but you’re out of steps now!" he snarled, Shards flaring around both fists.

She peeled both palms off the frame and swept the war mallet off her back, "Good thing I don’t need steps for this part, then."

His hammer came down, and her mallet met its haft from beneath with all five Wings behind the upward swing. The haft snapped in his fists, the head spun over the gate, and Brann folded onto the planks beneath her.

He lay there breathing hard, both hands still locked around the splintered stump of his grip.

"Stay down, or I flatten the other half of you," she warned, resting the mallet against his chest.

"Down, I’m down, damn you, I’m staying down."

’He’s breathing, and the road gets to decide what happens to him next.’

Road families crept out of the freight sheds, staring at their captor flattened under the woman who moved his battlefield. A freed labourer with chain scars on both wrists stepped closer, looking slowly from the platform to Brann and back.

"You walked the whole thing," he whispered, "with him standing on top of it."

"Three steps, that’s all it lets me take, so nobody go telling people I can carry rivers."

A woman in the crowd spat at the planks near Brann’s head, then pulled her child close and said nothing.

"He told us the fort would stand forever," the labourer muttered, rubbing his scarred wrists.

"Forts don’t stand on their own, people hold them up, and you all just stopped holding his."

"I saw you carry a river, though."

"You saw me carry a platform near a river, and that’s a really big difference!"

Her stomach growled loudly enough that two of the children giggled behind their mothers’ skirts.

"Wait, did anybody save the food?" she asked, ears drooping, "the bread, the honey, anything at all?"

"I saved a sack of grain and one very angry guard," Rumi offered, sliding down the gate stair on her heels.

"That’s not food, that’s a prisoner."

"The grain’s food."

"And the guard can haul the grain, so technically I saved us a porter too," Rumi added, flicking an ear.

Hajin came jogging down the bypass track with river water still dripping off both of his sleeves.

He shook the honey tin over his head like a war banner, "You think I’d leave this behind in a fort full of damn thieves?"

"You saved the tin!"

"Damn right I saved the tin, and I watched that last step from the track and nearly fell in the river!"

[ IronVanguard: She walked the entire platform three steps and then broke his hammer, peak cinema. ]

[ freight_empress: Three steps, set straight down on cribbing, pinned before anything else moved, that’s how you land freight. ]

[ HearthKeeper: She asked about the food first, I love her so much. ]

[ Seoul_Tactician: She kept her hands on the load for the carry and freed them for the finish, two separate jobs. ]

[ ashley(mod): Fifth Wing confirmed, three grounded steps with one connected burden, and nothing healed, so watch those arms. ]

"Chat says you’re peak cinema," Hajin reported, squinting at the air, "and I’ve got no clue what that is, but they’re screaming about it."

"Is cinema a kind of food?"

"Probably not, they’d have told me by now."

She pried the tin open, counted the pastries twice and passed the whole tin straight to the two giggling children. He watched every pastry vanish into small sticky fists, then stared at her like she suddenly grew a second head.

"Your arms are shaking," he noted, frowning down at her wrists.

"They always shake after, that’s how I know I did it properly."

He snorted, "Vella’s gonna make you rest them for a week, and I’m not stopping her."

"Two days, and only if there’s pastry," she pleaded, holding up two sticky fingers.

"Proud of you, you know that?" he murmured.

"Mm-hm, I know," she mumbled against his sleeve, "I’m proud of me too."

Nari came down from the gate housing and nodded up the slope, where the upper road climbed past the tower.

"It’s open now, control chamber first, then Kerris’s forge above it."

’Three steps was enough today, and the road above us can wait until the kids finish my tin.’