Chapter 1013 The City Takes People

The beast opened its mouth over Rillhold’s exposed west market. Smoke from the mill roof flattened the cook’s fire before a window slammed, leaving four workers clinging to the ridge and shouting their count toward Asti’s kitchen. Nessa searched the doorway for the fifth person, Asti’s uncle, but he had not come out.

"They answered us a minute ago. I want five voices before anybody calls that roof empty," the cook said. He scored five spaces onto his board, leaving the last one open for Asti’s uncle.

Ty stood beside the stove with Holl’s strap holding his left shoulder against his ribs. He had only his right hand to grip the iron lip. The jaw chain ran out through Asti’s window toward Jade, whose boot still held the white collar at the signal hatch on the other roadback. Every change in the beast’s breath took the chain taut across Ty’s chest.

Nessa had the cook knife in her left hand. Beneath the stove, the thin line Asti had tied toward Rillhold ran beside the thicker street rope. It was small enough to cut in one stroke. Asti knew it too. She kept her hand on the table leg that propped the stove and watched Nessa instead of the knife.

"If you take our brake away, that roof goes into its mouth," Asti said.

"Your brake runs through occupied houses in Rillhold. The people under those walls never agreed to hold you here."

"Look at my uncle before you cut it. You can hate the knot after he’s clear."

The mill roof turned again. Its door faced them for a few breaths. Asti’s uncle was inside, sitting against a loom frame with one leg stretched across the threshold. He lifted a hand when he saw her. She raised hers back without waving it. A wave might look too much like leave.

Above the beast’s mouth, windows lit a whole slope of buildings. People ran along a walkway fixed between its pale plates. One woman pulled a painted gate out from the lower street while two others dragged a broad platform after her. They worked around the beast’s breathing, waiting for the plates beneath their feet to settle before taking another step. A boy in an upstairs window passed down a basket of folded cloth. No one was looking at Ty’s bones; all of them were watching the roofs in the mouth’s path.

The woman at the gate cupped both hands. "Keep your buildings off the pale plates. Bring people to the yellow boards when we reach you. A house will pull our stakes out of the hide."

"The mill’s fifth man cannot climb. Can your boards reach his door?" Nessa shouted.

"They will if it stops turning. I can’t bring the whole city around for your stove."

She pointed to an apartment above the gate. Its lower corner had already begun to lift from the beast’s flank. A pair of residents held its door frame while a third drove a peg through the moving stair. The gate woman wanted their building to remain on the creature as badly as Asti wanted the mill roof to remain hers.

Nessa climbed from under the stove. The black street rope slid against the beam, giving the mill roof one more turn toward the mouth. Asti’s new line pulled toward Rillhold beneath the empty place where its west lamp house had stood. Nessa could see the market’s broken edge. The lower wall doors were beyond her sight.

"I can take the Rillhold line now and help you get the five across," she told Asti. "If I leave it, I may be asking Rillhold’s families to pay for your uncle without ever hearing his name."

Asti stepped close enough to stop her hand. "My brother has my children with Solla. The mill has food for the four roofs behind it, and the family nearest us is down to boiled grain. I know your city isn’t a spare anchor. Give me enough time to tell my people why I’m leaving the sacks, then I’ll help you get that line off."

Nessa gave her the time it took to get to the outer window. Asti shouted to the workers on the mill roof to leave the sacks and bring her uncle to the door. The oldest worker shouted back that the sacks belonged to the other four roofs as well. Asti did not order him silent. She named the four households that would lose a meal and said she would answer them when she could stand in front of them.

Asti came back with her hands empty. "He heard me about the sacks. He couldn’t hear you from the kitchen."

"I said I would speak to him before I changed his floor," Nessa said. Through the window she could see the exposed market under the beast’s mouth. "I can’t reach him before this line takes another pull. Tell him I cut it before he gave me an answer."

Ty looked along his chain. From beside him, Nessa could see Jade across the gap, a red flag in one hand and her boot at the collar. Solla’s kitchen was crowded behind her with the people brought from the lamp house. Ty waited until Jade looked up.

"Nessa is cutting Rillhold loose, Jade. Our floor may run ahead of yours, so watch the collar when it comes back," he called.

Jade leaned over the hatch. "Your chain is already at its end. Put your right hand on the collar when it comes to you. I can let it travel, but I won’t let it strike your bad shoulder."

Ty glanced at the five people on the roof. "If the hatch moves when the line breaks, you’ll have the collar and that rail pulling against you."

"Solla has the kitchen full and Holl is at the rail. I can choose where I stand, Ty. Let me handle this side."

Nessa waited until he moved his right hand from the stove to the chain. Her right wrist pulled toward the thin line under the floor, useless for a clean grip. She trapped that forearm against her coat, put the cook knife in her left hand, and cut Asti’s tie to Rillhold.

The line to Rillhold fell slack on Asti’s floor. Nessa could see the exposed market hold its place for this turn, but nothing of the lower walls. Asti’s roadback swung free of its borrowed brake, and the mill roof slid toward the beast’s lower gate. The cook grabbed his stove before it tipped into the floor opening. Asti lost her footing, recovered on the table leg, and shouted each roof’s position as it came past the window.

Jade called Ty’s name as she lifted her boot. The white collar ran along the last links and struck his right wrist. He caught it before it touched the stove, pressing it against his own ribs as the chain pulled his jaw toward the open window. Holl’s shoulder strap dug into bone. Across the widening gap Jade stepped clear of the moving chain and raised the red flag once. Ty watched until she was clear before turning back to the mill roof.

"I chose that cut, Ty. It took your way back to Jade with it," Nessa told him.

Ty pressed the collar under his forearm. "Dimitri still has the wheel-cut rib, and this thing is still pulling for it. That can wait. Asti’s uncle can’t. Find a way to warn Rillhold while I get him over."

The painted platform reached Asti’s outer wall. Its city crew set a hooked end against the window sill without tying the two structures together. The woman at the gate introduced herself as Lema while she watched the joint rise and fall.

"I’m taking people onto my lower walk, one at a time. If your roof strikes the plates, my neighbors above us lose their stairs. Keep the stove and your houses on your side."

"My uncle can’t climb from the rear roof. He broke his hip on the turn," Asti said.

"Then someone brings him to this platform. I have room for a body on a board, not a mill attached to one."

The cook frowned at Lema’s gate. "You’ve got an entire city on that animal, and you’re telling us there isn’t space for grain?"

"My mother sleeps over this gate, and there are families all the way up that stair. The last house we took whole tore out three stakes and put a bedroom in the feed gap. Bring your sacks after the people if the mill is still here to carry them."

The mill roof came level with the platform’s lower edge. Its four workers started across. As the last man stepped onto the yellow boards, a small boy jumped from the roof behind the mill and landed against his back. The worker caught him before either fell and carried him onto Lema’s walk.

The cook began a fifth mark for the mill. Nessa caught his wrist. "That child jumped from the rear house. Your five at the mill are four workers and Asti’s uncle. He’s still at the door."

The cook set a separate mark for the boy and called toward the rear house. Someone there answered that his mother was still in its lower room. Lema sent one of her crew along the city walk to meet her if she reached the platform. Her gate stayed open for the people actually coming across.

The mill uncle was still at his door. He had dragged himself forward by the loom frame, but the roof turned away from the platform each time he tried to put weight on his good leg. Asti climbed onto the window sill.

"I can reach him when our walls touch," she said.

"You’re the only one who can call the next roof, Asti. Keep them answering while I cross for your uncle," Nessa answered.

"Your right wrist can’t hold him, and I know which way he falls when the mill turns."

Ty set the collar under his right forearm against his chest. "I’ll reach the doorway from Lema’s side. You tell him I’m coming, Asti. I would rather not be mistaken for part of the beast."

Lema looked at the bound shoulder and the missing left hand. "You can cross to the mill. Can you come back with a man who cannot walk?"

"I can hold him on a board if your crew keeps the board under us."

"They will carry from this end. You may have to stay here when the platform lifts."

Before stepping onto Lema’s boards, Ty looked toward Jade’s roadback. The gap had become too wide for her flag to tell him more than where she stood. The platform was his last easy way back to Asti’s kitchen, and he stepped onto it as Lema’s crew began to lift.

The beast’s pale plate moved beneath the outer end. Ty fell to one knee. His right hand stayed on the collar, so he caught himself with the bound upper arm against a wooden rail. Holl’s strap slipped under the force. The left shoulder twisted toward the moving wall. He stayed on one knee until it settled enough for him to stand.

"That strap slipped when you fell. Can you stand, or am I bringing the board back for both of you?" Lema called.

"I’m standing. Tell your crew where to put the board."

Asti shouted her uncle’s name. He leaned out of the mill door and saw Ty approaching from the city rather than from Asti’s kitchen. The man had two hands on the frame, each shaking with the effort of keeping his bad hip off the turning floor.

"Leave the loom, Orren. I know who built it, and I will tell them you brought yourself out," Asti called.

"Your mother built that loom. She’ll ask where I put it."

"She can ask me. She won’t get an answer from you if you stay there."

Ty pinned the collar against his chest with his right forearm, freeing his four fingers. Orren let go of the loom. Ty caught his coat with his right hand and drew him against his chest. The coat snagged on Ty’s grooved rib without pulling it free. Two of Lema’s workers shoved a flat board under Orren from below. Ty guided his good leg onto it, and the workers hauled while Asti called until he turned toward her voice.

The mill roof struck a pale plate. Its door frame broke, and the empty loom went out into open air. An herb bucket from a farther roof hit the platform; soil scattered around Ty’s feet. To save the gate, Lema’s crew let the mill roof go. Asti saw her uncle clear of the broken doorway, then turned back to the cook’s count before the next family’s roof passed their window.

Lema pulled the gate closed behind Ty and the uncle. Her youngest worker had cut a palm on the frame and needed a cloth from the basket above. Ty moved out of the way while she bound the hand. She pointed him toward a stair broad enough for the uncle’s board.

"My mother’s room is above the lower bakery. You can put him there until his people choose where to go. Keep him off the pale plates; they’re about to fold."

Nessa stayed with Asti and the cook as their roadback drew past the city gate. The cut end of the Rillhold line lay on their floor. Asti’s street no longer used Rillhold as a brake, and the lower walls were still beyond Nessa’s sight. Ty stood on Lema’s walk with Orren; the gap between them was already too wide to cross. Asti kept calling the next roof while she watched the city stair take him away.

The cook’s fingers slipped on his board. Nessa took it in her left hand and called the next answer herself. Through the moving houses she could see the beast turn toward a narrow break in the dark. Lights appeared beyond it, one after another, at heights that did not match any roof she could see on the beast. Lema shifted the uncle’s board onto the bakery stair and shouted back over the gap.

"We cross when the plates fold. He needs a place to lie down before then."

Ty took one front corner of the board with his right hand. Lema’s workers took the other corners, leaving the bound shoulder clear. The collar tugged at his wrist as he climbed. Nessa held the count board where Asti could read it, then looked again toward the gap in Rillhold’s west approach. The market still had open sky above it. She could not see the lower walls or tell anyone there what she had done to the western pull.