Chapter 79 Please Remain Ahead of the Teeth

“Spindleback,” Lark said.

He showed Jin a second drawing, copied by a hunter who'd helped capture it.

At first Jin thought it was a wheel.

Then he saw the joints.

Eight long limbs curled around a round body. Pale blades grew along their outer edges. With three limbs against the ground, the others could fold over it, carrying the creature forward in a rolling rush.

“It climbs?” Jin asked.

“Stone. Wood. People.”

“Very inclusive.”

“The limbs can open separately. Don't assume it stays round.”

Jin looked at the small human figure beside the drawing.

The creature's central body was bigger than the man's chest. Unfolded, its legs reached across most of the passage.

“Then let's get out before the bell.”

They walked to the north ridge with the other crews. There were bright jackets, polished spearheads, a woman with a shield wider than her shoulders and a man arguing that his team should have eaten less breakfast.

Kessa finished her bread while he talked.

At the tower, a gate hunter checked their four names and handed Nell a brass badge on a short cord.

“All four through the far door with this,” he said. “One person carrying four boots doesn't count.”

“There goes my plan,” Jin murmured.

Nell put the cord around her wrist.

The hunter tapped the lower corner of their handbill.

“Your entrance is here. Old cistern stairs. Two minutes between crews. First door at noon; pursuit bell at one.”

“Steam channels?” Lark asked.

The man nodded.

“Some are open. Follow the painted arrows to the hall. After that, find your own route.”

Jin looked past him.

A square of cloudy quartz hung over the waiting area. Inside it, a moving picture showed the hall beyond the entrance stairs. Two gate workers were walking through, testing the lamps.

Jin watched one worker disappear through the west arch and waited for the picture to follow. It didn't.

“They can see us?”

“In that hall,” Nell said. “There are fixed viewing stones. Past the west arch, it's old ruin.”

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“Excellent. Privacy after the dangerous part.”

“Privacy is the dangerous part.”

They stepped aside for the next crew.

A young hunter in blue armor looked at Jin, then at the little painted mug lashed inside the open top of his pack.

“You're the quarry man.”

“Sometimes.”

“Merrit says you taught a bell-eater manners.”

“Merrit says a lot.”

The hunter grinned.

“I'm Edrin. If we meet inside, leave me something with legs.”

“I'll try not to take yours.”

Edrin laughed and went back to his crew.

His front man, Berren, was tightening the buckles on a broad forearm guard. A spearwoman called Tova checked the straps at his back while their fourth, Iven, shook a water flask beside Edrin's ear.

“You forgot it.”

“I was making friends.”

“Make one with a flask.”

Edrin took it, still grinning, and tucked it into his belt.

Jin watched Berren test the guard with a short punch into his other palm. The man caught him looking and raised it in a friendly challenge.

Jin raised his mug.

Berren laughed first.

Kessa watched Edrin turn back to his companions.

“At least that one listens.”

Across the waiting area, someone else had recognized Jin from Merrit's show. The story moving between crews grew a little more impressive every time it passed a new pair of ears.

Lark refused to correct the version involving a funeral procession.

“You started it.”

“I was under professional pressure.”

At twelve twenty-four by the tower clock, their gate opened.

Jin set a thirty-six-minute countdown on his phone, put it away and followed Nell down.

The stone steps had been hollowed by years of boots. Nell kept to the edges where the tread was thicker. Kessa followed a pace behind, leaving room for the bow she carried low in one hand.

Jin glanced back once. Sunlight lay across the top step, bright enough to hide the faces looking down after them.

Then the turn took it away.

Cold air rose out of the stairwell. Beneath it came a warmer breath smelling of iron and wet clay.

The first painted arrow pointed left.

The second had peeled halfway off the wall.

“Reassuring,” Jin said.

Nell raised a hand. They stopped talking.

Something scraped below them.

Kessa drew an arrow. Lark moved to the outside of the bend, sword low. Jin took three ordinary steps along the inner wall, checking where the tread was still sound.

The scraping stopped.

Then something heavy fell against the far side of the door at the bottom.

Nell looked back at them, put one palm against the wood and pushed.

It opened an inch.

Hot air hit their faces.

She pushed harder.

The door swung inward, dragging across a long, tooth-scored groove in the stone.

Beyond it lay the hall from the viewing stone.

It did not look the same from inside.

Steam drifted between the pillars. Iron grilles divided the floor into narrow lanes. A broken drinking fountain stood below the nearest lamp.

Under its dripping spout, something brown and thick-bodied was drinking the hot runoff.

It lifted its head.

Two enormous front teeth shone like knife blades. Its shoulders rose higher than its small ears, and its foreclaws were long enough to fit through the grooves in the grilles.

“Ironmouth,” Nell said quietly.

The creature took one last drink.

Then it bit through the fountain pipe.

Water burst against the ceiling.

The ironmouth came down on all fours and charged them.