The loose molar caught Dane from above and struck his base hard enough to turn the fall sideways.
His long edge hit wet stone. Lye water drove him down the chute with a carpet of canvas, stiff shirts, severed pack straps, and apron strings. A button vanished under his brass corner and broke. Beneath the copper, sweet rot coated the back of his mouth.
A boot buckle gouged his lid and dragged a strip of uniform through the lye.
The molar struck Dane again, then rolled ahead. Bodies found him in its wake. Brant’s borrowed shield rang beneath his left end before scraping toward the rear; boot pressure followed it, uneven and desperate. A cracked sword scabbard knocked Dane’s brass on the other side. Holt’s prayer cord whipped across the wounded rear root, its bead catching a stone tooth while the free length stayed wound through his harness.
Three rod tips hit in separate places. Rods one and two bit opposite walls. The folded third bounced against Dane’s rear panel and remained in Ada’s grip.
Tess’s bad left ankle flared through the damaged Party Link when she hit. Her glass-cutter handle clicked once against Dane’s corner and stayed clear of the falling limbs. Ahead of his front lock, Vera’s breath scraped close to stone; her wand shaft and chalk pouch tapped against the same wall.
The chute narrowed beneath them. Root-deep teeth worked in two banks, their blunt contacts traveling through the stone under Dane. Square grates clattered between the impacts, each connected to a parallel shaft too narrow for an armored body.
A sluice opened.
"Water!" Ada shouted.
The burst struck Vera first. Burned-hand pain flashed across the Party Link as both of her palms lost the wall. One hand caught a root by the fingertips. Her full weight pulled through that arm, then dropped toward Dane’s front seam.
Brant shoved the shield under Dane’s left corner with his boots and protected splinted forearm. Wood flexed. His right arm contributed nothing.
Dane shifted one handspan away, then another. Wet canvas tightened beneath his base and accelerated him toward Vera’s heat.
His delayed flap lifted. The reduced tongue pressed for the gap before he had decided what to do with it. If she fell inside, his teeth could stop her. His stomach could keep her.
"Dane, front handle. One breath?"
He knocked the loop against stone and turned his lock away.
Vera’s burned hands closed on iron. She used his sliding weight to swing her boots into the wall. As her body cleared his seam, the pressure left his handle and the sluice carried them onward.
Four hook points struck through the left bypass grate.
Two ground high in its bars. Two more drove into separate tooth roots across the main chute. All four contacts stayed loaded while a short skinning hook scraped below them.
"Recovery order says carrier line first," Voss called over the water. "Keep your fingers out of my cut."
The hook found Holt’s prayer cord between the tooth root and his harness.
Fibers parted. Holt dropped.
Ada drove rod three across Dane’s rear and caught Holt by the belt. Its folded tip straightened a fraction under his weight just as the next sluice hit all of them, and rod three broke at its old split.
Ada kept the shorter half. The other piece spun away, striking stone until the chute swallowed its sound. Holt hit Dane’s rear panel chest-first and wrapped both arms around the surviving loop of the freshly notched strap root.
Living leather opened under him.
Heat peeled through fibers that held Dane’s Travel Trunk shape together. Holt’s cut palms slid across the root. The smell of his blood entered Dane’s seam, and the delayed flap flew wider.
Holt’s hands hung within reach of Dane’s teeth.
The tongue found salt first, then a pulse. Holt would fit if Dane broke the shoulders. One body gone meant less weight for the chute to pull apart.
Holt stopped struggling.
"Dane."
No prayer followed his name.
Voss’s skinning hook scraped toward Holt’s fingers. Brant put his splinted left forearm across the path. The point glanced off wood, cut a furrow above the binding, and buried itself in Dane’s hanging root.
Brant’s breath broke. "That was the arm I had left."
Voss twisted for another cut.
Tess drove her glass cutter into a wall seam below them. The little head screamed against stone, held for one heartbeat, and gave her enough purchase to kick Voss’s wrist. His hook tore free of Dane and struck a tooth.
Vera reached the open rear loop and stopped before contact.
"Cord through this root. Will you let me?"
Dane forced his flap down once. His tongue remained against Holt’s wrist.
Vera caught the severed line from Holt’s harness, threaded it through the bloody loop, and hauled the running end toward Brant’s left side. Holt shifted two inches out of Dane’s mouth.
Voss’s lower hooks dug harder into their tooth roots. His upper pair crawled one bar down the bypass grate, keeping his torso stretched across the chute.
"Let the carrier go," he told Vera. "Grib only needs the trunk intact."
The skinning hook left the wall and cut air toward Vera’s breath.
Dane’s tongue began curling around Holt’s wrist.
He bit the split tip against his own inner floor.
Pain broke the feeding pull, and the tongue loosened from Holt’s wrist.
The Travel Trunk shape answered at the torn root. Strap Cinch closed living leather around the prayer cord and locked it against Dane’s panel.
One breath.
Holt stopped sliding. Vera leaned away with the running end across one shoulder while Brant forced his shield and splinted arm beneath the line. Holt’s weight stopped dragging toward Dane’s mouth. It went through the cinched root into Vera’s shoulder and Brant’s shield.
Two breaths.
The cinched root tore wider. Heat spread across Dane’s back, and his delayed flap shuddered around the tongue he was still biting.
The two high contacts drove against the grate without releasing. Both lower roots answered with equal strain. Voss’s hand-hook crossed toward Vera’s breath while all four points screamed under the shift.
Ada jammed rods one and two across the next narrowing tooth bank. Tess wrenched her cutter sideways in its seam. Something heavy struck their slanted barrier, and the prayer cord dragged over it instead of snapping clear.
Three breaths.
Dane released the root.
Holt’s falling weight straightened one side of the cord. Vera and Brant held the other. The bight snapped tight behind both of Voss’s lower knee joints while his good upper hooks kept his torso fixed to the grate.
The living teeth contracted around the loaded line. Cord hauled down while roots closed inward, until Voss’s lower-left joint cracked between them.
His hook missed Vera and buried itself in the wall. The good upper pair shrieked across the grate as his whole body dropped onto them. One tore free, struck the next bar, and caught again.
Voss tried to uncurl the surviving lower hook from its tooth root. Holt dropped another handspan. The cord sawed behind that knee before the foot cleared.
The opposite tooth closed.
The second lower joint burst. Hot black blood pattered across Dane’s lid, carrying a mineral stink strong enough to wake every tooth in his seam. Voss screamed until the water broke the sound apart.
With Voss still screaming, his good upper hooks ripped free of the first grate and struck the lower bypass together. Its bars bowed around both impacts, but the hooks caught. Farther down, his two ruined lower hooks beat uselessly against the squares.
"Rook!" His next breath came wet. "I know the discharge. You haven’t lost me."
The second tooth bank closed between them.
Ada pulled rods one and two free before the living roots could take them. Her empty third grip struck Dane’s rear panel. Holt rolled off Dane’s seam with one palm clamped over Brant’s new cut.
Tess’s cutter blade snapped in its wall seam. The bare handle struck Dane’s corner, and her injured right hand closed around it again. The noise she made then was smaller than her ankle cries.
Dane hit the next tooth broadside. Brass peeled from his corner. Old belts tangled the remaining rear leather and began rolling his long flap over Vera.
The torn root tried to cinch. It produced one hot spasm and failed.
"Dane—one pull on the rear leather?"
He tapped once.
Vera pulled until his long edge faced down the chute. The strap slid from her burned hands as the next belt snapped; she hit the wall clear of his mouth.
Blunt teeth punched filthy cloth against Dane’s sides. Aprons, buckles, finger bones, and half a harness burst through the gaps. A tarnished laundry token skipped across his open flap.
His tongue moved toward it.
Dane slammed the flap before the token crossed his teeth. Metal bounced away and vanished beneath the lye water.
Holt’s prayer breath never recovered its rhythm. Each time Dane’s seam lifted, fear pulled through the damaged link before Holt could smother it. He kept one bleeding hand on Brant rather than reaching for Dane again.
The chute floor vanished.
A rubbery throat squeezed Dane’s corners and spat the group into a lower chamber before anyone had found a landing. Vera struck his front edge and rolled away. Holt collided with Brant’s shield. Two surviving rod tips rang against stone. Tess’s left ankle flared, and the cutter handle scraped beyond Dane’s rear.
Dane landed last with enough weight to flex the floor beneath his full base.
Lye water tugged along channels between raised stone ridges. Rows of iron shackles rattled against table edges without any worker voice or weight answering them. Above, three heavy shafts answered Dane’s impact at different depths, each carrying the slow pressure of a vertical press.
Cistern water moved behind slats above and to the right. Armor shifted there. So did recovery chain.
Two mouths in the living route board spoke over each other. One voice came through the gallery.
"MISSING ASSET: CISTERN FORK."
The other vibrated through the floor under Dane.
"MISSING ASSET: SORTING FLOOR."
"A location report cannot disagree with itself," Grib said above.
Skarn’s chain dragged across the slats. "The lower one screamed."
Tess was still sliding into Ada when the middle press unlocked.
The center shaft started down.