The three hooks rose before Dane could fall.
Through the split long flap at his left corner, one raked deep, gathered the loose leather, and peeled it up Dane’s side before the chain reached full tension. At his forward lock, the second struck and turned, its point grinding along the gap behind the brass plate. The third crossed above his lid toward Vera.
Brant caught that one on his borrowed shield. Chain snapped tight across wood and drove the rim into the binding on his left forearm. The cut above the splint opened. His dead right arm stayed pinned between mail and ribs.
The lock hook pulled next.
Dane clamped its shaft between his teeth before the point seated behind the plate. Iron struck the two missing sockets in his Travel Trunk seam and bent against the crooked tooth. The claim line stayed connected to the tag below his lock.
The flap hook hauled living leather out of his left corner.
* * *
Ada had one clear look over the ledge before the three chains changed every angle.
The lower shelf waited six feet down under knee-deep overflow water. It sloped left toward a trench deep enough to swallow the current. A wall-to-wall maintenance chain crossed the shelf through a guide and anchor between the landing area and an opposite retreat arch.
The narrow scout crouched at that arch with two wall hooks. One scraped in the grip where the chute had taken palm skin.
Skarn stood unarmored beside the maintenance anchor. Three custody chains ran through his left hand. His right thumb, palm, and wrist were sealed in one black-wax sleeve to a counting slate braced against his thigh.
Behind him, the last runner had wrapped the maintenance chain across one hip. Orange labor marks circled both wrists. She set her boots against the shelf and took the load willingly.
"I have the anchor," she called to Skarn. "Pull them off the ledge."
Ada turned back to the party. "Six feet to a shelf that slopes left. Knee-deep water, chain across the middle, scout at the opposite arch. Skarn has all three lines in his left hand and the slate sealed to his right."
* * *
Skarn’s voice rose from below. "Straps first. I want the trunk intact when the carriers stop helping."
The flap hook tore another inch of leather.
Brant’s shield chain jerked toward the drop. His boots lost the narrow ledge, then his knees. Vera caught the back of his belt before the dead right shoulder struck Dane’s seam.
Ada crossed both rods behind Vera’s legs and braced their ends against the rejection-throat lip. Holt wrapped his arms around Ada’s waist. Tess planted her good right boot and let the injured left drag. Pain hit the Party Link when the ankle turned under the shared load.
All five adults slid toward Dane’s open flap.
His body offered him room.
If he released the lock hook, Brant went over first. Four carriers weighed less than five. Damaged meat would wait in the water below, close enough to feed after Skarn pulled the others apart.
Dane bit the iron shaft harder.
It buckled across his crooked tooth.
Vera’s breath came close to his front corner. "Dane, one shove there. I let go when your weight clears Brant."
He struck the offered corner against the ledge once.
Vera released Brant’s belt, planted both wrapped palms on the corner, and shoved. The hook in Dane’s flap took his weight. Split leather lengthened, swinging his long frame across the shield chain until the third hook lost its angle on Brant.
Her hands left the corner. Brant dragged his shield back under his left side.
Ada shifted rod one without surrendering the brace. "We land behind the shield. Mouth uphill. When I count two, we go before Skarn chooses for us."
She reached one.
Skarn hauled all three lines.
Dane left the ledge with Vera, Brant, Ada, Holt, and Tess tangled against his split side.
They struck knee-deep water as one load. Dane landed on his right edge with the bent lock-hook shaft still between his teeth. The point finally caught behind the brass plate without becoming a new hook. Brant took the shelf shield-first. Vera rolled uphill of Dane’s mouth. Ada kept both rods, though Holt’s landing bent rod one farther. Tess went under, surfaced coughing, and kept the cutter handle clenched in her right hand.
The maintenance chain vibrated beneath the water ahead of Dane. Its anchor answered every pull with a deep iron knock.
Skarn waded close enough for his three claim lines to tighten at different angles.
The flap hook tore free, passed beneath Dane’s lower front strap, and punched through the loose length two handspans from the seated root. The lock hook stayed bent in Dane’s teeth with its point behind the plate. The shield hook swept low and caught Brant above the left splint.
Brant’s fingers opened. The left arm pulled away from his chest while the right contributed nothing.
"Carriers first," Skarn said. "The trunk will still be here when you bleed out."
Tess lunged through the water and drove the bladeless cutter handle through the shield hook’s eye. Holt closed both torn palms around the handle beside hers. They turned together until the barb faced away from Brant’s elbow.
Skarn pulled.
The barb ripped cloth and the existing cut rather than taking the joint. Brant fell against Dane with his left hand hanging open. The fingers still moved.
The force at Dane’s lock intensified. Through his tag, the black-wax seal felt like a nail pushed from the inside. Skarn’s right hand never left the slate. His left gathered the three chains shorter.
Behind him, the runner tightened the maintenance chain another link. Water struck Dane’s base from a steeper angle.
Grib spoke through a channel in the wall. "Maintain claim tension until the asset is secured."
The runner shifted the chain higher across her hip. "I have it."
Orange marks warmed along both wrists. At this point they reinforced work she had already chosen.
The maintenance chain rose beneath Dane’s long frame. A trunk could cross it only by rolling.
Skarn drove his sealed right palm harder into the slate. Hook B pulled behind the lock while its shaft forced Dane’s damaged mouth a finger’s width open.
Then Skarn changed Hook A’s route.
The point ripped out of the punctured lower-front strap and snapped toward Vera. She ducked the first pass. Its returning chain wrapped her left forearm and dragged her through the water toward Skarn’s slate hand.
Vera kept her burned hands on the chain cutting her sleeve. "Dane, may we put your lower-front strap under the maintenance chain for one loop, until your third breath ends?"
He knocked his iron corner against a submerged link.
Ada raised the intact strap with rod one. Holt supported the leather from beneath with cloth around his torn palms; no rod entered his hands. Vera pushed the strap under the chain with the sole of her boot while Tess caught the far end on the cutter handle and drew it over Dane’s base.
One loop.
Vera’s boot left the leather.
Skarn pulled Hook A’s chain around her forearm, drawing her another step closer.
Dane reached Strap Cinch through the seated lower-front root.
One breath.
The strap tightened around the submerged maintenance chain. Its root split at the base beneath Dane’s front panel.
Two breaths.
All three hook lines drew toward Skarn. Hook B joined Dane’s teeth and lock to Skarn’s left fist and right-hand slate. Hook A had Vera. Hook C still ran through the cutter handle near Brant and threatened to swing free if Tess or Holt lost it.
Dane’s full length balanced across the maintenance chain. The roll needed one change in weight.
Two free coppers rested inside his compressed inventory, one left of center and one farther right among objects Brackenvault had failed to digest. Dane chose the left copper.
Crude Drag scraped it across his base toward the far right corner.
The coin was almost nothing against his full mass. Balanced on the iron fulcrum, almost nothing crossed the center first. Dane’s right edge sank.
His split left flap opened uphill. The moving copper rolled through blood and torn leather, struck the flooded shelf once, and went over the deep overflow lip.
Its contact vanished, leaving one free copper inside him as the third breath ended.
Vera felt the corner move through the Party Link. "His weight is crossing. Keep the roll alive."
Brant set his shield against Dane’s left side and drove with both legs. Ada put rod one under the rising edge while rod two held Hook C away from her face. Holt pulled the looped strap with hands that left fresh skin on the leather. Tess braced the cutter handle and shoved with her good right foot.
Dane rolled over the maintenance chain.
The lower-front root tore wider. His brass corner struck Skarn’s left wrist, knocking all three custody chains across the submerged anchor.
The reversed maintenance chain caught the runner’s hip wrap first.
She released it.
Both orange marks tightened. Her fingers closed on iron again.
"I let go!" Panic tore the words apart. "Inspector, my hands won’t open!"
Grib’s answer came through stone without a change in pace. "Authorized recovery labor will maintain tension until the asset is secured."
The chain ran backward through its wall guide.
Its first hard pull swept the runner’s boots from the shelf. One ankle entered the guide sideways. A link folded the joint until her boot split and bone scraped iron.
She caught Skarn’s coat with both compelled hands.
His left fist stayed closed around three custody lines instead of taking her wrist. His right remained sealed to the slate against Dane’s claim.
The chain dragged her under.
Her face struck the shelf. Teeth scattered through the water and ticked against Dane’s base. The marked hands stayed locked around the moving links while her body rolled beneath Dane, beneath the anchor, and into the narrow clearance above the overflow trench.
Her chest hit stone on both sides.
Ribs broke in a quick descending run that Dane felt through the chain around his new root. Her last breath reached his underside as bubbles and stopped there.
The chain continued. So did the party.
Dane’s long right edge rose. Skarn’s three hook lines crossed over the maintenance anchor. The moving links tore them out of his left fist and pinned them against iron.
Freed of the lines, Skarn’s left hand snatched the short retrieval pole from his belt and swung.
Ada caught the blow across both rods. Rod two curved. Holt lost the strap and fell in the water beside the runner’s still body.
Skarn’s right hand remained sealed to the counting slate when his own claim dragged it down.
Slate met anchor first. The links took his fingers next. Nails scraped loose. Skin bunched against black iron, then the finger bones flattened with three close cracks.
Skarn screamed and tried to wrench back, but the wax held palm to wood.
His right wrist entered the anchor. Through the water, tendons pulled taut before the moving chain drew them out of the forearm. The wrist bones broke against the next link. Flesh stretched, slipped, and then the sealed hand came away with the counting slate still fixed to its palm.
Hand and slate rolled beneath the water.
Hot blood crossed Dane’s tongue. Black wax broke from the severed seal in bitter threads and dissolved around the three immediate hook lines.
Hook A loosened from Vera’s forearm. Hook B fell out from behind Dane’s lock, leaving the bent shaft to slide from his teeth. Hook C dropped beside Brant’s shield with Tess’s cutter handle still through its eye.
The old Core pressure remained inside Dane’s tag. A different Recovery pull stayed in the surrounding stone. Only Skarn’s immediate three-line custody had failed.
* * *
Ada saw Skarn clamp his left hand over the stump. He remained upright by leaning the retrieval pole against his shoulder.
Across the shelf, two small wall hooks struck down from the retreat arch. The narrow scout descended fast despite the raw places in his palms; one grip slipped, caught again, and put him beside Skarn.
"Under my left shoulder," Skarn told him. Each word came through clenched teeth. "Keep the pole. Leave the slate."
The scout took his weight without touching the stump and dragged him toward the arch. Skarn’s blood marked every step, but he stayed conscious and hostile until stone swallowed their retreat.
The wall channel carrying Grib went silent.
* * *
The maintenance chain kept running. It carried the runner toward the overflow and held the red doors open behind Skarn.
Vera’s burned hands stayed wrapped in wet cloth. She spoke beside Dane’s split lower root. "The route chain is still under your strap. May we use the loose hook to break one link, then clear every tool from you?"
Dane knocked once.
Ada caught Hook C on rod one and threaded it through the wax-softened link. Brant planted the shield against the anchor with his boots while Tess locked the cutter handle through the hook’s eye. Using cloth over their injured hands, Holt and Vera took the pole.
Rod two held the link steady. Everyone leaned.
Wax-soaked iron narrowed around Hook C. The softened link stretched, gave one deep groan through the shelf, and snapped.
The severed chain whipped into the overflow. Red doors struck shut. Living stone closed across the fast pursuit route while the last sheet of water carried the runner out of the anchor gap.
Tess pulled the cutter handle free of Hook C and kept it in her right hand. Ada recovered both rods. With the cracked sword still secured at his hip, Brant sat and laid the shield across his boots. Holt opened his ruined palms above the water as Vera backed beyond Dane’s mouth to loosen her wraps.
One inhalation passed through five living adults.
One exhalation followed.
No hook moved. No claim line answered. Water settled around Dane’s base without bringing another enemy.
His right iron corner folded inward.
The temporary long frame cracked down the middle. Split leather sagged into the water, and beneath the straps, the Travel Trunk shape began to come apart.