Night settled over the silent outer snare. The Quarrymaw carcass and sealed sensory basket had reached the upper rim under joint Academy and Wildblood lines, leaving no living predator below. Vhar stood before the opened housing while the bent plate hung from one bolt and the central cable entered the stone wall.
Nyra kept Thronebreak angled over the lower cut, where loose pebbles clicked down the drain.
Reth crouched beside the housing after clearing three shallow grooves through its grease.
"There's a room behind this wall," he said. "See the seam? The drum feeds through it, which means whoever did this only had to wake the old equipment."
The supervisor clipped the evidence case to the upper line while Reth measured the spare coil. Sera pushed herself upright beside the west pillar and left her damaged harness on the ground.
"Put me on the rear rope," she said. "I can hold it, but I'm not wearing that harness again tonight."
Reth passed her the rope without arguing. Across the platform, Kavos found a narrow stair and climbed until his bow covered the only approach from above.
Nyra studied the exposed drum. "Nobody goes through that wall until we know what's turning it."
Vhar traced the seam with his eyes. "The cable passes closest to us there, so I can open the wall without stepping onto the platform."
Reth set his hook into the seam. "The grooves meet here, so keep the breach narrow, or the pressure comes through the platform."
Vhar looked from Sera's rope to Kavos above them. "Move the case first, and once it clears the platform, I'll open the wall at the cable."
Nyra turned her head toward him. "What are you doing after the wall opens?"
"I'm going after whatever is turning that drum."
"The same ability you used through the collar?"
"Yes, as long as my hand reaches the iron still turning the cables."
She gave a single nod. "Tell us when you have contact, and we'll hold the machine together until then."
The supervisor braced his ledger against one knee. "Wait. What moved first?"
"The metal moved before any of us touched the housing," Nyra said.
He wrote the answer, checked Sera's rope with one pull, closed the ledger, and blew the horn toward the rim.
HONK!
The answer came back from above. Reth passed the case to the rear line, Sera tied its rope around the iron handle, and Kavos climbed the far stair. Nyra stayed at the edge with Thronebreak held low.
Vhar stepped in front of the sealed wall.
The heavy cable inside the housing tightened.
GRIND!
The drum pulled hard enough to drag the exposed wheel teeth against the bent plate. A broad stone section to Vhar's right shifted out from the wall, pushed by a buried counterweight. It came for the platform at waist height, fast enough to sweep Reth and Sera into the lower cut if it crossed the gap.
"Move the case!" Nyra shouted.
Reth pulled the rope toward the rear line. Sera planted her boots and held it with both hands while the sealed case rose toward the rim.
Vhar planted his feet and uttered in a low voice as he met the stone section with his left fist.
| PRIMEVAL WAR RUIN ART |
His fist drove into the moving block before its edge reached Reth. Stone cracked outward from the point of contact, and the shock carried straight into the buried metal frame behind it.
BANG! CRACK!
The block caved around his knuckles. Its iron ribs folded inward, and the force carried through the counterweight track until the track tore out of the wall in a spray of dust and broken bolts. The stone dropped straight down instead of sweeping across the platform and struck the empty lower cut.
BOOM!
The floor broke beneath it while the safety line stayed clear above the collapse.
The shock traveled back through Vhar's arm and into his shoulder. He didn't lose his footing, yet the strike had also woken the deeper assembly. The wall opened a finger's width around the seam, and an iron beam rammed through the gap toward his middle.
Vhar turned enough to put his body between the beam and Reth, who was still hauling the case line, and drove his heels into the platform.
THUD! CRACK!
The iron struck beneath Vhar's ribs. Stone cracked beneath his heels, but his body did not leave the place he had chosen. The impact didn't stop at muscle or bone. It reached into his gut, squeezed the air out of his chest, and dragged at every organ still working to keep him upright while the quarry shook around him.
For an instant, his lungs, his stomach, and the blood still moving through him all felt the same crushing pressure at once.
Vhar steadied his breath. The beam had never taken his posture. He caught it beneath one arm and drove it back through the opened seam.
BANG! CRACK!
The wall split wider.
The SSS Primeval Bloodforge answered from within him once the beam's weight was gone.
[SSS PRIMEVAL BLOODFORGE: Bloodmark Record]
[ REALM: Bloodless Husk ]
[ BLOODMARK: 5th -> 6th ]
[ CONDITION COMPLETED: Organ-Support Return Circuit Closed ]
[ NEW FUNCTIONS: Your Liver, Kidneys, Gut, Breath, And Whole-Body Circulation Sustain Action Through A Reached External Shock ]
[ UVAR CAPACITY: 48 -> 54 ]
[ UVAR RESERVE: 34 / 54 ]
[End Bloodmark Record]
Behind it lay a narrow control chamber built into the quarry rock. A black iron spindle turned in the center, its lower end fixed into a square base of layered plates. The heavy cable wrapped around the spindle, feeding motion into the outer drum, the buried counterweight, and every remaining line in the lower quarry.
"The case is on the upper line and clear of the platform," Reth called.
Kavos leaned around the far stair with his bow raised. "The stair's clear, and nothing is coming from above."
Nyra moved past the broken counterweight track, her spear sweeping the drain opening. "You have room, but make this quick because the wall is losing stone."
Vhar stepped into the chamber.
The spindle spun faster as he came close. The heavy cable tightened, and the locking bars shifted in sequence across the square base.
CLACK!
The outer drum began to pull again.
Vhar pulled the Academy thread taut.
SNAP!
It parted. He reached over his left shoulder with his right hand, cleared Radrazh's locking throat by a handspan, and rolled the blade through the scabbard's open rear channel.
Radrazh met the first locking bar.
CLANG!
CRACK!
The first bar split through its bolted socket. Radrazh carried the ruin into the shared iron brace, cracked the second bar at its hinge, and folded the third into the layered plate before it could cover the spindle. The ruined brace and bars dropped into the square base.
BOOM!
Iron collapsed around the spindle, leaving room for one arm. Vhar kept Radrazh in his right hand and stepped closer.
He pushed his left hand through the breach until his fingers closed around the iron collar at the spindle's base.
Vhar spoke into the groan of settling iron.
| DEATH OF THE LAST ORDER |
Cold rushed from his fingers into the iron collar. The spindle jerked once, and every tooth dragging the heavy cable reversed against the square base that held it.
SNAP!
The heavy cable recoiled into the chamber, tearing free from the outer drum. The wheel teeth spun without purchase while the whole assembly slowed.
GRIND!
The assembly stopped, and the sound died inside the rock. Vhar cleaned Radrazh on the fallen binding cloth and locked it back into its scabbard.
No machine or beast moved in the lower quarry. The cadence had stopped, and the cables lay slack.
The roof above the chamber shed a curtain of dust.
"Out," Nyra said. "The evidence case is clear, and the wall has started to come down."
He stepped back through the breach just as a slab of stone dropped where he had been standing.
THUD!
Reth pulled him toward the stair. Sera kept the evidence rope tight until the case cleared the rim, and Kavos followed Nyra onto the safer shelf. They passed the damaged descent one person at a time until the lower quarry was behind them.
The damaged stair and loaded evidence line slowed their climb. They reached the upper rim after sunrise, where a medic sat Vhar on an overturned crate and cut the torn cloth away from his bruised ribs.
"Raise your left arm until it pulls," she said.
Vhar lifted it halfway. The deep ache tightened along his side. "There."
She felt along the rib line, watched him breathe, and wrapped his middle. "Bruised rather than broken. Ride back sitting down, keep the scabbards beside you, and come to the clinic if your breathing worsens."
"Alright, I'll sit, and I'll come back if the breathing changes."
"I'll accept half the promise." She tied the bandage and moved on to Sera.
The supervisor lashed the sealed case to the return cart and kept one hand on it whenever the road shook. Vhar kept Radrazh and Ulqor beside his leg where neither scabbard pressed against the bruise throughout the ride.
The afternoon bell sounded as the carts reached the Academy. A gate clerk recorded Radrazh's broken thread, and the supervisor placed the field case and spindle base behind the field-office screen. The Wildblood worker set the Quarrymaw sensory basket beside them and fixed his custody strip across the Academy seal without opening either container.
"The carcass remains are trial evidence until the Academy finishes its reading," he said, "but the habitat record comes back to Wildblood because the fissures have lost their governing predator. We close the boundary until the scavenger paths and neighboring signs settle."
Vhar kept his bandaged hands away from the retained tissue. Killing the Quarrymaw had not made its body his source, and he had chosen neither custody nor Devouring.
"The quarry is closed," the clerk said after reading the report. "Your rescue record goes with the score review."
Sera leaned one hand on the counter. "What about our field access?"
"You haven't lost it because all five of you came back, and the spindle base counts as recovered evidence. Your access stays supervised while the injured candidates recover and we inspect whatever equipment comes next."
She let out the breath she had been holding. "So the sample cost us, but it didn't wipe the whole trial."
"That's right."
Kavos lowered himself onto the bench beside Sera, and Reth stayed with the iron screen until the clerk finished checking every seal. They had returned without the sample, though nobody had been left beneath the quarry and the machinery that tried to kill them now sat where Academy readers could examine it.