By the time the second evacuation bell sounded, Sẹ́ni had stopped asking people to save the medicine.
An apprentice stood before her with a sealed sample case clutched to his chest. The case contained cultures prepared over months of work, some of them impossible to replace without returning to settlements hundreds of miles away.
“The preservation seals are intact,” he said. “If we take the eastern wagon—”
“Can it carry patients?”
He blinked. “The wagon?”
“The case.”
“No, Physician.”
“Then put it down and help with the carriers.”
“But Dàre’s work—”
“Dàre’s work is to keep people alive.”
That ended the argument. The apprentice lowered the case onto a bench as gently as if it held a sleeping child, then hurried towards the treatment shelters.
For an instant Sẹ́ni looked at the wooden box. Years of observations lay inside it. She knew the names of the people who had gathered them and the roads they had travelled to do so. Tomorrow, if there was a tomorrow, the loss would be worth mourning.
Tonight she needed hands.
“Walking patients to the southern lane!” she called. “Carriers on the right. Keep the centre open for the guards!”
The medical clearing had always been busy. On ordinary days, Sẹ́ni could recognise the apprentices by their voices as they called for supplies. Tonight every familiar voice sounded different. Lanterns jerked on their ropes as workers dragged portable beds into the road. Mothers called for children lost in the crowd. Somewhere beyond the wagons, a timber barricade groaned under the pressure of the attack.
Simi came through the door of the treatment shelter supporting an elderly woman.
“Where should I take her?”
“With the walking group. Then find your brother.”
“He was carrying blankets.”
“Find him anyway.”
Simi nodded and led the woman towards the marked lane. Her earring swung against her cheek; the ivory bead was the same as the one Sẹ́ni had straightened on Khepri the day of the crossing.
Sẹ́ni turned away before the thought could slow her.
* * *
Khepri found Tàlé beside the transport wagons, trying to manoeuvre a patient carrier around a stack of crates.
Meka lay on its suspended platform, gripping the rail with his stronger hand. Two handlers were fastening the straps while his mother cleared a path through the crowd.
Khepri recognised the frame immediately. He remembered Simi testing the locks and the careful, controlled trial at Ibara’s workshop. This was the first time the carrier would have to help someone beyond a demonstration.
“That’s ours.”
Tàlé glanced up. “Yes.”
“You said it still needed testing.”
“It does. The other carriers are occupied, and Meka can’t manage the journey on foot.”
Khepri stared at the familiar joints. He knew precisely how much weight they had survived on Ibara’s testing rig. He also knew that an exhausted pair of handlers on a crowded road could load a device quite differently from the carefully arranged weights in a workshop.
“The left locking pin sticks,” he said.
“We’ve checked it.”
“It sticks under sideways pressure. Look.”
He put his fingers beneath the rail and pushed. The latch held until the frame tilted, then dragged against its housing. He had planned to replace the collar the following morning.
The following morning suddenly seemed like a foolish luxury.
“Can you make it safe enough to move?” Tàlé asked.
“I can improve the clearance. I can’t promise what happens if somebody drops the whole thing.”
“Neither can I. Make the adjustment.”
Khepri took a prepared bronze fitting from his tool case. His Assembly Spark drew its fragments into the air above his palm. He pictured the collar as he had measured it, then altered the inner gap by a narrow margin. Material gathered around the existing joint, settled, and hardened.
He let go of the Chi.
The pin clicked shut.
He opened it, closed it, then tilted the frame and tried again. Tàlé repeated the test before signalling to the handlers.
“Good,” the physician said.
Meka gave a faint grin. “I always knew you would make something useful.”
“You told me it looked like a broken clothes rack.”
“It did.”
“A remarkably ungrateful patient.”
Meka’s mother reached to touch Khepri’s shoulder, but a crash sounded from the northern approach. Dust fell from the roof of the nearby wagon. The carrier lurched as one of the handlers flinched.
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Simi appeared at the doorway.
“Khepri!”
He snatched up his case.
“Coming.”
He did not look back until the handlers had started moving Meka towards the road.
* * *
At the northern barricade, the timber finally gave way.
Bọ́dé had ordered the defenders to prepare their retreat before the first support failed. Even so, the wall fell faster than he expected. One beam buckled against a wagon; another tore free of its fastenings. Thralls forced themselves through the opening, climbing across the timber and one another without regard for the arrows striking around them.
The nearest shields turned. Guards withdrew in pairs, one facing the horde while the other moved backward to the next wagon.
Dàre loosed an arrow at a Thrall already climbing over the broken supports. The shaft struck its upper body. He held the connection long enough for Accretion to magnify the impact, knocking the attacker back into those behind it.
He released the technique before the strain could build.
Another Thrall leaped into the opening. The guards met it with spears, but three more climbed over the fallen wagon while they were occupied.
Dàre aimed at a timber post supporting a suspended panel. His arrow struck true.
He gathered a second impact around the point of contact.
Wood cracked. The panel fell across the passage, scattering the foremost attackers and buying a little space.
“Move!” he shouted.
Bọ́dé seized a stumbling guard by the collar and pulled him towards the retreat lane.
The boy tried to speak.
“Later,” Bọ́dé told him.
They passed the second wagon. Dàre checked the road behind them. Evacuees were still entering the southern lane, their lanterns close enough together to resemble a single wavering ribbon. Every delay held the attackers away from people who could neither fight nor run quickly.
But not every defender could be recovered.
An alarm came from the left. A guard had fallen beside a cart, and another was trying to drag him clear. Dàre turned his bow towards the attacking Thrall and fired. The arrow struck; an Accretion pulse forced the creature off balance.
For a moment the path was open.
Then another Thrall sprang from beneath the cart.
The rescuer fell. Dàre stepped forward.
Bọ́dé caught his arm.
“Look at the road.”
Thralls were pouring past the broken barricade. If Dàre left the line, the horde would cut him off from the retreating guards, and the gap he was defending would be unprotected.
The fallen men were within sight.
They were no longer within reach.
Dàre took another step, then saw three families trying to pass through the gap behind him. He brought his bow around to cover them. Bọ́dé’s grip remained on his arm.
“Fall back,” he said.
Bọ́dé did not release his arm until they were moving together.
* * *
Ibara was trying to turn a research wagon through the eastern passage when Khepri reached her.
Two handlers had pulled its front wheels into a space too narrow for the long body to follow. The rear axle pressed against a stone boundary wall. A third man stood in front of the wagon, giving advice which nobody seemed inclined to use.
“Pull harder!” he shouted.
“Pull your own head off,” Ibara replied. “It would be equally useful.”
Khepri examined the wheel positions.
“Don’t pull. Lift the front axle.”
Ibara looked at him.
“The wagon will turn around the rear wheels,” he explained. “You only need enough clearance to swing the front across.”
“The axle is already under load.”
“Then put the jack beneath the reinforced beam, not the outer rail.”
She followed his finger to the underside of the frame.
For once, she offered no argument.
“Get the jack.”
The handlers brought it. Ibara checked its footing, made everyone stand clear and lifted the frame just enough to let the front wheels move. The men pushed carefully. One wheel struck a stone and the wagon tilted.
“Stop!” she ordered.
Khepri pointed to the jammed edge. “Back a fraction. The support is catching.”
They shifted it, adjusted the angle and completed the turn.
A passage opened beside the wagon. Patients and attendants began streaming through it.
“Good,” Ibara said. “Now go.”
“There are more wagons.”
“I’m aware.”
“We could use a second jack and—”
“Khepri.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. Her grip was strong and steady.
“Your sister needs you more than my wagons do.”
His eyes moved towards the road. A family was trying to push an elderly man through the opening they had cleared.
“Are you coming?”
“When I can.”
He wanted to make her promise. He had begun to understand that promises were not tools people could rely on merely because they wanted them to work.
So he nodded, picked up his case and ran.
* * *
The first use of Accretion that night had been easy enough. Every following application had demanded another measured draw upon reserves already strained by the hunt. His fingers were losing their steadiness, and the rhythm of his breathing had become uneven.
He knew the signs. He had taught other cultivators to recognise them.
Knowing what to do and having the luxury to do it were different matters.
“Dàre!”
Làmi landed beside him from a low platform. She thrust a small bottle into his free hand.
“From the medical stores.”
The openwork bronze sleeve protected a glass flask of deep green Agbo. Prepared leaves hung within the liquid, holding a measured reserve of Chi for gradual absorption. It could ease depletion and steady circulation. It could not repair overstrained veins or erase the work his body had already done.
He drank a little, grimacing at the bitterness.
Làmi watched his face.
“Well?”
“Terrible. As always.”
“You’re welcome.”
He waited for the warmth to spread through his circulation, then loosened his grip on the bow. His hand steadied enough to draw again.
“Better,” he admitted. “Not enough to waste.”
“Then don’t.”
Across the road, the pressure on the defenders changed.
The nearest Thralls had been fighting to reach the wagons moments earlier. Now several pulled away from the shields. A few still charged wildly and collided with their own retreating companions, but farther back the horde was shifting towards the forest.
Bọ́dé approached, favouring one leg.
“They’re withdrawing.”
The defenders had held their ground, but Dàre saw groups moving away almost together, turning towards something beyond the trees.
“They shouldn’t be doing that,” Làmi said.
A retreat should have brought relief.
Dàre felt none.
“Don’t pursue,” he ordered. “Get the injured to the bridge.”
Bọ́dé nodded. He did not need a second instruction.
* * *
The brief withdrawal allowed Sẹ́ni to reach the last treatment station.
She found two physicians packing instruments while an apprentice knelt beside a covered patient, unable to stop crying.
“We can’t take the large cases,” Sẹ́ni said to the physicians. “Move the injured first.”
They obeyed.
The apprentice looked up when Sẹ́ni crouched near her.
“I couldn’t help him.”
Sẹ́ni followed her gaze to the covered shape.
The girl’s hands trembled so badly that she could scarcely hold her recording board.
“You stayed,” Sẹ́ni said. “You followed the physician’s instructions, and you made sure he wasn’t alone.”
“But he still—”
“I know.”
She would not tell the girl that care guaranteed survival. Elune’s children learned too early how often it did not.
“Can you walk?” Sẹ́ni asked.
The apprentice nodded.
“Then take these records and join the southern carriers. The living still need us.”
The girl stood, wiped her face and accepted the board.
Sẹ́ni watched her join the evacuation before turning towards the great tree.
The feast tables lay overturned beneath its lanterns. Pieces of embroidered cloth had caught on broken wagon rails. Somewhere in the dark, a pot still hissed over an abandoned cooking fire.
Dàre had been home for only a few hours.
Bọ́dé emerged from the northern road.
“Everyone across the river,” he said.
“We’re trying.”
“Faster.”
She studied him. He was breathing hard, and his shield arm hung low.
“What did you see?”
“Nothing I can explain.”
He glanced towards the forest.
“The Thralls withdrew. I don’t think it means they’ve finished.”
Sẹ́ni looked north. The silence beyond the wagons felt deliberate.
She turned back towards the carriers.
“Leave any equipment that cannot be carried by hand. Move all remaining patients to the bridge. Now.”
The apprentices moved.
Above them, the lanterns of Elune still burned, beautiful and useless against what waited in the trees.