15 #4

The villagers began repairing the hull with wood from the empty crates. The Stubborn One would have to wait for a tide and a new mast. Venn estimated two days’ work. By then, the Guard would have returned.

A figure appeared on the headland as evening fell. It raised a green cloth and turned it three times.

Cori came down with Lira Sen.

The woman from the medicine chest had a bandaged hand and mud to her waist. Ovan Fel and Nerin Osa followed. Mer, Jal, and two members of the land team had scattered along a different path to avoid capture again.

Jesa hugged Cori so hard the young woman lost her breath.

“The transport crossed Cen earlier than expected,” Cori explained when she could speak. “We cut the axle on the descent to the bridge. Five got out of the wagon. Lira opened the door from inside.”

“Five?” Isolde asked.

Lira showed her bandaged hand.

“They separated Tesa Brin at the post. A clerk read her name and put her in another wagon.”

“Destination?”

“Esvan depot, in Arvek. The order had an addition: mining classification.”

Ovan handed over a broken tablet. He had managed to get it out of the wagon during the escape. Four names remained, weights, and a tool mark: a ring crossed by three lines.

“The same mark was on crates in Arkhe,” Jesa said.

Isolde remembered the blue metal, the workers sent under C-7, and the cave Rheskan had shown.

“Tesa is still inside the route.”

“And two men from the land team were arrested during the escape,” Cori added. “They drew the guards away so the others could reach the woods.”

The release had changed the count without closing it. Five detainees were out. Three people remained in the regime’s hands. The two rescuers’ names were added beneath Tesa’s: Brann Ec and Oro Nevel.

Jesa spread the map on a wet crate. Cori marked the ambush site, the place where Tesa had been separated, and the route the second wagon had taken. Savia traced an inland trail used by charcoal burners.

“It comes out behind Arvek and climbs to the mines,” she said. “The Guard removed the bells from two galleries last winter. Since then, the wagons go in at night.”

“What did the bells announce?” Isolde asked.

“Cave-ins, gas, and shift changes. Now the silence belongs to the foremen.”

Jesa called the crew to vote. The ship needed hands. Arvek offered new manifests and Tesa’s trail. The mountains held the source of the blue metal.

Rusk was still at Nara’s house. The other seven voted: six black stones chose to continue overland, and one white stone lay beside Ilven, who wanted to protect The Stubborn One.

They agreed to divide the hands. Ilven stayed with Venn and one sailor to repair the hull and care for Rusk.

The other two would accompany Jesa and Cori toward Arvek.

“You can continue toward the mountains,” Jesa told Isolde. “You’ve already paid for part of your passage.”

“The ambush was after our papers too.”

“Then we have shared work until Arvek.”

The captain divided the remaining copies. One traveled with Savia toward Bren. Another was sewn inside Rusk’s blanket. Cori kept the one meant for Cen and would change messengers at dawn. The wagon tablet was wrapped in leather and tucked beneath Kaoran’s shirt.

They climbed the charcoal burners’ trail when darkness covered the coast. The storm was moving toward Arkhe. Below, Velaria’s ship was still trapped outside the arch. Several village boats pretended to go to her aid. Each carried a message toward a different cove.

Rheskan appeared above the clouds. He shared a stretch of mountain and the entrance to an unlit gallery. He had seen wagons, smoke contained beneath grates, and men working around a chain too large for any human prisoner.

Isolde sent him the image of Tesa and the two rescuers. The dragon answered with three approaches. Then he chose the highest for himself.

In Bren, Jesa delivered medicine before collecting payment. She received horses, food, and a guide named Neira. The woman knew the mines’ shifts by their silences: the absence of hammers at dawn, wagons descending with covered wheels, windows closed on smelting days.

“My brother worked in the third gallery,” she said. “One night, they erased his name from the list. Since then, the houses listen to the mountain to learn who’s missing.”

Jesa walked ahead of the horses, far from the vessel she still could not repair.

Cori had an open chafe where she had carried the boat’s rope.

Isolde offered to trade loads, and the young woman accepted.

For a stretch, they walked together, listening to hooves on stone.

Whenever Isolde thought of the originals, she also saw Rusk’s fingers clinging to her sleeve.

Isolde recorded the cost beside the caravan’s eighty-four names.

Rusk: alive, broken leg, in Savia’s care.

Lira, Ovan, Mer, Jal, and Nerin: freed.

Tesa Brin: transferred to Esvan depot.

Brann Ec and Oro Nevel: arrested during the rescue.

Three crates: lost at sea.

Manifests: originals destroyed; four copy routes active.

The last line pointed west.

Arvek and the bell-less mines of the Obsidian Range.