Chapter 4 — Part 2: Four at the Hinge
Morning came up through the slats. The delta market yawned itself awake. Kara woke with a ledger's shape in her hands. Jax woke like a man whose spine had been used as a ladder and forgave the night for it. Ronan woke already still. KrysKo had been awake, pretending not to be so the others could believe in sleep.
Senn walked the dock with a soldier's quiet. "Eat. Harness. Load. We move with the second bell."
The chime-stone sat in its sling, vibrating. The sealed Mechanum trunk rode the last wagon again, hum tucked under tarp, pretending to be an object instead of a decision.
"Routes?" KrysKo asked Senn.
"Old Causeway," Senn said, tapping her map. "Two raised spans, one collapsed trestle. If someone wants to take us, they'll do it here or here."
"Vulture?" Jax asked.
"Rumor says he doesn't risk his own hands unless the prize sings." She cut a look at the trunk. "We'll assume he's deaf and be grateful if we're wrong."
They rolled.
The first mile was market-thin. Then the causeway took them—a long, narrow ribbon of rubble over flats like mottled skin.
"Keep the wheels on the old seams," Senn called.
[Terrain analysis: bearing load acceptable. Lateral drift risk ↑. Anomaly: mechanical resonance ahead, low-frequency.]
KrysKo lifted his head. "Not the stone," he thought.
Not the stone, the warm system agreed. Something built. And worried.
Jax jogged ahead, thumped the second span's cross members, and listened. "Left-hand runners are singing. They'll carry if we don't change the tune. Keep weight centered. Nobody bounce."
Halfway across, Ronan watched the reeds to the south where wind ran one way and one line of stalks argued back. "Eyes," he said softly. The column slowed.
The third span was a levee of broken concrete that offered a bottleneck. A rusted sign lay half-buried: NO STOPPING ON CAUSEWAY.
The hum came again—a tight, mean whine under the skin of the air.
"Down!" Senn barked.
KrysKo pulled Kara behind the left wheel. Jax dove under the wagon tongue. Ronan stepped past the chime-stone and took the exposed space.
The Ambush at the Hinge
Nets. Weighted at the edges with cut bearings.
The first net billowed. Ronan stepped into it, shouldered the weights, which barked off his scaled forearm, and let the whole mess slide sideways into a curl that caught only his shoulder.
The second net dropped toward the sling. KrysKo palmed the axle, inverted, and lashed a heel up—meia lua turned narrow. The heel caught a weight mid-fall and knocked the vector just wrong; the net yawed and tangled itself on a post.
"Smoke!" Senn snapped, flinging a clay bulb that burst into a curtain with the smell of wet match-heads.
Bolts followed. One clanked off Ronan's shoulder. Another stapled a student's sleeve to the rail.
Jax rolled out. "Weights are on a drop hinge! Disable!"
He sprinted low along the inside of the levee, jammed his chain through the slot. The next net came, caught the chain, and its weights thumped the dirt. Hinge disabled.
Above, figures broke the smoke. They weren't here to scare.
Senn's staff kissed a skull. "University soil until the chime line. And I have long arms."
The nearest raider went for the sling rope. Ronan arrived with suddenness. The raider's machete skittered off scales; Ronan's knee asked the man's gut a hard question.
KrysKo slid to cut the angle to Kara, putting heel and elbow where the second raider wanted to be. The man arrived to find decisions already made and a palm in his throat that introduced him to the dirt.
"Thanks," Kara whispered. Louder: "Left calf, blood—hold still." She slid the bolt free from the stapled student's arm.
The Mechanum trunk's hum climbed half a note. [Resonance spike: 14%. Proximity response: marginal.]
"Not now," KrysKo hissed at his own chest.
A whistle went up from the far side. The raiders withdrew with professional resentment. One paused at the top of the levee and threw something without weight and too much meaning.
A feather. Metal. Black. It sliced the smoke and landed near the wagon wheel.
"Count," Senn said. All were present. "Move."
They rolled.
"Why the feather? Why declare?" KrysKo asked.
Ronan's mouth tilted. "So the people who feed on fear don't have to waste time telling stories. Symbols teach faster than facts."
Senn touched KrysKo's shoulder. "He's teaching lines. I don't like it when other people write my students."
You like it less than you think, the warm system murmured. Hinges prefer choosing what the door swings on.
They left the flats behind. The University's perimeter chimes gave a low line.
Drevar's Policy
Drevar Hane was waiting outside the Martial office. "Convoy returned," he said, inventorying them.
Drevar's gaze fell to the feather. "Leave that with Council Liaison."
Senn's jaw flexed. KrysKo handed the feather to Jax instead, without being obvious. Jax tapped the tin under his coat. "Filed," he chirped.
Drevar's pale eyes settled on Ronan. "Veyne. You know the Accords."
"I grew up under them," Ronan said.
"They apply on University soil. Try not to remind anyone why they were written."
"East yard at dawn," Senn said to the four of them, cutting across the tension. "We find your distances."
Jax promised a loud horn. "Bring the rope," Senn said, already walking. "And leave the horn in whatever drawer keeps you employed."
Bait and the Counter-Glyph
The next day delivered ordinary tasks: drills in the morning, lectures in the afternoon. Evening: the summons they pretended not to expect.
"Round two," Jax said. "Do we get a loyalty card?"
Senn waited with a map. "Council says 'observe.' I say 'walk while watching.' We'll use the Orchard line. Questions?"
"Are we bait?" Jax asked.
"Yes," Senn said. "But we are the sort that bites back."
They went light—no chime-stone, no trunk.
At the collapsed trestle, the bridge had learned new tricks. Jax found new boards had been laid, hiding a hollow space below. "Hollow space under. They want a foot through, a fall, a scream, a pull. Not today."
At the last span, the world offered them a thing that was not a trap and still felt like one.
A boy, Ril, stood on the levee, hands up. In the reeds below, two men lay very still.
Kara was moving before her name finished forming. Ronan stepped in parallel. KrysKo hung back a pace, letting the part of him made for doors stand in the door.
Jax slid along the inside face. "Too quiet. Not a trap is a trap if it learns you."
Kara knelt by the boy. The men were dead: one by a bolt, the other by river and bad timing.
"They said the feather means safety," Ril whispered. "They took everything. A chime-stone shard."
"Direction?" Senn asked.
Ril pointed. "South flats. The barge grave. They lit a smoke there."
Senn decided instantly. "We go look."
They left Ril at the road.
The barge grave was a suggestion in reeds. They found footprints and a mark carved under a rail.
A feather, scratched in reverse.
Jax crouched. "Counter-glyph. They're marking routes. If you know which way to stand, you can read it like a map."
"He has lieutenants," KrysKo said. "They need shorthand to follow."
A woman stepped out of the grass—Ril's mother—with a bolt thrower. "I know," she said to Senn. "I just wanted to say it once today and have it work."
Kara gasped. "He's at the road. Alive."
"Good," Ril's mother said, her mouth trembling. "They're headed for the rail cut by the orchard. They like to walk where old iron sings."
"He likes it," Jax said softly. "He," not "They."