The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 97 Beneath the Hanging Load

The pallet stopped above Daren's head.

Six grain sacks hung in its rope cradle, swaying gently over the loading yard. Beneath them, the spirit winch's bronze heel rocked against broken tiles.

“Stay clear of the drop,” Brida whispered.

Daren had no intention of forgetting.

The sixty third morning began with a mist thick enough to soften the station's watch fires. It did not hide people at arm's length. They had entered behind two consenting carters whose delayed deliveries filled the narrow approach, giving the coalition's walkers cover until they reached the unloading yard.

No children rode in those carts. The drivers knew when to unhitch and leave.

Keela's volunteers held the rear causeway. Ysra's people watched the civilian queue and guided it back. Hearthfast's party went for the winch.

Krail saw them before Daren reached it.

“Back from the housing.”

She came down the store steps with a short blade in one hand. Bronze light moved beneath the skin of both forearms.

Daren raised his empty palm.

“We lower the load. Then we talk.”

“You entered my station.”

“You closed our food road.”

Her blade remained low. She was not going to cut a lifting line to frighten him.

Heth would have been easier.

A guard moved toward Brida's lever. Daren saw him glance at the unsupported pallet, then hesitate.

“Stand outside the shadow,” Daren told him.

The man obeyed before remembering who had spoken.

Krail noticed that too. She shifted a half step so she could reach Daren without putting the guard beneath the load. Her discipline made her more dangerous than someone eager to show strength.

Beside the housing, Berrit clipped the barrier chain back onto its side drum with a long hook. He worked from behind the stone curb, exactly where the plan had placed him. The side catch still held the raised beam. When the winch turned under control, the catch could be lifted and the obstruction lowered without dropping it across the queue.

A carter saw the chain settle and began moving his horses away from the beam's sweep. Others followed. The people the soldiers had kept waiting understood a familiar piece of road machinery faster than they understood any claim about who ought to rule it.

A shout rose from the causeway. Soldiers had found Keela's volunteers braced behind the carters' empty frames. The passage was blocked without being destroyed, and there were people on both sides of it.

Krail looked toward the sound.

Daren moved to the winch.

She struck with the flat of her blade, aiming to disable his reaching arm. He turned his staff into its path and carried his new warmth through the good forearm.

The staff split.

The blow drove him against the bronze housing. Pain flashed from wrist to shoulder, but his hand stayed open and working. He had survived one glancing strike from a stronger cultivator. He had not stopped it.

Selka stepped between them with a pole held in both hands, her injured shoulder protected by a narrow stance.

“Look at the heel,” she said.

The pallet swayed again.

Brida had already pushed a broad timber beneath the bronze foot, using a lever from outside the drop line. Berrit, who had volunteered for the operation after explaining exactly which tasks he would perform, drove its wedge from the side. He never went beneath the hanging load.

Krail could reach Daren.

She could also see the housing settling.

“If you break it—”

“We're stopping it breaking,” Brida snapped.

Daren touched the crafted bronze with his uninjured fingers.

A fragment rose beneath the noise.

Set the heel. Let the burden rest.

He repeated it, then looked for a physical answer rather than asking the fragment to become a plan.

A worn keeper slot stood behind the drum. With the heel supported, Brida could align it. The ordinary release beside it would lower the load in measured turns if someone held the wheel.

Krail understood before he spoke.

She put away her blade and caught the wheel herself.

“Lower it.”

Daren worked the release while she bore the force. The pallet descended slowly, its sacks brushing the yard stones before the ropes slackened.

For one breath, enemies stood around a thing they had kept from killing people.

Then soldiers broke through the carters' outer screen.

Osric loosed an arrow into an empty cart board in their path. The warning bought a pause and cost another shaft when a horse trampled it. Four usable arrows remained.

Krail released the wheel.

“Now step away.”

Brida pulled the keeper free from its unloaded slot and backed toward the causeway with it. Without that fitting the station could not safely raise another pallet. The road barrier's hauling chain also ran through the paired drum; its raised obstruction had been lowered during the release.

Civilian carts now had a clear passage beneath the beam.

Daren looked at Krail.

“The food road stays open. Your stores remain yours until their owners make claims.”

“You think one keeper gives you the district?”

“No. Look behind you.”

At the eastern queue, carters were unhitching their military loads. Beyond them, villagers held the approach with spears, poles, and the plain determination of people whose roofs had appeared on a burn list.

Krail could win a fight in this yard.

She could not keep this station supplied by striking everyone who stood outside it.

Daren leaned against the bronze housing, his broken staff at his feet.

“Tell us what a road is worth to you,” he said.