28 · The Eclipse Forge

guards before they all entered.

They read the gesture as a threat.

The first javelin passed Maera's neck. She cut a hopper strap and dropped ore dust over the bridge's end. Men covered their faces. Elyen used the chance to shoot two arrows at the steps, not bodies. Iron points showed them where not to advance.

Serik asked to speak with the officer. The man removed his helmet.

His name was Derren. They had served together at a frontier post where rain made every road a trench. Derren played a flute made by his son and always repeated the same tune because he knew no other. One night he shared his boots with Serik: one stood watch while the other warmed his feet wrapped in a blanket.

None of it stopped him upholding the order to open the chamber.

Derren had a wife in the shelter. Serik knew before he said so. He could see hope's shape in the care with which he protected his bracelet beneath his glove.

“I

don't want to kill you,” the officer said.

Maera heard and looked at Serik. Some said that to let the victim bear the blame for forcing them.

The paladin lowered his shield a little.

“Then don't cross.”

Behind Derren came Orel, a boy from the same company whom Serik had watched learn to saddle a horse at that border post. He was the one who pushed, afraid of being left behind. The walkway shook. A rivet came loose and fell to the forge floor. The sound took a long time to arrive.

From the other bridge, Beran shouted for them to stop. No one could hear him properly through steam and metal. Ivara drew a line of light to point out the faulty chain. They took it for the beginning of an attacking spell. An archer shot towards her.

The arrow tore the mage's glove and struck the wheel. The light broke off.

Maera could have killed the archer. She aimed and saw behind him another man barely past boyhood,

unable to retreat because those behind kept entering. She changed the angle and shot the lamp above the entrance. Darkness halted the line for an instant.

That instant left Derren alone in the central span.

Serik advanced to speak. The officer advanced too. For a moment it seemed they might recognise one another outside the noise.

Then Derren raised his sword and shouted that Serik could still return to his post. The paladin recognised the cadence of old orders.

“So can you,” he replied.

The man attacked.

It was no clean duel. There was steam and a wet floor. Serik's shield weighed too much for his wounded forearm. Maera had to kill the second man before he cut the tendon behind his knee. Elyen, unable to draw properly with his bandaged shoulder, shot only at hands and legs he could see. Each arrow was a decision he could not correct.

Across the chamber, Beran strapped his stump to turn a wheel. The force tore through his arm. Ivara saw blood

darkening the bandage.

“I can melt the axle.”

“And if it stays open, the chamber boils. I need it closed.”

The mage looked at the metal. She had spent her life imposing shapes through fire. This time she must heat only enough for someone else to move it. The effort blinded her for a few moments.

Beran turned.

The wheel gave. A jet of water burst through the conduit and struck the vault's underside. Glass exploded in a rain of black fragments.

Elyen pushed Maera beneath the bridge. A shard opened his back. Serik dragged the guard still alive under his shield.

The pressure fell.

On the entrance bridge, the beam that took the discharge gave way.

Derren saw it an instant before the others. He pushed Orel under the arch and tried to follow. One end struck his back. He fell to the walkway's edge, sword still in hand.

Serik dropped his shield to reach him.

Maera caught the paladin's belt. Without her, their combined weight would have broken

the board they had left. Wounded, Elyen crawled over and braced a knee against the strap. The three held there while Derren tried to find a foothold.

The officer looked at Serik. He did not ask him to care for his wife. He had no reason to entrust a perfect sentence to the man he had just fought.

“I'm slipping,” he said.

Serik gripped harder.

The board cracked.

Derren released his sword. His free hand reached a chain and closed around it. Maera saw the shift in weight and shouted to pull towards the arch. They got him onto stone as the walkway span fell with all the weapons left on it.

Orel screamed beneath the smaller beam. His leg was crushed. Derren tried to stand and help, then collapsed. Serik pulled him from the steam and put a hand on his chest until he stopped trying to rise.

“Will you arrest me now?” the officer asked.

The paladin looked at Orel's leg.

“Now you'll hold a dressing.”

Derren obeyed.

Maera cut the wounded man's straps. Ivara came from the mechanism and held a light over the area they must not move. Beran found where to lift the beam without bringing the rest down on them.

They could not save the leg. Teren was not there, and there was no time to do it well. The paladin followed Ivara's instructions and used a heated blade. Orel lost consciousness before the end.

Derren held the dressing with both hands.

When the bleeding was contained, the officer looked towards the chamber. The bracelet's call had gone. He removed it and laid it on the ground without asking permission.

He stayed beside Orel until they could improvise a stretcher. When Serik said he must go down to find the others, he nodded.

He no longer tried to stop him. Below, in the Chamber of the Eye, a light that did not come from fire hung between four pillars.

Teren reached the last step with his throat full of dust. Neris clasped the sheets

she had copied in the Barrows to her chest.

“If they burn,” she said, “we'll have to ask again.”

The cleric tried to smile. He did not know whether he managed it.