The world was a crushing weight of stone and grit. Bronik’s head rang, a dull throb behind his eyes, and a sharp pain lanced through his ribs. The air, thick with dust, clawed at his throat. He tried to move, but a massive slab of masonry pinned his leg, heavy as a mountain. The timer in his head ticked down toward Day Ten, each second lost burying his chance to float an ark over the valley's grave. Tomaz, that sniveling worm, had doomed them all.
Then a sliver of light, a faint orange glow, pierced the choking blackness. A grating scrape of stone, followed by a grunt of exertion. "Bronik!" Lidyana’s voice, strained but clear, cut through the ringing in his ears. "Are you there? Don't move!"
He spat lime dust and bile. "Barely," he croaked. "My leg. Pry this slab off. Tomaz didn't kick over those sacks just to make noise."
More scraping, the rhythmic crack of stone against stone. Lidyana was working with frantic speed, her lamp casting dancing shadows through the gaps in the rubble. He heard the creak of an ash handle taking strain, followed by her short, ragged grunts. She didn't waste words, simply focused on the task, her movements efficient even in her haste. After what felt like an eternity, but was likely only minutes, the pressure on his leg eased. He pulled it free, a searing pain shooting up to his hip, but it wasn't broken. Just badly bruised.
He scrambled out, coughing, into the cramped pantry, now half-filled with a monstrous pile of shattered rock. Lidyana stood panting, her face streaked with grime, a crowbar clutched in her hand. Her eyes, usually sharp and wary, held a flicker of genuine concern. "You’re an idiot, Bronik," she said, but the words lacked their usual venom. "Fighting a cornered rat like that. What was he even doing?"
Bronik spat a mouthful of grit. "Trying to starve us out. He wants a mutiny. And he bought himself time, that much is clear. Zivtar's gears. We're running out of it." He glanced at the entrance to the pantry, now partially blocked by a fresh rockfall. The air felt heavier, damp.
Lidyana followed his gaze, wiping gray lime from her chin. "The waterline. It’s crawling up the mortar outside."
He nodded, pushing past her, his injured leg protesting with every step. They emerged into the main chamber, where the refugees huddled, their faces pale and drawn. The air was thick with the stench of damp stone and unwashed bodies. Mirzela watched them, her expression unreadable, then turned to whisper something to a group of men. Tomaz was nowhere in sight.
Bronik ignored them. He limped towards Zivtar, who was fussing nervously with the diving bell, a clumsy contraption of riveted iron and thick glass. "The gears," Bronik stated, his voice flat. "Now. We’re out of time. Tomaz is likely rousing the discontent right this moment. If we don't get those parts, there won’t be an ark to steal."
Zivtar wrung his calloused hands. "The bell's intake valve is cracked! The tide out there—it's boiling black! My gut turns over just smelling the silt through the floor slabs!"
“The bell is sabotaged,” Bronik reminded him, his voice devoid of patience. “Remember? We go in the suits. You stay here. Keep this lot distracted.” He gestured to the muttering crowd. “And make sure Tomaz doesn’t get to the remaining supplies.”
Zivtar backed toward the wall, but Bronik caught his collar with one calloused hand. Bronik turned to Lidyana. “Are those pitch-sealed suits ready?”
Lidyana nodded, already moving towards a stack of thick canvas suits coated in black, glistening tar. “As ready as they’ll ever be. The air pumps, though… one person operates them from above. We’ll need a strong back, or two.”
“Zivtar,” Bronik commanded, his voice sharp enough to cut through the tinkerer’s fear. “You’ll oversee the pumps. Keep the lines clear. Don’t let them get tangled. And don’t, for the love of all that’s left, get drunk.”
Zivtar swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. “I’ll crank until my palms split, Bronik. Just don't let the silt swallow me if the hose snaps.”
Bronik grunted, hauling the stiff, tallow-smeared leather over his bruised shins. The helmets, with their single, heavy glass viewport, felt claustrophobic even before they were sealed. Lidyana, surprisingly agile, donned her own suit with practiced ease. Her mouth settled into a flat, hard seam.
“The church,” Bronik said, his voice muffled by the helmet. “Specifically, the clock tower. The bell housing. That’s where Zivtar says the heaviest gears are.”
With Zivtar and two hollow-eyed weavers turning the twin flywheels, Bronik and Lidyana backed down the iron rungs into the flooded lower sally port. The water was frigid, an ink-black void that swallowed the light from their lamps. The swollen flow, even this close to the masonry, dragged sideways at their weighted thighs. They dragged forward pace by pace, lead-shod soles grinding through silt-slick fence posts and shattered roof tiles.
The column of muck pressed harder with every yard down, driving a sharp needle into Bronik's eardrums. Bronik focused on the dim glow of Lidyana’s lamp ahead, her form a distorted shadow in the murk. The drowned square had turned into a muddy trench, littered with tipped hay wains and rotting market stalls. He spotted the spire of the church, a spectral finger pointing skyward from the gloom. Its brass-bound oaken doors hung skewed on bent pintles, opening into pitch-black silt.
Inside, the wash gathered speed, surging through the clerestory vents and knocking Bronik's knees out of line. The nave had become a flooded bog. Waterlogged oak benches hovered near the ceiling beams like bloated cattle. High above, a cracked leaded window filtered the murky green daylight across the altar steps. They pushed through the floating debris, their lamps catching glimpses of overturned altars, fallen crosses, and strange, unidentifiable shapes that lurked in the deeper shadows.
The clock tower was a dizzying climb, up a spiral staircase now coated in slick algae. Their air hoses, trailing behind them, were a constant worry, snagging on jagged edges and sharp corners. Finally, they reached the bell housing. Three massive iron gears, each the size of a wagon wheel and thick as a man’s forearm, lay embedded in the mud-caked machinery. They were heavy, far heavier than Bronik had anticipated. Too heavy for one person to move, even underwater.
They worked in grim silence, their breath loud and raspy in their helmets. Bronik threw his shoulder into the primary spur wheel, his bad leg burning against the surging tide. Lidyana, surprisingly strong, helped him dislodge it, her movements precise and unyielding. They secured it with a thick rope, then turned to the second. As Bronik heaved, an eddy swung a fractured ceiling beam through the belfry opening. The splintered heartwood crushed Lidyana's intake tube against an iron corbel, tearing the pitched canvas. A foaming froth of air geysered toward the ceiling. She clawed at the trapped hose, thrashing against the pinned line.
Bronik saw the frothing rip and the hose flattening under the timber. He lunged, ignoring the danger, fumbling for the crude knife strapped to his thigh. The backwash threw him back, but he planted his iron boot against the frame, lunged, and sliced the frayed leather clean before her arms went slack.
He dragged her mask flush against the emergency brass valve on his collar, locking the bypass toggle home. He felt the rush of his own precious air into her suit, a faint whoosh against his ears. Her shivering eased, a ragged gasp echoing through the shared air. They clung to each other, two fragile beings in a crushing, lightless world, sharing the very breath of their lives.
With renewed urgency, they finished their grim task. The three gears, heavy and unwieldy, were lashed together, a cumbersome burden they slowly dragged back down the winding stairs, out of the church, and across the submerged square. Dragging the ironwork up the algae-crusted rungs took every scrap of breath left in the hand pumps. When their bronze faceplates breached the black scum of the sally port, Bronik tore off his visor to choke down the draft.
The floodline had crept up the bastion stairs, licking two risers higher than when they had sunk beneath the surface. The air, though fresh, carried a chilling dampness. The mountain runoff was outpacing his past-life timeline by an entire week. The crest wasn't waiting for Day Ten.