Loccy knelt on the last grounded bearing with both palms pressed flat against the tilted platform above the lower road. Platform, gate frame and counterweight leaned into her together, one connected burden held by Ferra's coupling and her own stubbornness.
"Gate's locked, but the lock won't take another jolt like that," Nari called from the gate housing, one hand clamped on the key.
"How long does it give me?"
"Long enough to choose where it lands, and not long enough to argue about it."
Eirwen's ridge was empty now, but the yard's gate crew still huddled in the ditch below the platform.
'If I let go now, the whole fort comes down right on top of them.'
Captain Brann Keld crouched on the counterweight above her, thirteen Shards circling his arms, his hammer resting across one knee.
"You can't walk with it, rabbit," he sneered, "everybody in this fort knows your trick dies the second your feet move."
"Hare," she corrected, ears flattening against her skull.
