Wander leapt headfirst through the jaw of a howl.

  Her body and fire went through it, releasing a column of white residue. Large fire leapt up from the ground that she beat out with a stomp of her foot. As she threw away her opponents, many more rose from the soil to address her.

  Wander moved too quickly for them to have approached Fragile. He became painted with their color and shivered. However, he did not notice them advancing. Some of them turned away from him when he look in their direction.

  He remained in the spot she said as the stars fell and the sun began to rise. As the light came on, she and he stood, surrounded by a few Laruns, coated in substance. A rush of wheels began to approach; these did not sound to her except the clanking of new boots, or the padding of a new kind of paw. She moved from her place, throwing down two Laruns as she did, and leaving a long trail of white. The stepper atop the cart careened off with her. The vehicle tilted and its hoof howled. She raised up her fire to tear him apart, but found him in her eye when they were tumbled upon the ground.

  "Aie, firmtipper," Besthand said.

  Wander looked down at him. Shouting pushed at her when she checked his green cloak and his beady green eyes. She could feel blades at her neck.

  Besthand's gaze went first to her, and then to one Goal at her throat, and another. He raised up his hand.

  "Do not touch her," he said. "I do not wish you hurt."

  The blades went away. One remained before he pushed it out with his hand.

  "Do you need a way from this thing?" The Roadpoint asked.

  Wander's cough spat black fluid onto his face.

  He smiled and wiped it off.

  "You can come with us," The Roadpoint said. "There is much to speak about."

  -

  The shelter of Besthand and the Goalish roadpeople – their cart and charges, stuck beside an exploded, curling tree, a sketchroot with battered, lumpen growths- was scattered with papers, lanterns and meat-stickers sprinkled with dust.

  The room inside his cart's covering was crowded, and they had cut open the side to the fire, where papers with ash scribblings had been laid out and thread together. He pointed at them with a twig.

  "The company's speed has been in decrease," he said. He drew a long line. "This is their path. It started with very little change, but it shifted today and the one before. But their way is still straighter to Herdetopp than we could hope to match, and they still make it through each night. They will reach Sidedark Couth two days from now."

  He circled a point where the path intercepted a large black stripe. "If our movement were to take place here, where it should rejoin the road, we would be able to reduce our-"

  "Roadpoint," Wander said.

  He stopped and looked up at her.

  "I will have some words from you," she said. "And some truths. If I do not, or if I do not like them, I will burn you and this place. And destroy this problem myself."

  He pinched his twig between two fingers. Then he dropped it and stood up, looking between her and Fragile. He flicked his finger at her head.

  "If your hurt needs wrapping, I have wraps with me," he said. "They would not be used for it, but they are very soft. They would work the aim, and you will look very knowing when we meet the masses. All the boys will run after it, and some girls too."

  She did not reply. He went back to the cart and began to dig through a chest.

  He took out a wad of cloth, strutted over and extended it to her.

  His arm remained outstretched for a few moments. He retracted it and put the cloth and his hands behind his back.

  "My name is not Besthand," he said.

  "I know. But bring me what it lacks."

  He wiped his lips on the cloth.

  "You are my enemy," he said. "That is more than some of it. But your enemies are also mine."

  "I have many enemies."

  "The Laruns. The Freemen. I wish them gone. And you as well. I do not want to fight you, because I would be thrown out. Five truths. Is that all enough?"

  She nodded. "Was it always your aim to leave?"

  "No. I could not leave."

  "You left them to this mark."

  "Would you rather I be eaten with them? With you? I have chased. I did not leave."

  "Why is that?"

  "That would make six," he said. "And then seven. Five was enough."

  "It was."

  Besthand stamped his foot, his mouth flat, and crossed his arms.

  He paced between the cart and the fire, shaking his head. "The carts are needed. Their loss would be a problem."

  "To who? What are their carries?"

  Besthand paced.

  "Eldbrother," Fragile said. Besthand stopped.

  Fragile's fingers clenched and unclenched his arm. "I know you do not know me," he said, "but it is Wander who you know. She does not say things that are wrong. If there is a way she does not like, she will follow it in a different way."

  "You know very little of this thing, yonman."

  "I have learned more than you."

  Fragile raised a hand up and drew down the folds of his coldover, exposing his neck. Two thin scars, one longer than the other, cut across it.

  Besthand raised an eyebrow. He looked to Wander, whose eyes did not ever move from him, or carry in any new suggestion.

  "At the shell of Withoutwind," Fragile said. "I became taken by a plague. I invited its touch. It took away my breath. But, and I do not know why – it gave it back."

  He covered up his neck. "It is not right for something to rise without breath," he continued. "Wander has told me this." He looked down, and then again at Besthand. "But I am still here. And as long as it is kept, I will breath to ensure that there is some right in it."

  The other roadpeople looked at Besthand silently. His eyes hung on Fragile for the duration of his call. Wander watched Fragile.

  When all was finished, a moment passed. A noise slipped down from him and he rubbed his face.

  "Eating," Besthand said quietly.

  He swallowed. "Eating is our carry."

  Wander raised her eyebrow and turned to him. "Eating?"

  "Yes."

  "What kind?"

  He bit his lip. "A mixture. Of grain, and different waters. They are cut from crawling hearts."

  "Is it a type, eldbrother?" Fragile asked.

  "In some ways. It is very tough. It tastes very poor, but it will last for a long time; a little bit of it can fill up a large mass of hearts."

  "Herdetopp is well-fed," Wander said. "I do not see its use."

  "Herdetopp relies on many carries to bring its eating. If these were stopped, many would go hungry."

  "Do you aim to stop them?" Wander asked.

  Besthand flexed his hands.

  "One man could not," he said. "Nor many."

  Wander looked at him. Then she looked away. She scratched her chin. "Why did you hold this in keeping?"

  "You are a star. You have a friend that can smell my words. She is a kind, not a one. To say part of it is to show in the whole."

  The coils around Wander's waist stiffened.

  Her gaze turned only as the rope launched itself at Besthand. The Bell's lines bound his neck and his hands, pulling taut. He fell to his knees.

  "Tell me of my kind," said The Bell. "As though I do not know it."

  He gagged and fell backwards. A number of roadpeople rushed forward to help him, but could not dislodge The Bell's tightening hold. He was only respired as Wander stepped forward and ripped The Bell from him. Her coils flailed as she handed them to Fragile. He took The Bell and hugged her close to his breast.

  The Bell writhed and thrashed, and tore almost from his grip, but he flinched, and the wrenching had begun to burn him. So she stopped and kept in his embrace.

  Wander helped Besthand to his feet. He held a hand to his throat and coughed.

  "The thing," he said, "is this. As I have put in: this plague must not stop our work. But before that, it should not reach Herdetopp. If it reversed the Laruns' passage, it may have its own concerns for the hearts in there. Every step we are still cuts open our eyes and shuts down our blows. If we are to catch them and throw out this heart, it must happen soon."

  "I agree."

  Besthand nodded.

  "What happens if it reaches Herdetopp?" asked Fragile.

  He looked at Fragile, whose face and question quivered. Besthand frowned. "I do not know. Perhaps it does not. Its hand reaches out and grabs who it can. Or that is how it looks. Herdetopp is a way to every one, or half, at least."

  The flame kindled in Wander's hand. "Every one or none," she said. "I will break it all."

  Besthand glanced at it. "How can we attack?" he asked.

  "You would take my tells?"

  "No. You are a Blade. You have read many papers for this work. You have an eye for the heart. Show it to me."

  "This one has no paper."

  She looked down at her flame. "It seems to put itself in many things. We may become caught again. But the Freemen destroyed themselves- And when it was done, it did not go with itself. It kept with them. It was silent and still."

  She extinguished the fire.

  Besthand's brow creased.

  "It likes friends," Fragile said. They turned to him, and he looked at The Bell, who shivered. "All hearts do."

  Wander frowned. "It left us when we stopped," she continued. "If it is starved of feet and wheels- if these can be halted- it may halt with them. For those who will still move, we could erect a wall around their place, and could ensure that we are followed by no others."

  "But how to destroy it?" Besthand asked.

  "By keeping them halted and separate, as that is the means by which we have become detached of it."

  Besthand tapped his chin. He drummed his fingers on his arm. He ruffled his own hair.

  "It is a path," he said. "But this heart's hand is strong. You have spoken to its use of them. What if they push on you, and you tear them up again?"

  Fragile bit his lip. "Wander brought me out, eldbrother. Who is weaker than me?"

  "You are born, yon. As not all are. And your weakness is not all of lack, but for odd powers too."

  He turned back to Wander. "Would you shrink from it?" he asked. "Such a strong work."

  She met his gaze and said, "I am stronger.

  He nodded. He turned to the Goals, who sat nearby listening.

  "I'm going to load the carts," he said. "Please help me."

  The Goals got up and began to throw water on their fires and take sacks and haul them into their carriages, and harness the hoofs at their fore. Besthand scaled the back of the one with carries and Goals began to pass him sacks to put into it. Wander moved toward their rack of weapons. The only one who did not move was Fragile. Besthand and Wander looked at him. The passing stopped.

  "Are you well, yonbrother?" Besthand asked.

  Fragile's frame creaked beneath their gaze. "I'm sorry," he said. "It is about this beast."

  "What of it?" asked Wander. Besthand leaped down.

  The Bell swirled around his chest. He put his fingers together.

  "You found five-hundreds Larun destroyed," Fragile said. "You have said much that it was their own doing."

  "Yes," Besthand said. "They poured firewater on themselves, yonbrother."

  "It appeared so," Fragile said. "But we know that it can send signs and words. And that this has brought others to a different way."

  Besthand tilted his head. "What is this word?"

  He looked at Besthand. "Maybe it does not like Laruns."

  "It has not said," Wander told him.

  "Where comes your smile, for the standing of this thing?" asked Wander.

  Fragile bit his lip and put his hands together.

  He looked forward. "It has claimed a ruler's word," he said. "It was crying. But it was kind. This work is a great body. And all of it was shaking. I do not like that it is in pain."

  "And we do not, yonbrother." Besthand slapped his shoulder. "But it is better to believe the worst here. It hurts, and we have no path toward another way."

  Fragile rubbed his hands and looked up at him. He nodded.

  His gaze turned to Wander. She frowned, and her brow bent. She turned away from him, back towards the carts.

  -

  They set out into the rounds, ripped by the carts at a heady pace through the plains and brush.

  The pilot to their carriage cried out and lashed their its carriers. "Wind, knitti! Wind knitta! Ways, ways!"

  Wander grabbed herself to the side of the cart, riding in the wind, and descending now and then to clear and hack debris from their path. The Bell stayed from her, wrapped instead around Fragile's shoulders. They kept inside, in the crowded confines of Besthand's own covering.

  The Roadpoint glanced at them from time to time, but kept quiet, and did little but whisper with his other companions, leaving them in a space of their own. He looked toward one of The Bell's ends as the cart shot across a rocky height.

  "Eldsister," Fragile said. The Bell's threads rose up.

  "What is it, weak thing?" she asked.

  "Do you shake at Wander?"

  Her threads went down.

  "The way she's going is not approved," said The Bell. "I shake for her, and never against her."

  "Are we in a different place?"

  "Yes. We are in a different place."

  Fragile's brow descended. He rested in the nook of the cart and did not inquire further.

  The Bell ends poked at his brow and his eyes flashed open.

  "I am sorry," said The Bell.

  He tilted his head at her. "Why? You have done no wrong."

  "I said a bad thing of you." She curled around his neck. "Before we were countering this problem. It was not a smiling word. I look at it and I roam. She may have the path, our Joyous One. It cuts on me now. Once it would not have."

  Fragile's shoulders tucked in, and he looked away.

  It was not a bad thing," he said. "I do not smile for how I feel. How I feel- about offering. That you and Wander tend your He so well- it is something I adore."

  "But I adore you too. I have found adorable things where He is not."

  Fragile almost smiled, but he did not.

  She paused. "I am trembling. And it is hard for me to say that. But I will not step back from this place you walk. I can hit now. I have found a cane in me. It has left me no choice. I must find out what the rest of it is."

  Fragile embraced her and she tightened her grip around his waist.

  -

  Wander climbed back inside the carriage.

  She took off her hat and wiped her face, whose color had been dampened by the cold. It and the cabin were soon warmed up by her heat. Fragile looked at her, his eyes wide.

  "When we arrive," she said, sitting down, "I'd like you two to stay with Besthand. If I cannot throw it, he'll carry you away, to some safer place."

  Fragile nodded. She leaned back.

  Fragile rubbed his hand. "I have a work," he said. "A speaking."

  She leaned forward. "What is it?"

  He shifted. "I believe the problem has a voice. Like you have said before."

  "It was said by Goals."

  Fragile lowered his brow. "It was?"

  "The Changers." She paused. "I know that what it has. I have heard it."

  "What have you heard?"

  "Its path. Our movements. An ear is a different thing; that is its lack. And that is what is needed for us to speak in turn."

  Fragile put his fingers together. "A speaking- I would not say this."

  She tilted her head.

  "I might-" Fragile whispered. "I might say- a shape."

  Wander looked at him.

  "A shape," he sputtered. "Shapes-water. The- the waters. That we have."

  "What use does this thing have for those?"

  "The beast is a body," Fragile said. "It ccan take many shapes. It can do many different things. And it takes of us. The names we all know." He rubbed his arm. "My birthman. My rulers."

  Wander coughed. "It is a beast. It has one shape. Every other is a shadow."

  He continued. "It may be. I would say that the shadows changed. They changed with us."

  He paused. "I have seen the rounds. I have seen… the block-building."

  He looked at her. She was listening very carefully.

  "My home," he said. "I saw my home."

  "And I mine."

  He grew excited. "You did? What did you see?"

  Wander crossed her arms and leaned against the wall of the cabin.

  "Bring me your want," she said.

  "My want-?" He looked away. "It knew of us. This beast. Our virtues and our ways."

  His knees bent together.

  "The Laruns have Harmony," he said. "A- a word like peace. But – I believe – we have one too. I have a word like it."

  The thought of her gaze pulled on him. He looked at her, and realized that it had drifted. "I wish to come with you. I wish to show it ours. The one we know."

  The carriage rocked and swayed.

  "Wander?"

  "I'm not going to speak to this one."

  Fragile frowned at her. "But many may fall down. We could make it not so."

  "The beast is at the heart of them. They are in its mouth. By your word, they are its body. A beast is cut. It is not spoken."

  Fragile held his arms, his pulse rising. "But…" The word was very loud in his head and he lowered his voice. "Even if they cannot be helped… it might be made easy. It might be made simple. It could be led, or tricked. We could try. Less could fall."

  "You would be put into it. You would be frozen. I will freeze it instead."

  He raised his brow. He spoke softly. "I have done this before."

  Wander turned to him. "When?"

  He rubbed his neck. Her gaze held on it.

  "I did not hear much from you. And it froze your parts."

  "I am warm now," Fragile said. "It made me so."

  She turned from him. The Goals who were otherwise adjacent to their conversation now lowered their voices when she called again.

  "This need you have," she said. "To lay yourself down. To see yourself torn by what is beneath you. It is not of interest to me."

  Fragile flinched and his eyes widened. His voice rose. He stumbled to his feet, gaining some height on her, and was thrown around by the swaying of the cart.

  "I-it is a bad choice!" he exclaimed. "Yours does not follow any good way. You have come to help Goals."

  He flailed his arm at the knot of them sitting nearby. "The Goals have helped us! They are here! They are in danger!"

  She stood. She raised her voice.

  "You are in danger," she raged.

  The carriage crashed as it rolled over a rock and threw him against the wall. Wander's gait rippled and her eyes flashed.

  He struggled back to his feet.

  "I," he said. "I am not a jewel."

  Wander looked at him. He did not meet her gaze, so she did not look for his.

  After a moment, he sat down.

  She followed him.

  They rested.

  -

  Besthand's carts stopped at a cliff overlooking The Wild.

  His train was passing through an empty field far below it, grown with weeds and thorny grass that came up to the calves. The ancient road that had been unearthed and pieced together by the creature still carved them through it. The torch was already lit, and it blazed around in place at the center of the train, lighting up the evening and mixing with the fire of the plague's agents. They massed in lines before and after the huddle of travellers and their wheels.

  Besthand opened up the compartment beneath his cart, revealing his keep of arms. Wander pulled out a thick, heavy blade from it.

  "Blow the horn, and we'll come in for you," Besthand said. "If it is not a way, we do not want to leave you to it."

  She looked up at him on his perch. She looked over at Fragile, who was helping the Goals set up a fire.

  "I will not blow the horn," Wander said. "I may blow it twice. If I do it, send out a rider with the hillborn. Have them run from Herdetopp."

  Besthand nodded.

  The party surveyed the valley as Wander descended the hills, her weapon hefted in a thick sheath over her shoulder. She disappeared into the trees, which began to sway and tumble. A loud noise went up when their movement reached the lines of plague. A battering of metal began.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  -

  The roadpeople walked fast by their machines.

  The carts had been changed in Wander's absence. The wood in them had sprouted flowers and formed canopies to shade travellers from the sun. The edges of some were lined with gold and silver. Their trail left small burrows in its wake, out of which poured features of meat and metal. These were brought to the roadpeople by wind and soil.

  The Stonehoof and The Stronghoof remained with the group, the top of their bodies dressed in howlsskin.

  The heads of the travelers hung low. They did not turn to the carts, which rumbled along the stone of the hills to the North, or to the commotion that began in the woods. They did not turn to the beasts, or to the sounds they made as they were torn to pieces, or when they were thrust into the ground as javelins, or when their men were cut apart and pierced with a heavy iron bolt. They rose only when the torch at their company's center quit its wide, sweeping aura around their space and focused on their front, illuminating a figure that had stood up in the road before the train.

  The figure held a flame in one hand. In the other was a long, heavy blade, coated in residue.

  At the very front of the train, a tall body stepped forth. It had become in a flourishing crust of gold and iron. Its arms were thick and heavy with silver, wrinkling plates. A wreath lined with jewels had sprouted from its neck. In its hand, it wielded a Larun sword, built out and long with sheets of metal that turned it into a tall shaft held over the shoulder that could sweep or pierce with equal ability.

  The figure's eyes were contained in a glossy helm the shape of a head. Its features were those of a Trethbiec man, etched into a face with many thousands of lines that formed a mouth, cheeks, a nose, and hair.

  "Onnsdaughter," Melody said.

  Wander called out.

  "Quit this movement," she said. "The plague pushes for it. It despairs at your halting. A silence among you would throw it down. Its signs are not your seers. They are Right-Handed property.

  The roadpeople looked at her, and their gazes strained. Some cried. The carts kept rolling.

  Melody's partsfighters, the rest of whom were crowded with covering similar to his, withdrew large slabs of gray metal, cut into the shape of guards and blades.

  "He has shown himself to us, firmtipper," Melody said. He bowed his head.

  "I weep for us!" he called out. "I wish we could have known each other's call. I wish, too, that you will not shake. He has revealed it; the beginning of a new body has arrived. You were wrong about it all, Onnsdaughter. This time, nothing will be broken. And you cannot do it. I hope you will not try."

  Wander brandished her weapon.

  Melody held his blade with both hands. Its bullion glinted in the light.

  "Do not destroy her," he called to the partsfighters. "We have what she needs."

  The ironclad crowd advanced on her.

  A man was soon gusted through the train, in the other direction. The speed he had been given, from a source in his chest, struck a hole through one of the carts. It tipped over and yanked its hoofs back into the road. They tore free in a scramble of screaming and tugging, and ran on as Melody brought down his weapon on Wander's blade.

  -

  Besthand and his fellows watched as Wander and Melody threw one another around the carts. The Bell's body grew and wrapped around the roadpeople, dragging them back and keeping them still.

  "Lodge," one Goal said to Besthand. "The Dry Man is breaking your carries."

  A big heap of dust and parcels clouded up the battlefield as Wander was smashed through one of them. Besthand, who reclined at his post atop the cart, sat up and narrowed his eyes at it.

  "It is her work," he said, laying back. "Shut your eyes if it should hurt. But do not shut your ears."

  The other Goals and Fragile looked on with shaking and nodding at the fight. Fragile watched anxiously, even as the Goals aside him had their eyes drawn to the trees below. In his eye his saw the aftermath of her battle with De.

  He saw again when a Goal exclaimed. "R-Roadpoint!"

  All craned their necks to follow the look of the watchers nearest the slope. In a long line down below, the trees were shifting. Their branches twisted and firelight spilled out from the canopy. The shadows soon emerged.

  The Goals leapt and fumbled on all fours toward the vehicles. Besthand jumped down and began to unleash a hoof from one cart. He stopped as further shapes moved from the brush toward that spot, and he found, spinning his head in every direction, more from every other one.

  The Goals took boards and knives and nestled inside and around Besthand's carriage. shouting at their foes' approach. Fragile stood inside their ring, sweating and breathing quickly.

  Besthand scaled his post and began to help the Goals atop it. They were in breathing distance of their opponents, whose teeth were bloody and bared. The ground shook as a large roothead, more sizeable than even the howls standing over the men, stomped out from the trees. It walked on only one right foot.

  The Goals hoisted up, it was at last Fragile on the ground, who remained, and did not look from the oncoming evil.

  "Come, braid-born," shouted Besthand. He reached out his hand. "Send it up!"

  Fragile's hands had fallen. He looked around. The encroaching fighters had paused shy of the Goals' two platforms. Some were driven back where the gaze of the Goals were cast, recoiling into their great mass with gnashing teeth and growling guttural syllables. One of the Goals, dressed in a Larun tiecoat, turned his head at them, and furrowed his brow.

  The Roadpoint somersaulted down from his spot, planting in the dirt. He clamped his arm around the Sixbraid, dragging him toward the cart wall. At once, the wave of enemies surged forward, moving where he took Fragile from, barking and shooting into the cart. Their arrows and their noises fell past them, and into the boards and barricades the Goals held up.

  Fragile struggled. Besthand tried hauling him up, and the other Goals stretched out for them from the roof.

  Besthand strained to keep Fragile from slipping out as he stared at the men, their approach halted. His mouth was ajar. He asked, "What is this piece of ours?"

  Fragile's hand fumbled around inside his hoofleather bag. Then it went out, snapping across The Roadpoint's hand. It flared red, and his grip released. Fragile rushed back toward the swell of men, and a drop of blood fell from his littlecane.

  The crowd parted for him, and sealed themselves when he was swallowed up.

  Besthand's legs tensed, but a Goal's hand fixed itself around Besthand's arm and yanked him up upward. They hauled the roadpoint atop the cart. Once he had recovered, he threw out her thin blade and pointed it at the crowds as they approached the car, catching their arrows with a board. From their vantage, all could see the soil on the hill change, grow, and rise. The light came in as Fragile put himself to work.

  -

  Wander's battle with Melody carried her across the train. Her blows rocked the kontor back and forth. The partsfighters surrounded her and swung at her with their iron. She broke their metal into pieces, ripped a chunk of the crust from a partsfighter's head, and threw it into Melody.

  After a swing of her sword, Melody was the only one still standing. His shape was tallest, and his strike was heaviest among his friends. When Wander moved from his weapon, it hit the stone and cracked it, sending rubble splitting out from the cut.

  Wander took the metal from Melody's hands and scalded them. He shouted and his blade dropped to the ground. The kontor grit his teeth and drove against Wander. The stone shifted back and forth between their feet. It softened for both of them.

  Wander won their grapple and threw the kontor down. Melody's gaze turned and he held up his hand to guard her eye from the light, which showed in the distance.

  The light showed into every one's eyes. It laid itself over the country and the train, glinting off the armor of the partsfighters as they gasped and stumbled up their knees.

  Far away, on the Goals' overlook, the ground was wedging itself upward, piercing the soil. Before it the dirt subsided into a long clay trench, the width of the road, which became flush with water that welled up from the ground. In the path of its flow, the ground wove together a tangle of walls, bridging gaps, and mounting towers, which assembled into a series of gray peaks. Wander had never seen them before. But she saw the water.

  Her fist slammed into Melody's jaw, breaking apart the rest of his helmet and forcing him into the dirt again.

  "Bell," Wander said.

  The binds wrapped around Melody and tugged at Wander as she began to walk from the train. "Joyous one," she said. "Joyous one. What are you doing?"

  "Keep them down," Wander continued. The fire in her hand burned hot. "Let nothing move."

  -

  Fragile approached the cliffside.

  Behind and around him, the noise and chatter of the mass withdrew. The heights that the soil was layering itself into rose to a place where he would be posed over the rounds.

  He laid one foot in front of the other. As he did so, the soil flattened in three directions. The ascent took the wind from his body and he fell to his knees twice. Sometimes his skin was jacketed, as it once had been, by Larun sweat, Larun hurt, and Larun coats. This was put in and thrown off without his will or asking.

  Soon the voices joined.

  "Hear me, Son of He!"

  Fragile fell to his knees in terror. He looked around, his eyes wild.

  The little girl's voice was followed by that of a young man. "Producer," it was said. "Are you my producer?"

  Fragile fell the voice fall on his ear.

  "I am not," he replied.

  "Are you my birthman?" the little girl asked.

  "I am not," Fragile and the young man replied.

  Fragile blinked. He remained silent as the young man continued. "I am not. I am called Cookson. Cookson is my I, little ones. I am the son of Seller. The hillfaces – like that one – they cut out my heart. Sett has sent me here to keep him safe. He keeps his promises. He is in great danger."

  "What a strange wrong," the little girl said.

  "And who are all of you? Has he sent you on as well?"

  Fragile held his head as the ground before him sprouted with a long, vining flower. When it blew in the wind, a voice was produced which was distant and hissing, and could be mistaken for a whistle.

  "Sett and He are Larun pranks," said the flower. "I am brought here from the Dark, speaking ones. From the place of peaceful rules. There are Moats in this place, and so am I; if they do not listen to me, they will bring demerit to their friends, who have helped them all along."

  "If Sett and He are pranks," the young man asked, "to what Firstpoint do you offer?"

  "I offer to warm breath, which inhabits each man."

  "What a strange wrong."

  The voices, features, and movements continued to chatter and grow more numerous as he made his journey. Animals burrowed out from the ground and were moulded out of dirt, as one roothead was. It had only two left legs. It stood on its hind in front of Fragile. He moved around it, and it followed him.

  He went high. He took a rest by a tree, which he leaned against. The rocks, air, and trees all buzzed at one another, exchanging titles.

  He looked past them, toward the train, which he could still see. It remained in a condition of darkness, and he could see the scars of Wander's fight. The whole riversland lay past them.

  "To whom do you offer, friend?"

  Fragile's ear was more empty than it had been. He looked back toward the slope, where he was addressed by bending roots, jumpers, flowers, and a swirl of leaves that spun around him and brushed in his head. He brushed them away.

  The littlecane, which was still in his hand, came up to the bark of the tree. He scratched out two words on it. He leaned his head against the tree and kissed it. He pricked his finger with the littlecane and rubbed it into the bark.

  He stood up and continued on. The creatures buzzed at his offering.

  "Water-leader?"

  "'Water-leader'? You cannot see. It says 'flood-rule.'"

  "It does not! That one is a Goal. He has written in Goalish."

  "Then how can I read it?"

  "And I?"

  He was near the peak. His body, and the tenor of the others, passed through a juncture when he reached the top of the hill. His gaze fell over the cliff, and he looked out to the rest of The Wild.

  The night he was in had gone out of that place. Day shined over the river-valley of the Sixbraids, or its shape. It had been chopped out, slashed and pounded into this different territory.

  He looked down. Below him was a half-dry furrow, a shallow drink of water running through it. IT lead to a large stone redoubt. There, roads shot off into the wood, rolling them over and making a web of stone in its ground.

  He rubbed his eyes. A gray mass of lumps flowed within the block-building. There were no men; instead, it was fluid, pouring around itself and keeping to the roads that had been built.

  "An odd mixing of drinks!" the little girl cried. "I wonder what is its meaning."

  Fragile heard Uff's voice come around. He almost smiled, but he did not.

  He fell to his knees. He could see no signs for his reading. An itching started in his hands. When he looked down at them, he found that they were moving. They reached down to the soil, where the grass melted away, and water poured itself into the dirt, loosening it and keeping the signs they made.

  Son of my son

  the beast said.

  Water of my water

  There is an opposite here

  I do not know what to do

  I cannot give you to this kind

  This pathless place

  But the path that is mine

  is no path at all

  The sign-making paused.

  I believe I am a shadow

  I believe my word is something wrong

  I do not know what sends me here

  Fragile gasped as his hands were released. The other creatures exclaimed as the milled around him, looking at the signs.

  "A nothing!"

  "A gap?"

  "What has the Goal written?"

  "He believes he is not there!"

  "I h-have not written," Fragile whispered.

  They looked at him.

  He breathed in. His breath was very shaky. He laid his fingers in the soil and squeezed it. It swirled and moved around him.

  The mud spread around his knees and feet and moved up his hands. He lost sight of them. The dirt went over his eyes. Shapes formed with his body again, in the soil underneath him. This time, his hands did not move.

  I know you are a shadow

  Fragile said.

  The soil twisted. Large drops of water bled out from it and dripped over the cliff.

  I know a ruler is a shadow

  There is no weight to it

  Fragile's hands came out and moved.

  Tell me why it has no weight

  The beast said. Fragile did not.

  Tell me why you keep us clean, river ruler

  Fragile said.

  Tell me why you keep us from it, river ruler

  The first place from where we came

  The good path brings there

  The one from which we came

  The trees rattled.

  Tell me how that makes it good,

  The beast said.

  Fragile's breath slowed.

  You have seen the one I help,

  Fragile said.

  The beast replied,

  I have seen

  I have shaken

  The push in me says

  that she can break my way

  Fragile creased his brow.

  She has made my way

  She has taken from me

  This has given to me

  Her fire brings your water

  Can I show it to you?

  He opened his eyes. The river ruler did not reply. They were surrounded by whispering heads.

  Fragile bent his head down to the mud. He placed his lips in it and smiled.

  -

  Wander walked toward the trees, her eyes fixed on the cliffs of the overlook.

  The ground shook underneath her and she stumbled. She watched the firm of the cliff become disrupted. It sagged, bellowing chunks of stone into the river's silt foundation.

  She heard Melody scream out behind her. The other partsfighters moaned.

  "It isn't true!" Melody screamed. "It isn't!"

  The Bell whispered to Melody. "What do you hear, kontor?"

  Melody's gaze was fixed up on the sky. Wander looked at it, and found that the stars had gone away.

  Her head turned to the torch above the carts, which had begun to flicker. When she heard a thump, she looked back to the trees.

  A mass was approaching. The roadpeople whispered and cried in The Bell's binds.

  The enemies had grown in strength and number. Many of them were much taller. They brought fire, and did not stop when they reached the road.

  The enemies moved in to the roadpeople. A howl bit one apart. Another group struck into a crowd of Laruns. They stabbed into them with a rack of stickers.

  "Trick," Melody bellowed at the Bell. "Let us help! At the end of it, let us help our kind! Or is your every word false? Is your every work her design? Have you no word in your own heart?"

  The Bell's strands turned to Melody.

  "I do," she said.

  -

  Fragile exhaled and released the cliff.

  The platform shuddered and bent. He was thrown forward and cried out. His hands plunged up from the mud and he kicked himself back along the cliff, through the air and animals, which crowded forward to observe their words.

  Fragile heard the voice of the young man.

  "What a smile it brings, river-son,"

  said the beast.

  The young girl spoke.

  "Indeed!

  How full of ways is the world!

  And movements all the same."

  The flower's voice spoke.

  "Fire brews, and a path formed from it. But I cannot see it in my way."

  "Yes," a jumper said. "We would need a test."

  "A test?"

  "This one is from the others. But what if it is only one part of them, and it is not in all? We would need to see the fire itself. It would need to be witnessed."

  The other rulers affirmed.

  They were all shook by the crumbling of the block-building. Water burst through cracks in its foundations and began to pour into the river at an increasingly violent pace. It turned white with froth.

  Fragile stood. The flower and the root-head, the gusts of air, and all others blew into him.

  "I can offer you a test," he said. "Eldmen."

  "You can?" the young girl asked.

  He stepped onto the ledge. It began to crack.

  "Yes," he said. "If you wish to know the movement."

  "We do."

  "Show it to us."

  "Show us the fire, pathless one."

  He looked down into the water. In his mind's eye, Besthand spun through the air. He looked like a wing.

  As his feet left the firm, the block-building exploded.

  -

  Wander and Melody cut apart the enemies moving on the train.

  A loud cracking rang out. Wander tore another of the figures apart, and all of them quit as she did so.

  Melody retrieved his blade from the chest of a howl, who began padding away from the mass. Without respect to the lines of each other, they moved back toward the trees, bumping and stumbling along. The shadows took them, and they remained, wandering through the darkness of The Wild.

  Wander lowered her sword when the roadpeople were alone. There was a flash of light that caught their eye; the torch became extinguished.

  The ranks of stickers and animals had been eaten up by the trees when a new turbulence took hold of the train. A roaring thrust of water blew out from the direction of the crumbled fortress and broken peak, through the trench that had been carved.

  Wander swung on top one of the carts. Her eye picked out a white piece of debris being tossed and rolled through the water. It was flailing.

  Melody's gasping head turned. He hobbled after Wander as she stepped over the gulf of territory separating them and the water. She stepped into the stream, restricting its flow with the dig of her boots and the pressure of her spine.

  His body rolled into her arms and she dragged him out, laying him on its banks. She saw many things when she looked at him. A gray color in his skin, and scratch-marks beneath his eyes.

  The Bell curled up to her.

  "Open his mouth," The Bell said.

  She did. His eyes remained closed, but he coughed up water and spat.

  She tore off his clothes, which were soaked and full of muck.

  The violence of the river's flow abated, but her grip did not. Melody watched the two of them.

  She looked back at the train. The rest of the roadpeople had been unhitched, and looked at the Dry Man also.

  -

  Fires were lit again. Their new camp was not as bright as the torch had been, but it was warmer.

  The roadpeople reassembled in their sections. Laruns gathered with Laruns, and Rootcliffs with Rootcliffs. Callouses formed on their heels, and sunburn laid itself back on. The mud clung to their boots again. There was much retching, and across the encampment many holes were dug out for it. When they had finished, they slept, and there could have been no-one living except for the breath and vomitus.

  A few roadpeople remained awake and lit fires, burning meat where the torch had hung above their party, offering and weeping. Walking to and from these matters, they all turned their heads to Wander as she pulled water from the vanishing remains of the stream. Laruns, on her way to the back of the train, bowed their heads to her and whispered. She could hear the word, "Firmpoint."

  The greatest sound of the new hour came in the form of wagon-wheels, cranking in from the distance. The eyes and mouths of the ones still awake turned from their vomit-holes and their statues to the carts of Besthand and the Goals, rumbling in from the dark.

  Wander set down the water by Fragile's body, wrapped in blankets against The Stonehoof, who was herself asleep, along with The Stronghoof. She watched Besthand hop down from his post, mumble, and point at some of the Goals, who nodded and ran toward the front of the column. Then he approached her.

  His cloak was ragged, and his hand was wrapped by a heavy bandage. He smiled as Wander came toward him, and she watched his eyes curl around her, toward the sleeping body.

  "How is he?" Besthand asked.

  "He's still breathing."

  "And this enemy?"

  "It's quiet. We are stopped."

  Besthand put in a grin.

  He held up his hand. She could see a long red gash underneath the cloth he had used to bind it.

  "We should talk," he said.

  "The kontor will want to hear from you."

  His grin fell down after a moment, but he nodded and lowered his hand.

  -

  The Goals who moved around the train parted from her and the roadpoint with the other roadpeople. They whispered, "See us, Firmpoint."

  "See us."

  "Let us back from it."

  "Let us back."

  After Melody's cart, which was the vehicle impacted and thrown on its side, the partsfighters had pitched their tents and their fires in the meadow beyond the train's main body. Melody sat away from the fire, looking out toward the river and the ruins of the block-building. When they approached him, they were met by a Larun partsfighter, whose mouth was green, and who walked with a stumble, and half-shut eyes.

  "You might not want to, Firmpoint," he told Wander. "He has been shouting. Hewants to be alone, now."

  "Go away, Higher," Melody's voice shouted back. "Give them their path."

  Higher looked at him, his eyes shaking. Besthand held his shoulder.

  "Sit down, goodpoint," he said. "We all need it." The man nodded and moved away.

  They stepped around Melody and faced her. Melody's face was free of the covering it had taken on. He looked up at the two of them, and fixed on Besthand. "The roadpoint," he said.

  Besthand smiled at him.

  "It's good to see you, kontor," he said. "Are you recovered?"

  Melody turned to Wander. "What call has he given out?"

  "A left-handed one," Wander replied. "He has kept us from pain. You know now that his retreat was well-aimed. Do you need some other part?"

  Melody coughed. He shook his head.

  Wander looked at Besthand. He spoke. "Some parts for you, kontor. I'm going to carry my seat to the fore. I'll be in use of my papers. We need a course out of this place, and nivs to split open road. This place should not be too far from The Ash. I hope you and your friends will help with this. We'd be back on it within a day or so."

  Melody looked up at him and blinked.

  "I'll tell them," he said.

  "Good." Besthand looked between her and Wander. Wander tilted her head.

  "I'm glad he can still breath," he said.

  He reached out his finger and pointed to the ruined hill that had formed. It was still immersed in light. The beacon this produced lit up the dark, surrounding countryside.

  "I tried to keep him from it," Besthand continued. He rubbed his hand. "I was surprised. I'm sorry."

  Wander did not reply for a moment.

  "It's not a problem," she said.

  Besthand frowned.

  "Please," he said, "if he's concerned- tell him it doesn't matter. I'm not sure what he was trying to do. Say that he can mend it when he shows it to me. I believe it was tall, and bright. Perhaps it helped."

  "I'll tell him. Thank you."

  His brow furrowed. Wander's face did not shift much.

  "I hope he's right about you," he said.

  He nodded briefly at Melody. He walked back toward the other carts, past the partsfighters' camp. He placed his hands behind his back.

  Wander watched him. She looked down at Melody, who was still watching the light on the hill.

  She moved to follow Besthand back to the company.

  "I called you wrong," Melody said.

  Wander turned to Melody.

  "There is a truth in your tell," he continued. "Or a part of it."

  He looked up at the sky, which was flush with stars again. "I wish that I was right. And that I knew what you are. But I am not. I do not know what you are."

  His head came down. "And I do not know what I am."

  "We are blades of He," Wander said. "What else is there?"

  "I knew yours as the wrong kind. Yours is right. Mine was a plague. What does that mean for me?"

  The stream burbled in the distance.

  "I am young," Wander said. "Ourland left me young. Sett took me. All was lost. We went searching for something new." She curled her fingers. "We found He. We were not born with knowing. We will never know what it means. But we run after it very quickly."

  Melody's mouth opened. It closed.

  He got to his feet. The kontor looked at her.

  "When we meet again," Wander said. "Tell me the wrong ways. I cannot recall them. I would like to."

  Melody blinked.

  "When we meet again, Onnsdaughter," he said.

  "When we meet again, Onnsson."

  -

  Wander went back down the train.

  Almost everyone was laying down. Besthand's cart rattled past her in the dark, lead by a partsfighter.

  When she arrived at the animals, she found them there and their eyes shut.

  She laid her hand in Fragile's spot and found it empty. Some of the blankets had been extracted. Footsteps crunched behind her, and she turned.

  Fragile's face was black and blue. His throat was bruised. He quivered slightly in the night air. Beneath his covering, he wore no clothes.

  "How are you feeling?" Wander asked him.

  He blinked.

  "I'm good," he said. He wrapped the blankets tighter around himself.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked her. "I saw- your fight. With the kontor."

  "It wasn't a problem."

  "Ih."

  He looked away.

  "The roadpoint told me," she said. "What you did."

  His eyes widened and he looked up at her.

  "H-his hand," he said. "Is it-"

  "He said it's fine."

  He nodded.

  "How did you get in the water?" she asked.

  Fragile grit his teeth.

  "Did you fall?"

  "I am afraid," he said, "you will be upset."

  Wander paused.

  "I am grateful for it," she said.

  He looked up at her. "G-grateful?"

  She nodded. She looked away.

  "My eye has been twisted," she said. "You are not a jewel."

  Fragile shifted.

  "We are a unity," she continued. "You have said you wish an equal part in this matter. I give it to you."

  Fragile brightened.

  Her hand lit up with fire. The light shot around their camp, bringing color into it; into Fragile's face, the red and white of the animals, and into the green of her vest.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "I'm hungry," she said. "I was going to make a fire."

  The lips of Fragile's mouth curled upward. They came into a smile, which he turned down quickly. He looked away.

  Wander watched it happen.

  She put the fire out.

  Everyone in the company slept deeply that night.

  The Bell had bound herself to Wander once again, and Fragile laid alone. Besthand folded his hands atop his cart, snoring at a high-pitch. The roadpeople fell asleep on their knees, offering and whispering, without blankets to cover them. It was a warm night, and there was even sweating among the Rootcliffs, whose garment was very thick.

  Out of the North, a rod of cold thrust toward them.

  The element's many parts were burnt and crushed. Its body had been shattered, mulched, and disjoined. One led the rest. Its lunges limped toward the gathering, small and quiet, as though it could touch the bush, rise the sleepers, and face some fury.

  It descended from the world into the space next to Fragile. It looked at his face and began to whisper into his ear.

  The Bell's coil fell away from Wander. The air erupted as her clamps snapped shut around the sneaking bunch, without a way for any but her to see. But they could feel it.

  Wander to her feet when the place where Fragile lay raged suddenly with fire. Wander dragged him by the arm from it and they beat out the tongues that still lapped at his gown. The movement of the air came to still as they did so. A scream began that caused others to wake in terror.

  The Bell Bellowed as she crushed the new arrival between her points. Its fragile parts bent and snapped under her assault. It screamed.

  "Speak your aim, new one," she said. "Or in a moment, you shall be no more."

  "Do not hurt me! Do not hurt me!" A voice squeaked out from the air.

  "Who?"

  "The Pit!" it squealed. "The Pit! That is my name! My name is yours, eldsister! My name!"

  The air tumbled free. Before Wander and Fragile a wisp of air condensed itself, moulding into color and shape. It prostrated itself in front of Fragile, who got on his knees.

  The wisp was very small, and it did not have many features. It was yellow and red, like the ground around. It did not look like a man, but a curling sheath with a gap inside.

  "Please!" The air-sheath bent down in its space as Wander's fist took on flame. "My adored Firstpoints! Do not hurt me!"

  "What is your aim?" Wander asked.

  "I am The Pit," he said. "The Pit. A Teller of He. I am your second hand, eldsisters. I am sent here. I am commanded - to help you on your journey. To bring an end to your enemies. To bring all Goals victory!"