IM AN ORC?

The second wound waited behind a crowded market that had no idea it concealed one.

Reed Market nestled at the point where the river bent wide and slow around an island town. Lamps had just begun to glow in the dock area by the time Ruk’s group arrived at its periphery. Flat-bottomed trade boats nudged against their mooring ropes. Fishmongers yelled past each other beneath tattered awnings. Smoke drifted between storage sheds where cooks tended cooking fires.

To anyone on the road, it looked normal.

Nym led them away from the road.

Past a stretch of soggy ground behind a shuttered tannery. Down through a narrow irrigation ditch choked with reeds and wet soil. The ditch had been dug decades before to supply water from the river to farms east of town. It ran beneath the market’s outer sheds now, running through a low stone culvert barely wide enough for Ruk to fit through shoulder-first.

“No lights,” Nym cautioned. “No metal touching stone. Warehouse up top. If they moved the deal from planned, we listen first. Don’t guess.”

Grasha nodded slightly from behind him. Karg freed her axe head and wrapped the blade in cloth. Zira checked the small healing kit strapped to her belt. Zree closed her eyes and allowed the sound-mapping to seep into the ground instead of filling the market area with distraction.

Ruk crawled through the culvert, his cuffs getting soaked with mud. The roof overhead was low enough that roots intruded through the old brickwork and brushed his back when he passed. Nym moved silently ahead of him. Sorn had slipped away as soon as they’d entered. Somewhere above and outside of the warehouse proper he would be stalking guards.

They reached the culvert’s end at a smashed grate.

Nym peered through. Ruk lowered himself down next to her.

A maze of grain barrels littered the floor of the warehouse above. Two men stood near a table beneath an overhead lamp. One was wearing the blue coat common to river merchants. The other wore a hood despite the warm air, his back to them. Between them sat a long wooden crate bound in iron straps.

The merchant untied the crate.

Inside were twelve dark metal wedges.

Ruk counted them.

Each was sized like a thin meat slicer. Cut from metal scored with the nested angles of the Hollow Court.

“Twelve anchors,” the merchant muttered. His voice wavered despite the greed coloring it. “That is more than we agreed upon.”

The hooded man rested both hands on the table. “We agreed to enough anchors to make Reed Market profitable. The Court provided us with anchors.”

“Profitable for what?”

“For opening what lies beneath the market.”

The merchant swallowed thickly. “There are people down here.”

“The world is full of people.” The hooded man tilted his head to one side.

Nym’s grip on her small knife tightened.

Zree’s fingers found Ruk’s cuff sleeve from behind. She wasn’t watching through the grate. She was watching down into the ground, staring at him with eyes gone completely still.

“The mark has already been started,” she whispered. “Under the warehouse. I hear the false note. They aren’t finished but they want to use these anchors before they complete it.”

He looked at the twelve anchors arranged before him on the crate’s floor.

Used alone each one could turn weak soil into a wound capable of rending a small town. Together beneath a busy marketplace they could damage worse than what they’d built at Millford.

Someone pressed a boot into the mud behind him.

Sorn’s voice spoke out of the darkness beyond the culvert entrance. “Four guards on the outside. Two more roof patrols. Dock would take twice that many to control. Patrol moves through west alley every few minutes.”

“We take this warehouse quietly?” Grasha hissed.

Nym shook her head. “Someone as soon as they move through that door will trigger it. There are bells under those awnings. The entire market will become our trap.”

He looked back through the grate.

The merchant reached for the first anchor.

“We do not have time for quiet,” Ruk said instead.

Her eyes flicked to him, brown and unreadable. “Then we have reason every person in that market flees from our building before it collapses on them.”

Zira shifted toward the culvert entrance. “Burn down the fish sheds. Smoke would empty the stalls.”

“It would also cause panic.” Lenna breathed.

“Panic is preferable to living with a seam wound opening beneath our feet.” Grasha’s voice was soft but stern.

Ruk made the choice.

“Sorn, Nym: roof guards first. Karg, Grasha cut through the west alley and bar door patrols from reaching dock. Zira, Lenna herd people away from the south side. Warn them sheds are on fire. No matter what, do not let them reach the warehouse. Zree stays with me.” He reached a hand toward her. “We take these anchors and stop the mark.”

Silence answered him.

Nym ducked backward into the darkness. Sorn ducked out of sight beside her.

Grasha and Karg leapt from the culvert mouth at the far end, their shadows painting filthy streaks across the crumbling brickwork. Zira touched Lenna’s shoulder before hurrying through the reeds into the market stalls.

Ruk waited for the river wind to shake loose the metal roofing overhead. Then he shoved his elbow through the grate with all his strength.

Metal screeched against metal.

Every person working below them in the warehouse turned to stare.

Ruk burst through the grate first.

The merchant dropped his anchor. The hooded figure moved faster, slamming his open palm against the table edge.

Pale light raced through floorboard cracks.

Zree hit the warehouse floor next to him and pressed both palms into it. Her amber eyes glowed bright.

“The mark is waking.” She hissed at him.

Floorboards heaved.

One guard rushed forward with a short sword drawn. Ruk grabbed the wrist holding it and twisted, wrenching him forward into collision with one of the grain barrels. Hard enough that it split open and emptied half its contents onto the floor. The grain spilled out between their feet. Another guard rushed Ruk from the right side. He kicked the table into him so hard the man stumbled backward into the anchor crate.

The hooded figure tossed something black at Zree.

He reached for her, but she was already moving away. Whatever it was hit the side of a barrel with a soft thump and erupted in dust. Gray powder choked the air. It stung Ruk’s eyes and filled his mouth with the taste of metal.

The hooded figure took off through the warehouse backdoor.

Ruk chased after him one quick step before feeling the false note flare beneath his boots.

Warehouse flooring bucked upward.

Cracks spider-webbed across the floorboards around him. Pale light poured from the center of it in thick ribbons.

Zree’s hand clamped onto his arm. “If you go after him, it forms.”

He stopped moving.

Seeing the enemy so close to catching hurt. But there were people above them who needed warning. Below them an entire seam was opening.

“Anchors.” He pushed her toward them.

Together they moved across the floor.

Ruk kicked aside the anchor crate, sending it crashing against floorboards near the rupture. Zree dropped to one knee beside it, pushing her ears into wood and listening to the anchors hum.

Twelve of them.

They each vibrated with a false frequency Ruk had only ever heard woven into battleaxes. She picked one up hesitantly. Felt it in her palm for a moment before she jerked her hand back as if burned.

“They connect.” She grit out words through clenched teeth. “Break one and the pattern shifts.”

“Tell me the pattern.”

She obliged, shutting her eyes and stilling her mind. Floorboards creaked above them. Below ground an unnatural pressure rose upward, angled toward them. Something that wasn’t yet a body but full of intention. Loose dirt. And pale light gathering itself into solidity.

Someone shouted outside.

Another voice joined it.

Smoke rolled beneath the warehouse windows. Zira’s diversion was complete. Panic shredded the market’s normal noise into screaming voices and running feet.

Third wedge from the left. Lift it. Do not turn it.”

He lifted it and paused, waiting for her signal.

The false note shifted minutely. But the anchors resisted their loss. The pattern of metal strained around the eleven wedges still embedded in the crate below. The crack widened between their feet.

“We have people.” Lenna staggered through the grate, out of breath. “Zira got the south exit. But the people down in the market—”

Warehouse ceiling groaned overhead.

Shelves by the wall collapsed outward, sending glass jars of lamp oil skittering across the floorboards. One jar shattered against the wood near Ruk’s boots. Flame licked along spilled oil and began running along the floor.

Grasha grabbed a nearby barrel and rolled it into the fire before it reached the grain stores. Karg hauled the merchant off the floor by his collar, half-dragging him away before the older fighter turned on him.

“Got rid of your hooded buddy.” He said around pinched teeth. “Means you’re the useful one now.”

The merchant watched the widening crack stretch open across the floorboards. Mud from their shoes coated his shirt, turning it dark gray. His face had gone waxen pale.

“I had no idea it was beneath the market,” he choked out. “They said it would protect the river trade. I did not realize it extended this far!”

“What do you mean ‘they’?” Grasha demanded, keeping half an eye on several dark shapes moving past the grate behind them.

“Varan Osk. He brought you hooded friend with him.” The merchant spat the unfamiliar name. “He told me the Hollow Court wanted to enrich this town.”

No time for that.

The false note climbed higher into the air. Changed from a vibration underfoot into something hard and edged that grated on Ruk’s nerves.

Centermost floorboards burst upward.

A writhing knot of loose dirt, splintered wood, and pale light exploded up through the gap.

Zree shoved herself in front of it.

“Hold it open.” Her voice was calm despite everything down there clawing its way up toward them. “Ruk, I can feel the real note through there. Listen to it. Lenna, find where it wants to settle.”

She trusted Lenna with that? Not likely.

Lenna actually managed to smile at them despite the carnage the ceiling rain threatened to rain down on them all. Stood next to Zree without hesitation.

Ruk lifted the artifact in both hands.

Positioned the light its thrown across the warehouse floor so that it brushed against knot of twisting false note up near the ceiling. Reached a hand beneath it, through the rippling false note and past the crack in the floorboards until he could feel resonance’s true voice singing to him from where the Seam tried its best to hide.

It was angry.

Not with them. No, it was angry with the wound. Every part of its twisting resonance screamed out in frustration against the wound still forming beneath Reed Market.

He aligned the artifact’s voice to match.

For a heartbeat light turned white beneath his fingers. True stone that had hidden itself beneath layers of the false note flinched at being touched.

Knot bucked upward. Loose soil flung itself at every surface inside the warehouse. Karg shoved Grasha and the merchant behind one of the fallen barrels while dust and stone sliced through the air around them. Zree fired a short resonance blast from her hands at exactly the wrong moment.

Lenna covered both ears and pressed her palms against the floorboards nearest the rip.

“Left side.” She yelped, eyes squeezed shut. “The Seam wants to shift left to settle. River line is pulling against it.”

He shifted the artifact’s light.

Zree compensated for him. Knot shifted left, then imploded into the crack that birthed it.

Floor dropped a handspan.

Then steadied.

False note fragmented into nothingness.

Absolute silence flooded through the warehouse, only broken by panicked shouting from Reed Market far above them and the hiss of workers smothering oil lanterns.

Zira burst through the warehouse front doors coughing so hard she couldn’t speak. “The market is empty now. No one was trapped in the sheds.”

He set the artifact back down on the ground.

White light faded from the room.

Hooded figure was gone. Remaining anchors rattled loosely in their crate, innocuous once more.

Nym fell through roof hatch with Sorn close behind.

“Two roof guards survived.” Nym tossed him a folded piece of oilskin. “One had this on.”

He unfolded it.

Delivery schedule. Dates. River locations. Amounts of hollow-metal desired. The next line had been circled twice.

Orrin’s Ford — Varn Osk — full anchor pattern.

Zree glanced down at it. “That will take more than this town to destroy.”

“How much more?” Grasha demanded to know.

Expression hardened across Nym’s face.

Enough to wound the entire valley, should they complete construction.”

Above them the roof settled into place with a loud creak. Smoke drifted past the broken windows as Reed Market began bustling back to life ignorant of how close the earth beneath them had come to breaking apart.

He refolded the delivery schedule and looked south downriver.

“Orrin’s Ford is next then.”