IM AN ORC?

Nym twirled the blade between her fingers until the carved route reflected light.

The cipher was not letters. Individual notches arranged around the fuller. Each cut angled toward the next point on the sequence. A river map made for people who did not want paper found on them.

“The barge was a decoy.” She met their eyes. “The anchors were meant to make us chase the obvious route. The real delivery left Reed Market before we arrived.”

Ruk stared at the cuts in her hand. “Where?”

Nym followed the route with one nail. “There is a spillway three miles east. Reed Market’s low water exposes an old cargo channel beneath the south bank. The Court can send a small boat through it without docking.”

Sorn watched the dark river beyond the market stalls. “At this hour they will already be gone from that channel.”

“Then we intercept them before they reach the stone cut.” Ruk said.

The burned out sheds smoked softly. Zira had transformed the market hall into a place for triage and Lenna was assisting the town elders in keeping people away from the collapsed warehouse. Grasha watched the riverbank with Karg, waiting for the last of the untethered boats to be secured.

“How many go?” She asked when Ruk joined them.

“Ruk, Nym, Sorn, Zree, and me.” Zira answered before he could. “The rest stays with the market. If the Court put another trigger here, the townspeople need fighters and a boundary watcher.”

Ruk met Grasha’s eyes. He did not like it. He could see that in the way she clutched the axe haft between both hands. But she looked at the settlement burning behind them. The families frightened for their lives. The smoke, and then at Lenna forcing children back from the warehouse ruins.

“We hold Reed Market.” Grasha made her decision. “Brek and Lenna take shifts with the warehouse seam. Karg and I guard the docks. If anything comes down that channel, it dies here.”

He nodded. Already the work was larger than one team could handle. He still hated splitting them up, but he trusted them now like he had not trusted anyone when they started.

Nym uncovered a shallow skiff tucked beneath the fish sheds. Its owner had taken his chances with the rest of the market. She untied the cover, inspected the oars, and shoved it into the river.

“Try not to sink this one,” she said to Ruk.

“That was once.”

“It was three times. You just managed to survive two of them.”

Zira climbed in the bow without upsetting the boat. Sorn took the opposite corner, one foot braced against the market wall. Zree moved to the center with her hand trailing just above the water.

They rowed east.

They passed the market out of their rear as the river changed around them. The banks steepened. Soft reeds gave way to shelves of stone and the current pressed harder against the skiff’s hull. The seam below the water shifted uneasily. Not wounded, not yet. But stirred by whatever had come downriver and moved along it.

Zree cracked her eyelids open. The amber light reflected in the water.

“The false note is ahead.” She said. “It is moving.”

“A boat?” Ruk asked.

“Something tied to a boat.” Zree shifted her weight in the skiff. “The note keeps dipping beneath the water, then resurfacing.”

Ahead of them a darker shape shimmered just below the waterline. “Low- water channel.” Nym pointed.

They did not see the hidden cargo route until the current curved around a cliff of rock. A narrow passage led beneath the south bank. Half obscured by hanging roots and rocks. A flat barge had just emerged from it sliding downstream, piled high with covered crates. Two polemen sent it on its way, hands working in practiced tandem. Four guards paced among the cargo at the rear.

At the stern a woman knelt in a gray river cloak. Her hands clasped a hollow-metal anchor above the water.

It was larger than the anchors at Reed Market.

Zree sucked in a sharp breath. “That is not something anyone would fish with.”

The woman lowered it until the tip kissed the water.

The current lurched.

Ruk felt the boundary sense tighten around that section of channel. The false note blossomed out through the water like spilled ink.

“They are opening the whole river line.” Zira whispered.

The gray- cloaked woman stared at their skiff.

She had been waiting for them.

She tucked her fingers around the anchor throat.

The river rose.

Broadside first the bow lifted over the curl.

Sorn grabbed rail to brace himself and kept low in his corner. Nym jammed an oar down into the water to keep their bow from swinging around. Zira threw one arm across Zree’s shoulders as the skiff crested the sudden wave.

Ruk raised the artifact.

They were not under attack. The false note had dragged the seam below beneath the surface and the water was responding to the wound. He reached underneath the rippling current but could not hear it. Another false note scraped along the riverbed drowning out the wound’s voice.

“It’s using the old channel as its line.” Zree yelled. “The stone beneath is carrying the seam with it. If they anchor settles, they can pull that wound all the way to the cut.”

“Can you break it?”

“She can try.” Ruk held up on. “But not from here. You need to get her out of the water.”

The flat barge drew closer. Floating backwards on the rising river. The guards leveled crossbows. Nym shoved hard with her shoulder and spun the skiff behind a stone shelf as bolts punched the water.

“We need that barge.” She hissed.

Ruk stared down the narrow channel. The wavering water between them. The anchor still dragging pale shards through the riverbed. “Sorn gets us to cargo side. Nym distracts the woman. Zira and Zree take care of the anchor.”

“And what about me?” Zira asked.

“I handle the river.”

Sorn nodded without looking up. Threw a grappling hook across the gap between barges. Caught the rail. Nym pulled the line tight while Ruk flooded the artifact’s clean light into the skiff.

The true boundary note called back faint but true.

The river ceased rising.

That was all he could give them.

Before they knew what was happening Sorn had crossed the line. Fast and horizontal. Rolled onto his back among the crates then cut a guard across the knee before he could react. Nym followed hard on his heels, one dagger between her teeth and the other already free in her hand.

She met the gray- cloaked woman at the boat’s stern.

Their blades clashed once, twice, three times. Hard jabs as Nym fought close and aimed to keep the woman away from the anchor. The gray cloak flipped back, revealing a hard-faced woman with a scar slashed across her forehead.

“You are late.” She snarled.

“So you keep telling me.” Nym shoved her hands through. “Try going slower next time.”

Zree and Zira crossed at the same time. Zira placed her hand against the rail where the false note began to tear the wood. Zree dropped down hard beside the anchor without touching it, her eyes glowing amber.

“There’s another note linked to this one downriver.” She warned. “If we rip it free, they will know.”

Ruk climbed off the skiff and onto the barge. The effort of holding the true note against the river’s weight was draining him. Pulled from his arms and chest like a scream. He could feel the woman in the gray cloak trying to drive the anchor deeper into the false weave behind them.

Nym deflected her strike but fell back on her heels.

He reached the anchor and placed the artifact next to it.

The dark metal screamed inside the boundary sense.

Another reply answered him from far downriver. Stronger than before. Not the reply of a wound. A network of replies small hollow spots cutting into reality wherever someone had learned the technique and hidden it along the river line.

The Hollow Court had built not one wound.

They had built a chain.

Ruk shoved the artifact into place next to the anchor.

Matching nodes shattering beneath them.

Pale light flared across the deck of the barge. Zree punched both hands forward and met the fracture with a pinpoint resonance strike. White light flared around the anchor and it split clean down the middle.

The river dropped away.

Nym used the woman’s moment of surprise to roll her over the stern rail. She caught the edge of it, glanced once at the cracked anchor then pitched herself backward into the current below.

Sorn reached for her hand.

Too late.

The current carried her beneath the old channel. Away from them both.

Ruk stood on the deck above where she had fallen. He felt the pull of the false note leave the river and sink into exhaustion.

The barge rolled free.

The river returned to normal around him.

But the replies downriver still rang in his ears.