IM AN ORC?

The remains of the mill settled into silence, but the road to Orrin’s Ford did not.

Sorn took the ledger west through the dark, moving toward Reed Market and the runner routes beyond it. Ruk watched him vanish between the trees, then turned the remaining group east. The path followed the river’s upper edge, where the ground rose and the water could be heard below but not seen.

Nym kept them off the main road.

"Court scouts will watch the bridges," she explained. "They expect people to use the dry crossing. We use the old sheep track."

The track was little more than a narrow line between thorn bushes. Karg walked without complaint despite the bandage on her arm. Zira had sealed the wound, but the strain showed every time Karg gripped her axe.

Grasha noticed it too.

"You can stay behind at the first safe shelter," she told Karg.

Karg gave her a look. "You can stay behind at the first safe shelter."

"That was not the answer."

"It is the answer you get."

Ruk heard the exchange and said nothing. If the wound became a risk, he would make the call. Until then, Karg was right: she was still moving, still thinking, still capable.

The river smell reached them before the ruins did. Wet stone. Silt. Rotting reeds. Then the trees opened and Orrin’s Ford appeared below.

It had once been a river town built around a wide crossing. The flood had claimed most of it years ago. Now only rooflines, upper walls, and the broken tower of an old toll house rose above the water. Rain swelled the river around the ruins, turning the lower streets into dark channels.

Lanterns moved among the half-submerged buildings.

Nym crouched behind a fallen trunk. "Too many for a transport guard."

Ruk counted the lights. Twelve visible. More hidden in the toll house. A long flat boat was tied near the old bridge remains, its deck covered by canvas.

Zree closed her eyes.

Her amber glow came slowly this time. She was tired. Ruk could see it in the way her shoulders tightened before she let the sound-mapping reach out.

"The prisoners are under the toll house," she whispered. "I can hear them. Not their voices. Their... presence. The Court has set a listening cage beneath the waterline."

Zira’s face hardened. "How many?"

"At least eight. Maybe more. The false note is tangled around them. It is using their ability to hear the seam."

Grasha looked at the flooded streets. "Then we go in hard."

"Not yet," Nym said. She pointed to the canvas-covered boat. "That is the transport. The prisoners go downstream once the flood rises high enough to hide the route. If we attack the toll house first, the guards cut the boat loose. If we take the boat first, the prisoners are still trapped under them."

"Split," Ruk decided.

Nym’s eyes moved to him. "I take the boat with Karg. We cut the line, take the crew, and hold it against the current. You take the toll house."

"Zira stays with me," Ruk said. "Zree too. Grasha takes the front."

Karg’s mouth tightened. She hated being assigned away from the direct fight. But she nodded once to Nym.

"Do not let the boat move," Ruk told them.

"Do not let the prisoners drown," Nym returned.

They left the cover together and divided at the water’s edge.

Ruk, Grasha, Zira, and Zree entered the flooded town through a collapsed wall. The water came to Ruk’s thighs and turned every step into a pull. Rain tapped against the broken roofs above them. The lantern light from the toll house wavered across the surface.

A guard stood on the balcony of a half-sunken inn, crossbow in hand.

Grasha threw a stone into the far end of the street. The splash drew the guard’s eyes. Ruk moved beneath the balcony, caught the broken railing, and pulled himself up. The guard turned too late. Ruk struck the crossbow aside, caught the man’s collar, and lowered him into the water without noise.

They moved again.

The toll house had been built from heavy river stone. The first floor was already under water. A stairway rose from the submerged doorway to a second-story chamber where four guards watched the bridge remains. Below them, pale light leaked through cracks in the stone.

Zree stopped at the base of the steps.

"The cage is beneath this room," she said. "The false note is inside the walls."

"Can we break through the floor?" Grasha asked.

"Not if we want the people below to survive. The water pressure is holding part of the chamber together."

Ruk looked at the stairway. The guards had not seen them yet. He could take the upper room, but a fight there might bring the ceiling down into the flooded lower level.

Zira pointed to a narrow window on the far side. "There is an old drainage opening. If it still connects to the lower chamber, we can reach the prisoners without breaking the floor."

Nym would have looked for that first, Ruk thought. Then he corrected himself. Zira had looked for it. The group did not need one person to see every path anymore.

Grasha waded toward the outer wall and found the opening under the waterline. It was narrow. Too narrow for her. Ruk could fit. Zira could fit. Zree would have to follow last.

"I take the guards," Grasha said.

"Not alone," Ruk replied.

She looked at him. "You are the only one who can get inside quickly. The prisoners need you in that room. Let me do my work."

The argument lasted no longer than a breath.

Ruk nodded.

Grasha climbed the steps openly.

The first guard saw her and raised the alarm. Her axe struck the stair rail, splintering it, and she came through the gap before his bolt could leave the crossbow. The weapon flew into the river. Karg was not there to match her, but Grasha did not need matching. She drove the first guard into the wall, turned under a sword swing, and sent the second man across the room with the flat of her axe.

The upper fight gave Ruk the noise he needed.

He went under the water.

The drainage opening scraped his shoulders and tore at his coat. Zira followed close behind, one hand on his ankle so they would not lose each other in the dark. The tunnel sloped downward, then opened abruptly.

Ruk surfaced in a stone chamber lit by pale lines drawn across the walls.

Eight people were strapped into wooden chairs set in a circle around a metal frame. Thin black wires ran from their temples to the frame, and the frame sank through the floor into the seam below. Some of the prisoners were conscious. Others hung limp against the restraints.

A woman in a gray river cloak stood beside the frame.

Not the woman from the barge. This woman was older, her hair braided tight against her head, her eyes bright and feverish.

"Ruk of the Black Tusk," she said as if she had been waiting in her own home. "You are early."

Zira surfaced beside him, water streaming from her hair. Her hand came up glowing.

"Who are you?"

The woman smiled.

"Sister Halven. And you are about to learn why the boundary needs more than hands. It needs ears."

She touched the metal frame.

Every prisoner screamed.

The false note surged through the chamber. The water around Ruk rose in a sudden circle, and the floor beneath the listening cage began to split.