The stalled vehicle blocked the crossing with its rear wheels still on the district side.
Bram saw the driver try once more before the convoy leader raised her hand. The starter made a dry scraping sound. The engine caught for half a breath, shook the whole body, and died. In the space that followed, a person inside asked whether they should get out. The medical worker answered before anyone on the road could offer the easy instruction.
“Two of us cannot walk them across.”
Bram went to the side door. The driver had stopped trying. Steam, or something close enough to steam that nobody wanted to put a bare hand beneath it, rose through the gap beside the hood. Beyond the crossing the first small vehicle waited in the clear, its rear already full of passengers. The road could not take another vehicle alongside the stalled one.
The convoy leader came down from the front. She looked at the gap, the passengers, the slope behind them. She was the one with the vehicle list and the authority to change its order. Bram told her what he could see, then asked the dungeon crew commander for the interval.
The commander answered from behind the last road barrier. “At this footing, until the second low horn. Earlier if the left fixing goes. After that we take the alternate route.”
