The first building to fall was not the loudest.
Iven saw its upper wall lean over the lane, a row of windows turning together as if someone had lifted one end of a picture. The flexible joint at its base opened. The wall settled against the neighboring frame with a sound like a long sigh.
People below it stared. A woman standing beside a cart raised one hand toward the windows, perhaps to warn the people inside. Then the frame failed, and the wall came down across the lane.
The sound that followed swallowed every bell.
Iven ran toward it. Neri caught his sleeve for one step, pointing to the second building. Its upper beams were still moving.
“Not under that side,” she shouted.
He changed course. The lane filled with dust and the smell of broken plaster. A cart lay on its side beneath a beam. One horse—or something bred to pull like one—struggled in its harness, hooves striking the deck. A man crawled from beneath the cart with blood running down his forehead.
“Can you stand?” Iven asked.
The man tried and failed. Iven caught him under the arm and dragged him clear of the beam. The animal pulled against the harness, bringing the cart closer to the broken wall.
Neri reached them with Dessa. “Cut it loose.”
Dessa drew a knife and worked at the straps while Neri checked the beam overhead. Iven took the animal’s head, speaking in a voice he hoped sounded calmer than he felt. The creature rolled one eye toward him and stamped.
“I’m not enjoying this either,” he told it.
The final strap parted. The animal lurched free and ran down the lane. Two workers caught the trailing harness before it reached the crowd.
A child cried from beneath the fallen wall.
Iven dropped beside the beam. There was a gap under one end, narrow but open. He saw a small hand moving in the dust.
“I’m here,” he called. “Don’t pull. Tell me where you are.”
“Under the table,” a voice answered.
The table had taken part of the wall’s weight. One leg had broken, but the top still held a pocket of space. Iven could not reach the child without moving the beam. He examined its supports: one end rested on the fallen cart, the other on a broken doorframe. If he lifted the near end, the far end might roll.
“Neri.”
She was already there. “Dessa, block the far side. Jem, bring the short timber.”
Jem appeared through the dust with a piece of squared wood. He set it against the beam while Dessa wedged a broken paving block beneath it. Neri tested the doorframe with her boot.
“Lift slowly. I’ll tell you if it moves.”
Iven seated clamp bridge and plate brace. He set the brace against the beam and used the clamp to hold the adjoining frame from sliding. The graft warmed along his left forearm as he raised the beam a few inches.
“Enough,” Neri said. “Hold.”
She crawled into the gap, not waiting for him to object. The child was wedged between the table and a fallen shelf. Neri shifted the shelf, drew the child out, and passed her to Dessa.
The beam pressed harder against Iven’s brace. He held until Neri was clear, then lowered it onto the timber. The clamp released. His arm trembled once from the effort, then steadied.
The child coughed dust into Dessa’s shoulder. “My mother.”
“Where?” Neri asked.
“Inside.”
They searched the opening together. The table’s other side had collapsed completely. Iven found a woman’s arm beneath the broken shelf, then the rest of her. Sera arrived as he and Jem lifted the shelf. She checked for breath and looked at Iven.
He understood before she spoke.
Dessa carried the child farther down the lane. Neri covered the woman’s face with a cloth from her tool roll. The cloth had grease on one corner. It was what she had.
The deck moved again. This time the shift came with a slow grinding from beneath the saddle. The neighboring building leaned toward them. Neri looked up and shouted for everyone to clear the lane.
Iven helped Jem carry the woman’s body to the side. They had gone only a few steps when the second building’s outer brace snapped. A beam fell across the place where they had been standing.
“Where’s Brell?” Iven asked.
“At the heat stair,” Sera said. “Kesh is with her.”
“Tavin?”
“Cage Seven is moving people to the clinic landing. He sent a runner for stretchers.”
The clinic itself sat above the disused bathhouse, farther from the collapsing lane. Sera had already sent her assistants to clear the lower room for injuries. She took one look at the man’s bleeding forehead and directed him toward the clinic with a worker supporting him.
Iven wanted to go back into the first building. Neri caught his arm again.
“The remaining wall is moving. We shore it or we don’t enter.”
“How long?”
“Longer than you want.”
“People are inside.”
“I know.” Her voice sharpened. “If it falls on the rescue crew, there will be more people inside.”
He forced himself to look at the structure rather than the opening. Two support posts had separated from their base plates. A third still held, but its upper joint was twisted. Neri needed material long enough to bridge the gap and a place to anchor it.
The overturned cart had a steel axle and a pair of thick wooden shafts. Iven ran back to it with Jem. They pulled the shafts free while Dessa cleared the lane. The cart’s owner protested until Neri told him exactly what they were taking and where she would record it for replacement.
“It’s my livelihood,” he said.
“I know. I’ll sign for it.”
He looked at the broken building and stepped back.
They carried the shafts to the wall. Neri placed one as a diagonal shore, its lower end against a sound deck rib. The second crossed it to prevent lateral movement. Iven used clamp bridge briefly while Jem drove the wedges. When the structure held under its own supports, he released the graft and checked the bolts at the base.
The deck shifted. The crossed timbers compressed and held.
“Now,” Neri said.
Iven entered with Jem. Dust had settled enough to reveal a narrow passage between fallen furniture. A man lay beneath a door, conscious but unable to move his leg. Iven lifted the door while Jem pulled him free. Farther inside, a woman called from behind a collapsed partition.
“We’re coming,” Iven answered.
The partition had fallen across a stair. He could see the woman’s face through a gap. She was holding a small boy behind her. The boy was silent, his eyes fixed on the broken boards.
Iven tried the partition. It did not move. He found the beam pinning it and followed the load to a shelf that had wedged against the ceiling. He could strike the shelf free with a piston impulse, but the falling material might hit the woman.
“Can you move to the left?” he asked.
“There isn’t room.”
“Can you put the boy beneath the stair?”
She looked down. There was a shallow space under the lower steps. She guided the boy into it and covered him with her body.
Iven stepped back. “Cover your head.”
He struck the shelf’s upper corner. The piston impulse drove the wood sideways. The shelf broke free and fell against the partition rather than through it. Jem caught one end with a rope, and together they pulled the boards away from the stair.
The woman crawled out with the boy. Iven passed them to Jem and turned toward the rear room. A low scrape came from beneath the floor.
A pale limb pushed through a gap between the boards.
The creature followed it into the room, mineral armor shedding dust. It was larger than the smaller one in Brell’s chamber and carried a broken strip of wood across its back. It turned toward the woman and boy.
Iven stepped between them. The creature lunged. He caught its head on a plate brace, let the impact turn him, and drove a piston strike into the joint of its forward leg. The leg buckled. The creature snapped at his coat; he pulled free and used spring step to move around its side.
“Out,” he shouted to Jem.
Jem took the woman and boy through the opening. The creature turned after them. Iven struck again, this time at the broken joint. The leg folded, and the creature fell against the partition.
It was still moving. It could still reach him. Iven brought his hammer down on the exposed joint with all the force he could safely direct. The creature stopped advancing.
He stood over it for a heartbeat, breathing hard. He had saved the people behind him. He did not know whether the creature had come because the building had injured the tissue beneath it, because it was following movement, or for some other reason. The answer would not have changed what he had just done.
Another grinding sound came from below. The floor tilted under his boots.
He ran.
Outside, the lane had become a route for stretchers. Tavin’s crew carried injured people toward Cage Seven. Asa stood at the corner with a list and directed unhurt residents away from the collapsing buildings. Vale had sent pots of water from the kitchen. Brin ran messages between the clinic and the landing, his face pale but his feet steady.
Neri checked the crossed shores. “The wall will hold for another entry,” she said. “Not much longer.”
“How many inside?”
“Two households unaccounted for. Asa’s checking names.”
Iven wiped dust from his eyes. His left arm felt hot from the clamp and the fight. He had charge left, but he would need food, rest, or a proper charging rig before he could keep spending it at the same rate. There was no time to pretend otherwise.
Dessa handed him a piece of bread. “Eat while you listen.”
He took it. Asa arrived with the list and pointed to two names. One had been seen leaving for work before the collapse. The other belonged to an older woman in the rear room.
“Her neighbor says she can’t use the stairs quickly,” Asa said.
“Then we go in,” Iven said.
Neri checked the shore once more. “Iven and Jem. Rope around the upper post. If I call you back, you come.”
They entered with a rope and a lantern. The rear room’s door was jammed. Iven pried it open with his spanner while Jem held the lantern. The older woman sat on the floor beside her bed, her leg trapped under a fallen chest.
“I’m not getting up,” she said when she saw them.
“We can work with that.”
He lifted the chest with Jem’s help. The woman’s leg was not pinned badly, but she could not stand. They wrapped her in a blanket and carried her between them. At the doorway, Neri shouted their names.
The wall had begun to move.
Iven and Jem ran with the woman. They reached the lane as the crossed timber cracked. Neri pulled the rope barrier aside, then drove everyone back from the building. The remaining wall settled into the lane with a heavy, grinding collapse.
Dust covered Iven’s coat. The older woman clutched the blanket and looked at the place where her room had been.
“My cup,” she said.
Iven had no answer for that. He could not go back through the wall for a cup. He could make sure someone stayed with her while she understood what had happened.
Asa came to take her hand. “We’ll find you a place tonight.”
The woman looked at her. “A place with a cup?”
“With a cup,” Asa said.
The deck shifted once more. This time the movement traveled farther through the saddle. A line of buildings beyond the clinic leaned, their connecting braces stretching. Bells rang from several districts at once.
Mercy had not stopped walking. It had changed direction, and the city on its back was learning how much of itself had been built for a different step.