The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 80: Volume 3: Chapter 73 – Aramore: The Breaking Point

Read chapter 80 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Volume 3: Chapter 73 – Aramore: The Breaking Point Day 28 — The Crane Gap They hit just before dawn, when the sky is a bruise, and men aren’t fully awake. The air smelled like wet cordage and old smoke. Day three felt different. Men moved with the careful precision of people who knew their bodies were running on borrowed time. Two days of holding had carved lines into faces that hadn't been there at dawn on day one. Kale's bandages were fresh but already spotted. Hook's voice had gone raspy from shouting wind calculations. Varrek's jaw worked constantly, chewing nothing, a habit picked up from watching the Iron Defenders stand motionless for hours. Marcus counted his beads and found the number hadn't changed. The dead stayed dead. The living stayed tired. The wall remained standing. That was the only math that mattered. The Ferric captain would come harder today. Pride demanded it. Two days of failure bought one day of desperation. Rolan’s timing call was half a minute early. He corrected by giving Hook a hand sign for now and Kale a palm for wait. The wall did both. First ladders met empty space and fell before boots could find rung five. Then the far-left section groaned. Not the old breach the river-crane angle, twenty yards down. It opened like a mouth that meant to complain. “Cray,” Marcus said, already moving. “We’re out of plugs.” “Then we use animals,” Cray said, already running. “Blue,” Marcus sent into the circle chalk. “Bear Four. Two-minute window.” “Confirmed,” Gatewright replied. “Veil, I’m fogging the square. Circuit, link.” Heat slammed once. Bear Four materialized not with flash but with weight. The summoning circle pulsed like a heart squeezing, and the air tasted like hot copper. The bear stood eight feet at the shoulder, armor plating so thick it looked geological. The helm's faceplate showed nothing, just dark slits where eyes might be. Inside, the handler felt the link snap into place. Not possession. Partnership. The bear's body became an extension of will, heavy and specific. Moving it was like learning to walk in a body made of stone and purpose. The handler had done this before. Twice. Both times for ninety seconds. Never two minutes. Never with a leg that might not wake up after. Crane gap. You're not a spear. You're a door. The handler understood. Doors don't move. Doors don't flinch. Doors just are. Copy. When the sally-port opened, the bear moved like a landslide with intention. The gap wasn't a destination. It was an inevitability. The handler felt the impact as chest plating met stone, a compression that knocked air from lungs twenty feet away. Then stillness. The bear became geography. Which gap? The handler’s mind came tight and thin. Crane gap. You’re not a spear. You’re a door. Brace your chest in and be the wall. Two minutes. If you can’t vanish, you hold anyway. Copy. “Sally-port!” Marcus snapped. The slot opened. The bear pushed through into a hammering shove of bodies and wood. The Ferric captain split his push smart. Thirty at the old breach, twenty at the new. Teams like cells dividing anger. “Varrek—ten of yours to Bear Four. Orders only, no improvisation.” “Understood,” Varrek said. “Hold shield. Be wall. No step.” “Hook—archers, crane lane only.” “Cray—rig poles and wedges now.” Poles thudded in. Wedges knocked tight. Bear Four set its chest into the fresh gap and took the load like it meant to keep it forever. The clang off the helm rang in the teeth. At the old breach, three pikemen found the seam along Thing One’s plating, jabbing in precise, nasty. Pikes bit at joints again and again. “Thing Two—cold field on the crane ankles,” Marcus said into the circle. “Break the pry-hooks.” Frost flowed. Hooks skittered. Sappers cursed. Crimson put a thin burn across the pike rank. Men flinched. Thing One used the beat and locked deeper. Then the pikemen came up with a clever idea again and found a second seam. Thing One’s voice went low, a little rough. “Brace,” it said, reminding itself.