Derrick woke before anyone called his name.
The hut was gray, not dark. Smoke had thinned to a low thread above the hearth, and the last coals gave off more smell than heat. His blanket had slipped down during the night. One bare foot had found the cold patch where the packed dirt floor dipped near Mara's grinding stone.
Rynn sat by the door again.
This time he was not half asleep. He had one knee up, the spear laid across it, and a strip of reed in his hands. He was splitting the reed with his thumbnail, making narrow ties from it one slow peel at a time. A small pile of bad strips lay beside him. A smaller pile of good ones sat on his other side.
Derrick watched him work before speaking.
The spear was close enough for Rynn to grab.
The good reed pile was close enough for Derrick to reach if Rynn let him.
That told him most of what the morning was.
Rynn glanced over. "You awake?"
"Yes."
"Do not get up yet."
Derrick looked toward the hearth. Mara was not there. Her husband's blanket was folded against the wall, but he was gone too. The stool by the door had been moved so that anyone sitting on it could see Derrick's mat, the hearth, and the doorway at once.
"Is Mara outside?" Derrick asked.
"Fetching water."
"For my arm?"
"For everything. Water is like that."
Derrick let his head fall back on the folded cloth under his neck. His forearm hurt in a steadier way than it had the night before. Less fire, more deep soreness. His rope-burned palms felt cracked when he moved his fingers. The place over his heart was quiet, which somehow made him think about it more.
Rynn peeled another reed strip. It broke halfway.
He dropped it into the bad pile.
"Do I still have to work at the rails?" Derrick asked.
"If Mara says the wound stayed clean."
"And if she says no?"
"Then you stay where people can see you and complain until she changes her mind or throws something at you."
Derrick almost smiled. He stopped because Rynn was watching.
Outside, someone dragged a bucket over the threshold. Mara stepped in backward with both hands on the handle. The bucket sloshed over one edge and darkened the dirt near her feet.
"If you two are making jokes before breakfast," she said, "then neither of you is sick enough to lie around."
"I was not joking," Rynn said.
"That is because you are bad at it."
Mara set the bucket near the hearth and looked at Derrick. She did not ask how he felt. She looked at his face, his hands, the blanket, the way his bandaged arm lay close to his body.
"Sit up. Slow."
Derrick pushed himself onto one elbow. His arm pulled, and the bandage tightened against the wound. He swallowed the sound that tried to come out. Mara heard it anyway.
"Use the other arm, fool boy."
"I am."
"Use it better."
Rynn stood and took one step forward.
Mara pointed at him without looking. "Stay there unless he drops."
Derrick made it upright. The room swayed a little, then steadied. Mara knelt, untied the bandage, and peeled the cloth back from the wound. A few dry spots stuck. She did not apologize. She breathed through her nose and bent close.
"Still red," she said.
"Is that bad?"
"Skin does not thank claws by turning pretty."
Rynn leaned forward. "Black?"
"None I see."
"Purple?"
"No."
"Smell?"
Mara turned her head. "Do you want to smell it?"
Rynn straightened. "No."
"Then let me do my work."
She washed the edges with warm water, touched the burned pinpricks where the flecks had been pulled, and pressed two fingers near the deepest line. Derrick looked at the wall behind her shoulder. A loop of leather hung there, cracked at the bend. Beside it was a child's old sandal, too small for Halen now, kept because the strap could be cut for patches.
Mara grunted. "Hot, but no worse than yesterday. Swelling has not climbed. You can work. Not hard. Not near birds. Not near Fedall. Not near any person stupid enough to call your chest a blessing."
Derrick looked at Rynn.
Rynn looked at the reed pile.
"Someone said that?" Derrick asked.
"Someone said a lot before sunrise," Mara said. "Most of it came from mouths still attached to people who like eating. I reminded them of that."
She tied a clean bandage. The knot sat on the outside this time, away from the wound. Then she put a wooden bowl in his lap. The porridge inside was thin enough to show the bottom when it tilted.
"Eat."
Derrick took the spoon. "Do I eat here?"
"Unless you want Vessa to count you with the cracked eggs."
Rynn snorted once before he caught himself.
Mara saw that too. "Good. He remembers he has lungs. Both of you eat. Then rail pile."
Derrick ate slowly because the porridge was hot and because there was not enough of it to waste by hurrying. Rynn ate from a smaller bowl near the door. He kept the spear leaned against his knee.
After breakfast, Mara made Derrick stand while she watched his feet and balance. She told him to walk to the door, turn, and come back. He did it. His legs shook on the turn.
"Again," she said.
"I can walk."
"Again."
He walked again. This time he kept one hand near the wall but did not touch it.
Mara nodded once. "Good enough for bad work."
"That is a kind of work?" Derrick asked.
"Most work is bad work. Good work is what people call it after it is done."
Rynn handed Derrick two reed strips from the good pile. "Carry these."
Derrick looked down at them. "Two?"
"If you drop them, we will know to stop early."
It should have sounded insulting. Maybe it was. Rynn's face did not say. Derrick took the strips with his good hand.
Mara opened the door and looked out first.
That was new.
The lane outside already held people, but they were not moving the way they had before the mark. They worked in pieces. Someone carried a rail, then slowed near Mara's doorway. A woman shook straw from a basket, then looked over the rim. Two children by the well stopped whispering when Rynn stepped out with the spear.
Mara saw all of it.
"If your hands are empty," she called, "I will fill them."
The lane remembered itself.
People bent. Lifted. Carried. The staring did not stop, but it learned to hide behind work.
Derrick stepped out after Rynn. Morning cold went through his tunic. The ground had dried on top and stayed wet beneath, so each step pressed a darker print into the dirt. Smoke from three cook fires crawled low before the breeze broke it apart.
The repair line lay near the inner side of the damaged wall. Split rails had been dragged into two piles: usable and useless. The usable pile was not large enough. Beside it sat coils of reed ties, straight sticks, wedges, a stone hammer, a bone awl, and two buckets of mud mixed with chopped straw for packing gaps.
Jorren sat on a crate with his bad knee stretched out. He held a strip of rawhide in his teeth and used both hands to pull a knot tight around a rail brace. His bone helm sat upside down beside him with three reed ties inside it.
He looked up when Derrick approached.
"Still breathing," Jorren said around the rawhide.
"So are you," Derrick said.
Jorren took the strip from his mouth. "Mine is louder. Makes it easier to count."
Mara's husband, whose name Derrick had only heard once and never dared use wrong, lifted a rail onto two low stones. He nodded at Derrick, not friendly, not unfriendly.
"You scrape," he said. "Mud off the bottom. Rot shows under mud. If the wood gives under the knife, bad pile. If it holds, scrape it clean and hand it to Rynn."
Derrick looked at the knife on the stump. It was broad, dull, and meant for wood.
"Use the left," Mara said from behind him.
"I am right-handed."
"Your right arm is a hole with cloth on it. Today you are left-handed."
Rynn set the spear against the crate within reach and picked up another knife. "Like this."
He dragged the blade along the underside of a rail, scraping off mud in curled strips. The motion looked easy. It was not. When Derrick tried, the knife bounced over a knot and sent a fleck of mud onto his own cheek.
Halen laughed from somewhere behind the slat pile.
Mara did not turn. "Halen."
"I was carrying ties."
"Carry them quieter."
Halen appeared with a bundle nearly as wide as his chest. He had tied it badly, so three strips dragged in the dirt. He set it near Rynn and looked at Derrick's face, then his bandaged arm, then not at his chest because he was trying too hard not to.
"You have mud there," Halen said.
"I know."
"On your cheek."
"I know."
"If you scrape your face too, will Mara put that in the bad pile?"
Rynn grabbed the back of his tunic. "Go."
"I brought ties. That was work."
"Work can keep walking."
Halen looked past Rynn at Derrick. His voice dropped. "Can you feel the rails?"
The knife slipped in Derrick's hand.
Rynn moved fast enough to catch the blade before it fell point first into the dirt. He did not touch Derrick. He caught the handle, set it flat on the rail, and turned on Halen.
"No questions."
"It is a rail."
"No questions."
"I asked about wood."
"You asked around the rule."
Halen's mouth tightened. He was not used to Rynn sounding like the Elder. "If rules have holes, someone should know."
Mara came over with a bucket of mud-straw in both hands. She set it down hard enough to splash Jorren's boot.
Jorren looked at his boot. "Good. It was too clean."
Mara ignored him. "Halen, take the broken ties to Vessa. Tell her I said broken means broken, not short. If she sends back the same handful, I will know."
"Vessa will make me count birds."
"Then count fast."
Halen looked at Derrick again. "I was just asking."
"I know," Derrick said.
That made Halen look worse, not better. He picked up the bad ties and left, dragging his feet until Mara snapped her fingers.
Rynn handed the knife back to Derrick handle first. "Hold it lower."
Derrick took it. "You do not have to keep doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Standing between."
Rynn scraped his rail. "Yes, I do."
"Because of the Elder?"
"Because if they crowd you, Mara yells. If Mara yells, work stops. If work stops, Jorren talks. Nobody wants that."
Jorren raised one hand without looking up. "I heard respect in there."
"You heard wrong," Rynn said.
The work moved forward in small ugly pieces. Scrape mud. Check wood. Pass rail. Tie brace. Pack straw mud into gaps. Lift. Drop. Curse. Lift again. No one sang. No one told stories. The repair line had too many sore hands for that.
Derrick learned which rails were worth saving by sound. Solid wood rasped under the knife. Bad wood gave a damp chew and left dark crumbs on the blade. He ruined the first decision and put a bad rail in the good pile. Rynn caught it before Mara's husband carried it away.
"Knife sank too easy," Rynn said.
Derrick wiped sweat from his upper lip with his sleeve. "I thought that was mud."
"Mud comes off. Rot opens. See?"
Rynn pressed his thumb into the scraped patch. The wood dented.
Derrick nodded. "Bad pile."
Rynn watched him move it. "Good."
It was not praise. Not exactly. Derrick took it anyway.
By midmorning, the village had learned new ways to stare. People did not stop near him now. They passed with tasks in hand, slowed half a step, and listened. Two women carrying water lowered their voices when they came near. A man with a bundle of stakes touched two fingers to his forehead and chest, quick and guilty.
The Elder saw it from beside the gate.
"Tam," he called.
The man froze.
"Since your hands are looking for extra work, take that stake bundle to the far ditch and bring back stones. Big enough to hurt your toes."
Tam lowered his hand. "I was only asking protection."
"Then protect the ditch from being empty. Go."
A few people smiled into their work. No one smiled openly.
Derrick kept scraping.
The mark under his tunic stayed quiet. He wished that helped. It did not. Quiet meant it could start again anytime.
Near the well, a girl no older than Halen carried a cup of water with both hands. She walked straight toward the repair line, eyes on the cup, too careful. Leena watched from the wash stones and pretended not to.
Rynn saw the girl before Derrick did.
"Stop there," Rynn said.
The girl stopped so fast water sloshed over her fingers.
"Who is that for?" Rynn asked.
"Him." She nodded at Derrick.
Derrick's throat tightened at the sight of the water. He had not realized he wanted it.
"Who sent you?" Rynn asked.
The girl looked back.
Leena wrung the same cloth a second time. Her hands were red from cold water. Her youngest boy had been crying near the wash stones all morning, the kind of thin cry that made mothers count breaths.
Mara walked over from the mud bucket. "Bring it to me."
The girl obeyed, face red.
Mara took the cup, drank half of it herself, then handed the rest to Derrick. "There. If it was cursed, I am cursed first. If it was kindness, I am rude first. Both are settled."
The girl whispered, "Mother said he looked thirsty."
"Your mother has eyes," Mara said. "Next time she can use her feet."
Leena looked up then. Not angry enough to be brave. Not ashamed enough to stop. "My boy coughed blood last winter. I know what thirsty looks like."
The repair line went quiet around the word blood.
Mara held her gaze. "Then you know not to send children to carry what adults are afraid to touch."
Leena's mouth tightened. She looked at Derrick, then at the cup in his hand. For one breath he saw what she was really asking: if water could prove he was harmless, if kindness could test a curse, if one scared mother could learn something without being the one to step close.
Derrick took the cup with his left hand. "Thank you."
The girl looked relieved for half a blink before Rynn pointed toward the well.
"Go."
She went.
Mara watched Leena until the woman picked up a full basket and carried it away faster than she needed to.
"That is how it starts," Mara said. Not loudly. Just enough for Derrick and Rynn. "A cup. A feather. A sick bird. A baby with a cough. Everyone says it is only once. Then the boy becomes a wall hook for every fear in the village."
Derrick lowered the cup. "I can say no."
Mara looked at him. "Can you?"
He did not answer.
Rynn set another rail in front of him. "Scrape."
Derrick scraped.
The knife slipped less when he stopped trying to prove his arm did not hurt. He used his knees to brace the rail, kept his right arm close, and worked with the left. The motion was slow but possible. Mud collected in a mound near his boot. His shoulder ached from doing everything wrong.
Jorren finished a brace and tossed it aside. "Boy works like a one-winged Tuftest."
Mara said, "Still better than you walk."
"That was cruel. Accurate, but cruel."
Derrick leaned into the next scrape and hit a buried knot. The knife skipped. Pain snapped up his right arm because he had braced without thinking. He dropped the knife and folded over the bandage.
Rynn caught his shoulder before he fell into the rail pile.
Too many people looked at once.
Derrick hated that more than the pain.
"I'm fine," he said.
"No," Mara said from ten steps away. "You are injured. Those are different things."
"I can keep going."
"You can sit."
"Mara."
She came close, took his chin between two fingers, and turned his face toward the light. He was sweating cold. He knew it before she said anything.
"Sit," she said.
He sat on an overturned bucket. The rail pile blurred at the edges for three breaths and then came back sharp. Rynn stood in front of him, not close enough to touch, close enough to block most of the staring.
A woman near the stake pile murmured, "Maybe the mark takes strength."
Mara's head turned.
The woman looked down.
The Elder did not shout. He did not need to. "Leena."
The woman closed her eyes.
"Wet rope by the north shade. Hang every length. If I find one twist left on the ground, you start again."
"Yes, Elder."
She went.
Derrick stared at his own boots. Mud had dried on the toes in pale flakes. "I do not want people punished because of me."
Rynn crouched and picked up the knife. "Then do not fall."
"Rynn," Mara said.
"What?"
"Try again with a human mouth."
Rynn's jaw worked. He set the knife on the rail, not in Derrick's hand. "Tell us before you are about to fall. That is all."
Derrick nodded.
"Slow," Mara said.
He nodded slower.
Work resumed because work always did. The wall did not care that Derrick was embarrassed. Split rails still needed sorting. Mud still needed packing. Jorren still needed someone to hand him ties because his knee made standing slow and sitting made him meaner.
After a while, Rynn gave Derrick a different task. He set the scraped rails aside and pushed a pile of reed ties toward him.
"Sort these. Long enough for braces here. Short ones for Vessa. Snapped ones for kindling."
"That is Halen's work."
"Halen counts everything twice and loses half of it."
"He will hear you."
"He should count better."
Derrick sorted. The work was easier on his arm and harder on his pride. Rynn worked beside him without speaking for several minutes. The sound of scraping and tying filled the gap.
Then Rynn said, "He meant the question about rails."
Derrick looked at him.
"Halen," Rynn said. "He was trying to ask if it is only animals. He is not trying to be cruel."
"I know."
"He is still not allowed."
"I know that too."
Rynn pulled a tie tight around a brace. "Good."
Derrick picked through the reeds. "Do you want to ask?"
Rynn's hands stopped.
"No," he said.
"That was fast."
"If I ask, you might answer. Then I would have to know."
Derrick did not have a reply to that.
A shout came from the store hut before noon. Not panic. Irritation.
"Who left the scrap bowl out?"
Everyone near the repair line turned toward the sound.
Vessa stood by the store hut with both hands on her hips. At her feet sat a shallow bowl with rind pieces and stringy bits of Coustel fat meant for Hooktail or the midden, depending on who reached it first.
Hooktail was on the store roof.
The Braynex crouched low, dark scales catching bits of light between the thatch shadows. Its long tail hung over the roof edge. It stared at the bowl, then at the people, then at Derrick.
The repair line changed shape without anyone ordering it. Rynn stepped in front of Derrick. Jorren reached for his spear and grabbed the wrong side before fixing his hand. Mara's husband lifted the stone hammer. Vessa cursed under her breath and moved one foot toward the bowl.
"Leave it," the Elder said.
He stood near the gate, eyes on Hooktail.
Hooktail clicked once.
Derrick felt nothing at first. Only the ordinary unease of a wild thing deciding whether humans were worth its trouble.
Then the mark warmed.
Not like the Tuftest panic. Not like the Coustel squeal. This was a small pull, faint and narrow, like someone plucking one reed in a bundle. Hooktail's head tilted. Its eyes were fixed on Derrick's chest, though cloth hid the mark.
Derrick stepped back before anyone told him to.
Hooktail's claws tightened on the thatch.
Rynn glanced over his shoulder. "Do not move closer."
"I moved back."
"Then do that."
Derrick took another step back. His heel bumped a rail.
Hooktail's tail twitched. It looked at the scrap bowl again.
Vessa whispered, "It has never left fat sitting."
Mara said, "Maybe it has better taste than some people."
No one laughed.
Derrick's mark cooled when he moved behind the stacked rails. Hooktail lowered one claw to the roof edge. Then another. It dropped to the support beam, paused, and waited.
The whole village seemed to hold its tools too carefully.
Derrick looked down. He did not want Hooktail looking at him. He also wanted to know if the creature would come closer. Both wants made him feel like he had swallowed a hot coal.
Rynn spoke low. "Stay there."
"I am."
"Hands where I can see them."
Derrick put both hands against the rail stack. His right arm protested. He kept it there.
Vessa hooked the bowl with the end of a rake and pulled it two arm lengths away from Derrick's side of the yard. Hooktail watched the bowl move. It did not watch Derrick. Not directly.
The Braynex dropped, snatched one piece of fat, and bounded backward. It chewed on top of a chopping stump, eyes flicking from Derrick to Rynn to the gate. Then it grabbed the largest rind and sprang to the roof.
Only after it was gone did people breathe loud enough to hear.
Tam, back from the ditch stones and dirty to both elbows, said, "That proves it knows."
Mara turned on him. "It proves you left scraps where a roof-lizard could reach them."
"I did not leave it."
"Then find who did, or be useful enough that I stop guessing you."
Tam looked at the Elder.
The Elder was looking at Derrick. "What did you do?"
Derrick kept his palms on the rail stack. "Stepped back."
"Before that."
"Nothing."
"What did you feel?"
Derrick did not want to answer in front of everyone. The Elder waited. Rynn did not turn around. Mara's expression told him not to lie unless he was good at it.
"It was like..." Derrick stopped.
Not like light. Not like speech. Not like the bird panic. The words he wanted were not good words.
He tried smaller ones. "It noticed me. Not with its eyes first. With something else. I think."
Someone muttered a prayer.
The Elder pointed without looking. "Whoever said that, take the midden rake and turn the pile."
A boy groaned from behind the water jars.
"Now," the Elder said.
Feet moved fast.
The Elder looked back at Derrick. "Could you call it?"
"No."
"Could you push it away?"
"No. I stepped back. It came for the food after that."
"Good. That is what happened. Not more. Not less. Vessa, mark it as witnessed. Hooktail delayed feeding until Derrick moved back. No touching. No command. No claim."
Vessa wiped her hands on her apron. "I need an ash board just for strange nonsense."
"Then make one," the Elder said. "Small. I do not want it feeling important."
Jorren coughed into his fist. It sounded a lot like a laugh.
Mara pointed at Derrick. "Sit another count of fifty. Then ties. No rails."
"I can do rails."
"You can also bleed through cloth if you keep being proud. Ties."
Derrick sat.
The Hooktail moment did not leave when the creature did. It stayed in the spaces between people. Every time someone passed the rail pile, their eyes went to the roof first, then Derrick. He felt both looks.
Halen found him after midday.
He came carrying a basket of short ties held in front of him like proof. Mara was at the far end of the repair line arguing with Vessa about whether two cracked eggs counted as one meal or half a meal if put into grain mash. Rynn saw Halen coming and stood.
"I have ties," Halen said quickly.
"Set them there."
"Vessa said these are too short for her."
"Then they are kindling."
"She said ask Rynn."
"Vessa did not say that."
Halen considered denying it and chose a different road. "She said someone should ask Rynn."
"That is not better."
Derrick took the basket before Rynn could send him away. "I can sort them."
Rynn gave him a look.
"Sorting is allowed," Derrick said.
"Talking is the problem."
Halen put both hands behind his back. "I am not talking."
"You are talking right now."
"After this."
Rynn closed his eyes. "Say the errand. Then go."
Halen looked at Derrick. His question was already on his face.
Derrick shook his head a little.
Halen asked anyway. "If Hooktail noticed you when it was not scared, does that mean it is not only fear?"
Rynn grabbed his arm. Not hard, but fast. "Done."
Halen pulled once and stopped when Rynn did not let go. "I am asking because if it is not only fear, then the birds might feel him when they are calm too. And if calm birds feel him, then what if the Fedall does?"
The repair line went too quiet.
That was the trouble with Halen. He did not ask the wrong questions because he was foolish. He asked because he had followed the right thought past where adults wanted it to stop.
Mara came back through the mud, face set. "Who said Fedall?"
Halen lifted his free hand halfway.
"Of course you did." She looked at Rynn. "Let him go."
Rynn let go.
Halen rubbed his sleeve, though Rynn had not hurt him. "It is a real question."
"Yes," Mara said. "That is why it is dangerous."
The Elder walked over from the gate. He had heard enough. He always heard enough.
"Answer," Halen said. His voice was smaller now, but he did not retreat. "If nobody answers, people guess. Guessing gets worse."
Jorren muttered, "Boy has you there. Hate when that happens."
The Elder looked at Halen, then at Derrick. "We do not know."
Halen frowned. "That is not an answer."
"It is the only honest one. So we make a rule around it. Derrick does not go near Fedall. Derrick does not go near the Tuftest unless called by Vessa, Mara, or me. Derrick does not go near Coustel pens unless work requires it and witnesses stand with tools. Hooktail is not approached. That is the answer until knowing improves."
"What if knowing never improves?" Halen asked.
The Elder's mouth tightened. "Then the rules get very old."
Halen looked at Derrick. There was no fear in his face now. Only worry, which somehow felt worse.
Mara took the empty basket from him. "Go tell Vessa I said the short ties are kindling. Then tell her you said Fedall near the repair line and I am sending you because I like her angry at someone else for a while."
"She will yell."
"Good. Listen while you run."
Halen ran.
The work after that had edges. Every rule felt more real because someone had put the biggest animal in the village into words. Even from far across the settlement, the Fedall corral seemed louder. A low rumble rolled from that direction once, just ordinary throat noise from something huge chewing its soaked reeds. Half the repair line paused anyway.
The Elder did not scold them. He looked toward the corral too.
Derrick sorted ties with fingers that had started to shake.
Rynn sat beside him and pulled the basket closer so Derrick did not have to reach as far.
"Do not make that mean something," Rynn said.
Derrick stared at the ties. "I was not."
"You were about to."
"You do that a lot."
"What?"
"Tell me what I am about to do."
Rynn tied a brace without looking up. "Someone should."
Derrick picked out three snapped pieces and set them in the kindling pile. "Do you think I would go near the Fedall?"
"No."
That answer came fast.
Derrick looked at him.
Rynn kept working. "I think someone will ask you to. Or dare you. Or cry near you until you think saying yes is kinder than saying no."
Derrick had no answer.
Rynn pulled the knot tight. "So no. I do not think you would go because you want to."
The repair work carried them into afternoon. The pale new rails began to fill the broken section of wall. The bottom gap took stone, then mud-straw, then more stone because the first packing slumped. Jorren cursed the gap like it had insulted his ancestors. Mara's husband reset one brace three times and said only four words the whole time, all of them about knots.
Derrick was given a bundle of light slats to carry from the sorting pile to the repair line. It was a short walk. He made it twice.
On the third, his left foot slid in wet mud.
The slats scattered.
He caught himself with his right hand against the ground.
Pain opened clean and bright up his arm. He could not stop the sound this time.
Rynn was there first. Mara second. The Elder third, though he had been nowhere near them a breath before.
"Bandage," Mara said.
"I did not hit the wound."
"Bandage."
Derrick pulled his arm close. "It is fine."
Mara's voice lowered. "Do not make me fight you in the mud. I will win, and you will look worse."
He let her take his arm.
The bandage had not opened, but a red line had started through the cloth near the middle. Mara's jaw flexed.
Leena stood by the shade line with wet rope over both arms. She saw the red cloth and looked away too late.
"The mark takes strength," Tam whispered, quieter this time.
"The mud took his foot," Rynn said before the Elder could answer. His voice came out hard enough that Tam stepped back.
Derrick wished Rynn had not defended him so loudly. He also wished everyone had heard.
"Done with carrying," Mara said.
"It was mud."
"Mud does not care why you fall."
"I can sort."
"You can sit and hold ties."
"That is barely work."
Jorren pointed from his crate. "Barely work is my specialty. Show respect."
Derrick's face burned. "I want to help."
Mara softened just enough to make it worse. "I know. That is why you are bleeding through my clean cloth. Sit."
He sat.
Rynn gathered the fallen slats. He did it without comment. That helped more than comfort would have. He stacked them by Mara's husband and came back with the tie basket.
Leena took two of the longer slats from the edge and carried them to the brace pile herself. She did not look at Derrick. The work still got done, but now someone else had to do the part he had tried to claim.
"Long, short, snapped," Rynn said.
Derrick took it. "I remember."
"Good. Remember while sitting."
The day lowered slowly. Work finished in the same way it had started, not with a grand end, but with people running out of light and strength. The wall breach was not fixed. It was better. Better mattered. A person could stand at the new rail section and see where more work would go tomorrow, and the day after, and maybe the day after that if nothing worse happened.
Nothing worse happened inside the wall.
That was the kind of sentence people did not say aloud.
Near dusk, the smoke watcher came in at a fast walk.
She was an older girl, maybe a few years above Rynn, with a strip of red cloth tied around one wrist so people could spot her on the watch rise. Her name was Lysa. Derrick had seen her once carrying ash from the signal pit, but she had never spoken to him.
She did not run through the gate. Running made people grab weapons. She walked fast enough that everyone looked anyway.
The Elder met her near the repaired section.
"Smoke?" he asked.
"No fire," Lysa said. She bent with both hands on her knees and pulled air through her teeth. "Creek path. Noll's boy came up from the lower huts. He would not come to the gate. Said his father told him not to bring trouble inside another wall."
The Elder's face did not change. "What trouble?"
"Birds gone quiet near the creek bend. Not dead. Gone. Tuftest, little branch bats, everything. They found three Coustel torn open and not eaten. One had purple in the eyes after death. He said it looked like old bruise light."
No one spoke over that.
Vessa, who had come from the Tuftest yard with straw in her hair, said, "Coustel tear each other if penned too tight."
Lysa shook her head. "These were wild. Open ground. Bellies split. No meat taken. Noll's boy said the brush smelled burned, but there was no ash."
Derrick's hand tightened around a reed tie until it split.
Rynn noticed.
The Elder did too.
"How far?" the Elder asked.
"Half a morning if moving slow. Less if not carrying."
"Tracks?"
"They did not stay. Noll sent the boy away when he saw the eyes. He wanted to know if our walls saw the same. Wanted to know if the burned boy brought news or warning."
The words hit the yard wrong.
Burned boy.
Derrick looked down at the broken reed in his hand. No one had to ask who Noll meant.
Mara crossed the distance between the hearth lane and the repair line with a bowl in one hand. She put herself beside Derrick before anyone else decided where to stand.
"He has a name," she said.
Lysa flushed. "That is what the boy called him. I am saying what was said."
"Then say that next time."
The Elder raised one hand, not to silence Mara, to keep the yard from splitting into smaller arguments.
"Did Noll's boy see the animal that did it?"
"No. He heard one call. Like a Tuftest with a throat full of water, he said. Then nothing."
Vessa looked toward her pens.
Rynn looked toward Derrick.
Derrick hated that he understood why.
The mark under his tunic did not warm. Not yet. The quiet felt worse than a pulse would have.
The Elder turned to the repair line. "Gate watch doubles tonight. No one takes the creek path. No foraging past the near stones. Vessa, birds inside the inner net before dark. Jorren, sit where you can see the bottom gap and pretend your knee is useful."
"I can pretend many things," Jorren said, already reaching for his spear.
"Mara," the Elder said, "keep Derrick inside after supper."
Mara's face hardened. "He is not the thing at the creek."
"I did not say he was."
"You looked."
"So did everyone. That is why I gave you the order plainly."
Derrick stood because sitting felt worse. Rynn stood too, half a step in front of him without looking like he meant to.
The Elder's gaze moved from Mara to Derrick. "Did anything in that report feel familiar?"
The yard waited.
Derrick thought of the corrupted Entrempast in the leaves. The jerking movement. The black mist from the wound. The purple in its eyes. The way its cry had scraped at him. He thought of Archelix's light tearing it apart. He did not say Archelix. He did not say light. He did not say the forest had changed him.
"Purple eyes," he said. "And the quiet before it came."
Lysa swallowed.
The Elder nodded once. "That is fact. Keep it as fact. No more."
Tam, still dirty from ditch stones, asked, "What do we do with fact?"
The Elder looked at the new rails, the gate, the dark line of trees, then Derrick.
"We work around it until it tries to bite."
That should have been enough to send people moving. It almost was.
Then Halen's voice came from behind Mara. "What if it already did?"
Mara turned. "Inside."
Halen did not move. He was staring at Derrick's bandaged arm.
"Inside," she said again.
This time he went.
The village moved with him. Not all at once. Buckets were lifted. Tools were gathered. The Tuftest nets were checked. The gate bar was tested twice. Someone dragged the scrap bowl into the store hut. Someone else kicked loose mud over the blood spot where Derrick had fallen.
Derrick stood by the rail pile with a broken tie in his hand and Rynn beside him.
The wall had been the day's work. Mud, rails, stone, and sore hands. A thing people could touch. A thing people could improve.
The creek report had no rail to scrape. No knot to tighten. No clean pile or bad pile.
Rynn held out his hand.
Derrick looked at it.
"Broken ties," Rynn said.
Derrick gave him the snapped reed.
Rynn put it in the kindling basket. "Not everything gets its own pile yet."
Derrick looked at the dark beyond the gate.
Beyond the wall, something had torn open Coustel and left the meat.
Inside the wall, the village had given him work, rules, food, and a watcher.
The watcher was still standing there.
That counted for something.
It also meant the next count had already started.