Chapter 324: The Serpent’s Errand

Ren filed the yard report as soon as they reached the landing.

He used an office sheet and entered the location, seven visible workers, the component sorting and the supervisor’s words about the Crimson Serpent’s consignment. Below that, he sketched the wagon’s departure along the flags. Its destination remained blank.

Vesper checked the account against her notebook before he lodged it in the box. Ren kept their copy with the map, then led the party back toward the blocked side channel.

— • —

Ward settled in the deep water clear of the collapsed bank. Tarin came up beside Ren, its Lawfire on the water below.

"We’re going past the mound and over the ridge this time," Ren said. "You’ll lose sight of us on the far side. We’ll observe from there and the slope below it. We won’t follow the flags farther into the low ground."

He showed Tarin the return time on his slate. It left the water group enough time to reach the landing before the next report was due.

"If we’re late, take everyone back to the landing and report it. Wait there. We’ll come back over the ridge and follow the channel to you."

"The whole group," Tarin said.

"Yes. Keep will have our position reports, but they’ll still be delayed."

Vesper checked the time against her own slate. Eira examined Mistwhisker’s dressing, then settled the cat on a dry patch beside the supplies. It would stay with Tarin and the water group.

Ren checked that he carried Keep’s spore before they set out.

— • —

They followed the higher ground past the mound. The carcass lay where they had left it, and the hollow from the lifted root bed remained open. Ren passed both without stopping.

At the bare-rock ridge, they lowered themselves below the crest and looked over.

Pale flags crossed the low ground beneath them. Ren could trace the line toward the yard in one direction and down to a junction in the other. There it met a second route marked with darker strips of cloth.

Boards covered the soft ground at the junction. Beside them stood a post with a weather box, a covered writing board and several lidded tins weighted with stones. Mud stained the planks along both approaches. No one was there.

"A transfer station," Vesper said quietly.

Ren checked the junction against the bearing in the habitat record. The second route ran broadly toward the last recorded site, though the mist hid it well before he could see where it ended. He marked only the visible stretch.

They settled behind the crest, with Eira watching the approach they had used and Vesper keeping the station in view.

— • —

A wagon arrived along the flags from the yard.

It was the same type they had seen before, drawn by two workers with another walking ahead. Crates and lined boxes filled its bed. From the ridge, Ren could not distinguish the crates from the pair loaded earlier.

The wagon crew lowered the shafts beside the boards and waited. One worker checked the ropes while the leader lifted the cover over the writing board.

The receiving party appeared on the second route: three carriers with a hand-cart and an escort walking to one side. They wore plain field clothes. Ren could make out no badge or other mark.

Before they reached the station, something moved in the scrub ahead of the cart.

A low plated back rose above the stems. The escort held up an arm, and the carriers stopped with their hands still on the cart. The armed worker stayed between them and the movement, weapon lowered but ready.

The native crossed slowly. Ren saw overlapping grey-brown plates, much like those on the creature at the mound, but its head remained hidden. It passed through the marked route and disappeared into lower scrub.

The escort waited until the movement had gone farther away, then signaled the carriers forward. Nobody followed the native.

— • —

The crews brought the wagon and hand-cart alongside each other on the boards. They shifted the lined boxes to reach two sealed crates beneath them, then transferred those crates one at a time. The lined boxes stayed on the wagon.

The wagon leader took a sheet from beneath the cover. Holding it against the board, he checked it while the escort examined the ends of both crates. They exchanged places and repeated the check, then each made an entry on the sheet.

Vesper noted the order of the handover. Ren watched the leader fold the paper, open the box on the post and slide it beneath a retaining strip. The lid closed with a turn of the latch.

Once the loads were secured, the wagon headed back toward the yard. The hand-cart left along the second marked route, with the escort following behind it.

Ren watched until both parties disappeared into the mist. Vesper kept her eyes on the nearer flags while he looked over the station again.

The boards gave them firm footing for the transfer. The markers brought both crews to the same place, and the box held the record after they left. They had prepared the route well enough to move sealed cargo through it without opening the loads or fighting whatever crossed their path.

Part of that journey used the survey road. It still told him nothing about whether the office knew what passed the depot.

Aldric’s warning came back to him.

There is a sect that wears a serpent. And there are those who call the void a star — they will want you most, because of what you are, and they will be patient about it. Do not trust patience in a stranger.

Ren had recognized the serpent at the yard. The warning gave him reason to keep his distance, but it concerned people wanting him. Nothing he had seen suggested that either crew knew he was here. Waiting for a native to pass had protected their cargo; it did not explain what the cargo was for.

He checked the time. There was still room to reach the box and return before they had to leave the ridge.

"I’ll copy the sheet," he told Vesper. "Watch both routes. Call me back if anyone returns."

— • —

Ren went down alone, keeping to the scrub until he reached the boards. He tested the first plank before putting his full weight on it, then crossed to the post.

The latch turned as it had for the wagon leader. Ren raised the lid. The folded sheet lay beneath a strip of wood fixed at one end, and he eased it free without disturbing the other papers below.

He opened it on the lid and took out his own paper.

The consignment reference at the top was 4118. The entry listed two crates as sealed and unopened. Below it were the transfer station’s designation, the marks of the two parties and a field identifying the next station. That designation meant nothing to him yet, but he copied it in full.

A separate handling field contained four small marks. Ren reproduced their shapes beside the corresponding field on his copy, then checked the reference and the station entries again.

From here, the crates were already gone beyond the mist. What he had was the written account left by the people who had moved them.

He folded the original along its crease and eased it beneath the wooden strip. His fingertips guided the edge back into place before he lowered the lid and turned the latch once.

Then he crossed the boards and climbed back toward Vesper and Eira.

— • —

They withdrew over the ridge with time to spare. As they passed the mound, Ren could see Ward still holding in the channel and Tarin waiting on the bank.

On the way back, he began a draft of the next report: the junction, the two parties, the sealed crates changing hands and the copied station record. Vesper supplied the details from her notes while Eira watched their footing along the higher ground.

At the bank, Ren showed Tarin they had returned, then laid the copy beside Vesper’s notebook. She compared the full reference with the characters she had been able to read at the yard.

The visible portion matched. She left the gap in her earlier entry untouched.

"Mine was on the nearest crate," she said. "I never saw whether that one went onto the wagon."

"Keep both entries. Where and when we read them."

She added the comparison beneath them. Ren finished the report draft and put it with the papers they would carry back to the landing.

Before folding his copy, he checked the handling field once more. The four shapes sat in a separate row beneath the transfer details, each copied as closely as he could manage.

The fourth mark was a closed hook, tilted slightly to one side.