She kicked the latch with her heel.
It did not move. A guard dragged her up by the coat. The second interpreter continued, faltering as Ruun struck the new brace with its shoulder.
Selka kicked again. The fitting gave.
“Lift now,” she told Ruun in tide tongue.
The carriage rose at the front. Its weight tore the half-fastened catch out of the receiving rail. The woman with the tools stumbled backward. A guard let go of Selka and caught the falling brace.
The god drove water beneath the platform.
Selka felt the boards move under her feet. She dropped and rolled toward the carriage as the new hearth's inlet pipe tore open. Hot water burst through the floor. The crowd screamed.
The brace came down crooked, striking bronze instead of closing around Ruun. Selka dragged herself away from the guard who had caught it. He lay with his arm pinned. She grabbed his collar and pulled until the cloth tore. The arm came free at a wrong angle, but he crawled toward the steps.
Ruun's tide hit the prisoner fence.
It was small beside the river's breadth. In that enclosure it was enough. Water thrust benches against the locked gate, forcing it outward. Darr seized the fallen guard's keys, tried two and gave up. He wedged his sword into the hinge.
“Help me!”
Kerr pushed from inside. Other prisoners joined him. The hinge snapped; men spilled through, some falling in the mud and getting up, one carried between two others.
Torren soldiers ran from the far side. Darr put himself between them and his brother.
“They were promised release,” he shouted in trade speech. “Take it up with your envoy.”
A spear came toward him. He knocked it aside. His surviving escort men formed beside him, confused for a moment, then understanding which men they had come to bring home.
Selka stumbled off the platform. The carriage was tipping into the receiving pit. Ruun braced itself against the broken rail; it could not strike the irons bound to its own body, but the water battered the new hearth beneath them. One pipe came loose, then another. Bronze bent. The Torren distribution branch folded under the rising platform.
The new engine would not take another body.
“Down the steps!” she called to Ruun. “The river.”
It leaned toward her. She could not possibly support it. It came anyway, dragging the carriage behind it until the remaining wheel caught in the pit. The iron strips pulled its ribs apart. Selka saw water running out faster than it could gather.
She climbed onto the broken carriage and reached for the side catch. Too hot. She wrapped her sleeve around her hand and struck it with the hammer she had kept under the seat.
Once. Twice.
The side frame dropped. Ruun stepped out still wearing the folded irons, the heavy lower bar joining its ankles. It took two enormous, ugly strides and nearly fell.
“The stone,” it said.
Selka looked at the temple step on the collapsing carriage. “No.”
“The stone.”
She swore at it. Then she called two prisoners and pointed. Together they tipped the step onto a torn piece of canvas. Dragging it was almost impossible, but they got it down the stairs while Ruun steadied the water beneath their feet.
Darr and Kerr came beside them. Blood ran from Darr's scalp. The man Kerr had helped between the broken rails limped ahead with a soldier under each arm. Kerr leaned against Darr until his dragging foot found purchase.
“Where?” Darr asked.
Selka pointed toward the docks. She had seen civilian boats there, had no better plan, and hated herself for it. The armed launches were trying to turn through water crowded with wreckage.
Behind them Voss shouted for horses. She looked back and saw him leave the platform by the military road, two guards beside him. He had already stopped trying to save the second hearth.
Ahead, a voice called from a small working boat.
“Mother!”
Selka stopped so abruptly that Kerr struck her shoulder. Anet stood at the bow, a rope in her hand. Sorell was cutting the mooring.
“You can explain on the boat,” her daughter shouted. “Come on.”