The white thing was a drowned tree, stripped of bark. It struck the broken bridge, rolled, and came around again. Each impact shook loose another pinch of stone.
Darr ordered the horses unhitched.
“We'll take the carriage over by hand. No one inside except the god.”
“And the step,” Selka said.
He gave her a look. “No.”
Ruun had understood the order. Its palms spread over the stone. A trickle of water ran between its fingers and vanished into the shell marks.
“We cannot carry both,” Darr said.
“We can,” Selka answered, studying the wheels. “Not like this.”
The forward axle could lift. She had seen these carriages built for the steep passage out of the hearth: loosen the belly fitting, raise the first wheels, let the weight rock onto the next pair. It would leave Ruun's ribs less securely held.
She knelt in the mud and reached beneath it.
Darr caught her wrist. “Tell me before you do something.”
“I am telling you.”
“Tell me what it can do.”
She looked up at Ruun. Rain had gathered on its face without running down.
“Can you lift us?”
“With water under me.”
The broken gap lay two paces above the river. Stones sloped down to a wrecked pier, still standing in the current. They could lower the carriage there, then cross beneath the broken arch instead of over it.
She explained. Darr listened, staring at the turning tree.
“And if it decides to leave us?”
Ruun looked at the iron folded over its chest.
“Captain,” Selka said, “if it could leave us, I wouldn't be on my knees in this mud.”
He released her. She drove the hammer against the latch and the carriage gave a sudden, frightening groan. A soldier cursed. Ruun straightened an inch.
Getting down to the pier was worse than crossing. Men slipped and hauled at ropes; a horse screamed from the bank though it had no part in the labor. Selka's fingers burned. When the first wheel entered the water, Ruun shut its eyes.
The river thickened around them.
That was the only word she had for it. Current that should have gone past turned upward beneath the carriage, bearing the weight. The wheel rose out of the water. Weed hung from its rim.
One soldier began to pray. Darr told him to pull.
Selka was on the rear platform with both hands locked around a bar. Below her the white tree slowed, then stood on end. Its bare roots spread over the carriage like a hand.
“Ruun.”
The god's eyes opened. The tree bent away, missing Darr by inches. He flattened himself against a rope. The carriage slid toward the opposite bank.
Water tore through the seam in Ruun's throat.
Selka saw it and let go of the bar. She pressed her palm against the tear as if a hand could hold a river inside a person. Its skin was not cold. It was so hot she cried out.
“Keep pulling!” Darr shouted.
The carriage hit the far-bank stones. Men scrambled around it and dragged the wheels out. Ruun sagged against the irons. The river resumed its ordinary speed, carrying the tree downstream.
For a moment no one moved.
Then a soldier laughed, hard and breathless, and another punched him in the shoulder. Selka looked at her palm. The skin was red, unbroken. She could still feel the movement that had passed under it.
“Was the step worth that?” Darr demanded.
Ruun did not answer.
Selka climbed down and began to refasten the belly fitting. Her knees would not stop shaking. The captain crouched beside her and held the latch while she struck it into place. On this bank his face looked older.
When the horses were brought around by the upstream ford, dusk was falling. There was no time to reach the next military post. The scout knew of a river shrine with a roof intact.
Selka sat beside Ruun as the carriage jolted onto the road. It was looking back at the broken bridge.
“Who carved the boat?” she asked.
For so long it said nothing that she thought it had not heard.
“A man with three crooked fingers,” it said. “He could make a boat that did not complain under a heavy person.”
“What was his name?”
The god rested its hand on the stone.
“Not yours.”
She turned away, accepting the rebuke. A little later its hand shifted. It left a strip of wet cloth on the seat beside her, torn from its own covering.
“For the palm,” it said.
Selka wrapped her hand. The cloth was cool now. She watched the road until darkness swallowed the last stones of the bridge.