POV: Seraphina
The signalman still had his hand up when a driver started shouting farther back in the column.
Seraphina turned.
A supply wagon had stopped forty feet short of the slope. One front wheel had sunk almost to the hub, and the driver was fighting to keep one of the horses from backing away.
Thalion passed her on his way up the road.
"Keep the team still. Don't pull the wagon."
The driver stopped trying to move it and held the horses where they were.
Men set their sacks down and cleared the road around the wheels. Several wagons had already crossed the same stretch, and their tracks ran on both sides of the sunken wheel.
Gavrel arrived with three paladins. He sent the supply men farther back while the driver stayed with the horses.
The scout and paladin watching the waystation track remained at their posts.
Thalion crouched beside the broken surface.
Seraphina stopped several feet behind him with Liora beside her. Corwin came up carrying his kit, his eyes moving from the wheel to the ground around Seraphina's boots.
"Stay back from the break."
She stepped back.
Gavrel and the three paladins were moving in behind Corwin when Thalion placed one palm against the road.
A crack opened beneath his wrist.
It ran between Seraphina's boots and split wider behind her.
The road gave way.
Her left foot dropped first. Liora caught her sleeve, but the ground under both of them collapsed before either could move back.
Seraphina hit the side of the hole and went under.
Other bodies struck water and mud around her.
Cold water filled her mouth.
She swallowed before she could stop herself.
Something sharp scraped her shin as she dropped. Her palm slid over wet earth until her fingers caught a root, and she pulled herself against the wall before breaking the surface coughing.
The water tasted foul.
Above her, the wagon hung nose-down over the opening. One side of the front axle rested against the broken edge while the rear wheels remained on the road.
A horse screamed.
"Cut the traces!"
"Back from the edge!" Gavrel shouted.
His voice came from her left, down in the pit with her.
"Everyone answer."
"I'm here," Liora said beside Seraphina.
Corwin answered farther along the wall.
The three paladins called back, one coughing between words.
"Here," Seraphina said.
She waited.
"Thalion?"
"Here."
He was on her right beneath the overhanging bank. Mud covered one side of his face.
The pit was about seven feet deep. Water reached Seraphina's waist, but the floor beneath it was soft.
She shifted once and felt both boots sink farther.
She stopped moving.
One of the paladins cried out.
"My leg. There's something in my leg."
"Hold still," Corwin said. "Can you reach it?"
The man put one hand beneath the surface.
His face tightened.
"Wood. There's a point in my leg."
He felt farther down and caught his companion's arm.
"There's a beam across it too. I can't pull free."
His companion got one arm beneath his shoulders and kept him upright.
Liora tightened her grip on Seraphina's sleeve.
"Nobody move your feet."
The water was too dark to show them what lay underneath.
"Ropes," Gavrel called.
Renn appeared above the opening.
"Keep away from the wagon. Bring lines."
Nazim moved the soldiers off the damaged ground while another man led the horses farther uphill.
Behind them, Yona held Suri against her chest. The cub twisted toward the pit and made a thin, continuous sound.
"Take him back," Seraphina called.
Yona nodded and carried him away from the edge.
Corwin coughed into his shoulder.
"Nobody else comes down. Lower whatever we need."
Thalion pressed both hands against the bank.
Loose soil stopped falling near him, though dirt continued slipping farther along the wall.
Blood had reached his temple.
Seraphina's hand started toward him before she stopped it against the wall.
He saw the movement. He did not come closer.
"Can you stand?" he asked.
"Yes."
He returned his attention to the bank.
Renn lowered the first rope. The injured paladin's companion worked it beneath his arms and tightened the loop.
"Take his weight," Corwin called. "Don't lift the leg."
The men above pulled too far.
The paladin screamed and grabbed his thigh.
"Stop!"
The rope went still. They kept enough tension to support his upper body while his trapped leg stayed where it was.
His companion tried to straighten, but the mud took both of them lower.
Another paladin shifted one foot and froze.
"There's wood under my boot."
"Don't move," Liora said.
Seraphina's own boots had already sunk past the ankles.
"Can you move the beam?" she asked Thalion.
He reached beneath the water and tested it.
The timber shifted with the bank. Soil broke loose beside Corwin.
"Stop."
Thalion did. He packed the opening closed again before the crack could climb farther.
Seraphina felt the familiar pull beneath her ribs.
She pushed one hand into the exposed soil beside her.
Live roots caught between her fingers.
The soil was clean.
It was the same clean soil they had found in the hollow farther down the bank.
She looked beneath the broken road.
An old timber projected from the wall with packed soil above it. One sharpened stake stood beneath the road, and another showed farther inside the gap.
The timbers belonged to the buried structure. The sharpened ends faced into the open space beneath the road instead of supporting it.
Anyone who broke through could land on them.
The false inspection mark from farther down the road came back to her. It had been newer than the road, placed to make the road look recently checked. The hollow had pulled their attention downhill while the wagons continued across the real weakness.
The mark, the clean fill, and the stakes were not separate problems.
Someone had known this structure was here and prepared the road above it to fail.
The inspection post was out of sight from inside the pit. So were the scout and paladin watching the waystation track.
"My lady."
Gavrel was looking above Seraphina's shoulder.
"Move."
She leaned away without lifting her feet.
Wet soil dropped beside her.
More followed.
Gavrel raised his shield.
Pale light spread above them and caught the falling earth while Thalion packed the bank beneath it.
For several seconds, the wall held.
Then Gavrel's shield bent inward.
His arms tightened.
A root pulled free above him and scattered more dirt across the light.
"How long can you hold that?" Seraphina asked.
Gavrel kept his eyes on the bank.
"Get him out."
The injured paladin slipped lower against the supporting rope, and his mouth went beneath the surface before his companion dragged his head back.
"Keep his face up," Corwin said.
The man coughed hard.
Corwin leaned closer.
"Hold."
The gray around the paladin's mouth was not mud.
Corwin wiped at it with his thumb.
The color remained.
He caught the man's wrist.
Dark lines showed beneath the skin.
Seraphina recognized the gray skin and dark veins.
"Corruption."
Corwin looked down at the water.
The puncture in the paladin's leg was completely submerged.
His companion had a scrape across the back of one hand. A thinner dark line had begun beneath it.
Corwin compared the two.
"It's moving faster through the open wound."
Liora lifted one hand from the water and checked her skin.
The foul taste was still at the back of Seraphina's throat.
Her stomach tightened.
She had swallowed it.
Then the scrape on her shin started to burn.
It was still beneath the water.
They had dealt with corrupted people and corrupted animals. They had crossed dead land around failing wards.
None of them had encountered corrupted water before.
Seraphina looked again at the sharpened stakes beneath the road.
A collapse could have stopped the column.
The stakes meant whoever prepared it wanted injuries.
The water surrounded every wound.
The scrape on her shin burned harder beneath the surface.
Seraphina looked at the dark veins spreading under the wounded paladin's skin.
If whoever chose this place had known what was in the water, the fall had only been the first part.