Morning came with no clear edge.
The sky was a low, unmoving gray that made it difficult to tell where night ended and day began. Smoke from the kitchen fires pressed beneath the clouds and drifted sideways instead of rising.
The bell rang late.
Late bells meant rearrangement.
Eryk felt it before anyone said it. The yard did not move wrong like it did on inspection days. It moved tight. Men were already gathered near the upper sheds. Two foremen spoke in lowered voices, heads close, as if words carried farther in cold air.
Hala's door banged open.
"You," she snapped, pointing her ladle at Eryk without looking up from the pot. "Table. Cleaver."
He froze for half a breath.
Then he moved.
The cleaver waited on the board, heavy and clean, its edge bright even in the dim kitchen light. A slab of meat lay beside it, stiff from cold, already salted on one side. A basin sat ready beneath the table.
Eryk set his hands, braced his balance, and began to cut.
The cleaver struck true. Each blow landed where he placed it. The weight of the blade did not drag him off line. It did not twist his wrist. He found the seam, split it, and worked through flesh with a steady rhythm that made the meat yield in clean sections.
Hala watched without comment.
Behind them the yard shifted. Orders echoed between stone walls. Boots crossed paths faster than usual. Somewhere up the slope, a whistle blew, then stopped.
Hala spoke at last without turning her head.
"Storm took part of the haul path," she said. "Rock sheered. Three men buried shallow. Two breathing when they dug them out."
She glanced once at the meat.
"One not."
Eryk's hands did not stop.
The smell of iron rose as the flesh warmed under the blade. Steam curled faintly from the cut surface and vanished into the kitchen's damp air.
"More water," Hala said. "Keep the pot moving today."
He finished the last cut, slid the pieces into the basin, wiped the board with a rag, and lifted the first bucket.
The cold outside hit him hard. The gray sky pressed low. Snow had been trampled into slush along the main path, and the edges held thin ridges of ice.
He made three runs before his shoulders began to burn in a way the cold could not dull. By the fourth, his breath rasped in his throat and his hands stung where the bucket handle bit into thickening callus.
He was halfway across the yard when Gerrit intercepted him near the quarry path.
"Hollowford," Gerrit said. "Take that cart down to mid-tier. Foreman wants it now."
Eryk's stomach tightened.
The cart waited near the sheds, loaded with wedges and a coil of chain. It was not full, but it was heavy enough to be dangerous on a bad path.
He set the bucket down, wiped his hands on his sleeves, and took the cart's handles.
The path down to mid-tier was narrower than the upper run. The storm had chewed at its edge, and the men had cleared it in a hurry. Meltwater had frozen in slanted sheets across the descent, shining dull and hard.
Eryk looked down once.
Men moved below through pale dust and shadow. A chain clinked somewhere out of sight. The quarry sounded different when the wind was in the wrong place, sharper, like stone had a thinner skin.
He set his weight forward and began the descent.
Each step had to be chosen. The cart pulled unevenly as the load shifted. He had to hold it back with his arms while his boots searched for grip. If he went too fast, the cart would own him. If he hesitated, the ice would take his foot.
Halfway down, a whistle shrilled from above.
"Careful," someone called.
Eryk did not look up. He tightened his grip and adjusted his feet one careful placement at a time.
The cart creaked. The chain inside it chimed softly. His shoulders burned. His forearms went hot despite the cold, the strain of holding weight against gravity.
He reached mid-tier without slipping.
A foreman met him with two men at his back.
"Set it there," the foreman said, and pointed.
Eryk did. The moment the cart's weight came off his hands, his fingers tingled with returning blood.
He stood for one breath too long, hearing the quarry around him.
Then he turned and began the climb back up.
The ascent felt longer than it should have.
His legs were heavy. The cold bit into sweat at the base of his neck. When he reached the top, Bran was waiting near the sheds with a crate braced against his leg.
"You are moving loads they usually do not give to boys," Bran said quietly.
"I am not the only one," Eryk replied.
"No," Bran said. "But you are the one they trust not to slip."
The words lodged heavily.
Below them, a shout rose from the lower tier.
Not a warning.
A call.
Men ran toward the base of the path. Chains clattered. Someone screamed once, short and high, and then the sound stopped as if a hand had closed around it.
A stretcher was hauled into view moments later. Two men guided it up the ramp. The canvas covering was dark at one end and stiff with frost.
Eryk stood where he was.
The stretcher passed within arm's reach.
A boy's boot hung from beneath the edge of the cloth.
It was Kett's.
Eryk did not breathe until it was gone.
The afternoon was rearranged without explanation.
Two boys were pulled from the yard and sent to the lower sheds. One man from the quarry was taken off the line and replaced by another without a word. Clerks moved between buildings with new bundles under their arms.
The ledger was open again by evening.
Eryk did not see what was written.
But he heard the quill.
It scratched in short, firm strokes that ended cleanly.
That night the shed held more breath than usual.
Not more boys.
Just louder lungs.
Tomas lay on his back staring at the ceiling as if mapping its cracks.
"They cannot keep this pace," he said softly into the dark. "Storm or no storm. The stone is too brittle. They are pushing."
Bran turned slightly on his pallet.
"They always push when the numbers slip."
Eryk lay with his hands on his ribs. He could still feel the grain of the cleaver's handle in his palms. The steady rhythm of cutting had not left him yet.
"Kett fell because the path iced," Tomas said. "He did not carry too much. He did not fail at the work. He slipped."
No one responded.
"That matters," Tomas whispered.
Bran exhaled slowly.
"Only when the ledger wants it to."
The shed fell quiet again.
In the hours before dawn, when the kitchen fire had burned down to coals and the wind found every crack in the wall, Eryk lay with his hands clenched hard enough that his fingers went numb.
He opened them slowly.
They did not shake.
They had not shaken all day.
They had cut meat.
They had guided weight.
They had chosen footing.
They had not reached for Kett.
Not for the fallen. Not for anyone.
They had done exactly what they were given to do.
In the gray before the bell, Eryk sat up on his pallet with his hands in his lap and looked at them as if they belonged to someone else.
He could not decide when they had stopped being only his.