Dawn did not arrive with ceremony.
It came as the dark thinned, as smoke above the inner lanes turned from black to gray, and as the cold stopped being something you could tolerate and became something you had to solve.
Eryk was already awake.
He had not slept. He had only held still long enough to look like he had.
Along the rope boundary a guard leaned his weight into the line. The fibers creaked once, tight as a warning. The guard moved on, boots slow, spear carried like it belonged there.
Fenn stood first watch near the carts, shoulders hunched against river chill, eyes never settling for long. He did not pace. He shifted when he needed to shift, then went still again.
When the guard's steps came near, Eryk kept his gaze down and listened for the pause that meant a man had decided to look.
The boots did not pause.
Relief slid into him anyway. He hated that he could feel it.
A few carts down, the man with the fish charm sat with his hands open in his lap.
He had not moved much through the night. Only his fingers moved, finding the charm, squeezing it, letting it fall, then finding it again. Like the cord was proof he still existed.
Eryk kept his eyes on his own hands.
He told himself it was discipline.
It still felt like cowardice.
A shadow settled over him.
Garr crouched by the wheel, broad shoulders cutting the wind. He smelled of old leather, smoke, and axle grease.
"You're awake," Garr said.
Eryk nodded once.
Garr's gaze flicked along the rope line, then toward the inner lanes where motion was already building.
"Good," Garr said. "You carry water before your ankle decides it hates you."
Eryk swallowed a question. In Blackstone, a task before dawn meant punishment. Here it meant you were being used, and being used meant you were still allowed to be here.
Garr hooked two fingers toward a half skin and a smaller bucket.
"Go," he said. "Same path back. No drifting."
Eryk took the skin with both hands. The leather was cold and damp. He rose carefully, shifting weight through his ankle until the flare settled into something he could walk on.
Garr did not offer a hand. He watched Eryk's footing instead, and that was help of a kind.
Eryk moved along the outer lane's edge, close to carts, slipping through gaps when the line opened. When it narrowed, he stopped and waited. A man near the rope shifted just enough to let him pass without contact.
The rule lived in the body, not the mouth.
At the water point, two boys were already working. Fill and carry, fill and carry, fast and careful, like speed might protect them if they made no noise.
A Company clerk stood nearby with a board hugged to his chest. His stylus moved steadily. He did not look up when Eryk approached.
The scratch of writing did not stop either.
Eryk waited anyway. Stepping in unasked was how you became a problem.
The clerk's head tilted a fraction. Not welcome. Awareness.
Eryk held the bucket out.
The clerk glanced at it, then at Eryk's ankle wrap, then at the carts behind him as if the carts answered questions better than faces did.
The stylus made a mark.
The clerk stepped aside.
Eryk filled the bucket and skin. He tied the skin's mouth with a knot that sat flat and quiet. Quiet was a currency here, and he had learned he could afford it.
On the walk back he kept his eyes on the packed earth in front of his feet.
He still felt eyes on his back.
Places like this did not chase you. They watched until you offered something worth taking.
When he reached the carts again, Fenn was there, hand resting on the axle housing like it was a pulse point.
"You went the right way," Fenn said.
Eryk blinked.
Fenn's mouth twitched. "You did not get curious. That counts."
Eryk set the bucket down carefully and handed the skin to Garr.
Garr took it and tugged the knot once, testing. His grip tightened for a breath, then eased.
"Fine," Garr said.
It landed like an insult.
It was praise anyway.
Around them the camp woke in earnest.
Rope retied. Loads checked. Wheels turned a half rotation to listen for squeals that meant failure later. Men shook out blankets and rolled them with care that came from learning what it meant to lose your only dry layer.
In the inner lanes, a shout rose sharp and brief, then cut off. The sound died like someone had pinched a flame between fingers.
Company control.
Harl appeared by the pot cart, rubbing sleep from his eyes with a hand that looked like it had never learned gentleness.
"I hate this place," he announced.
Garr did not look at him. "Then leave."
Harl smiled. "No."
He reached into the pot cart and produced a strip of fat wrapped in cloth. He tossed it at Eryk.
Eryk caught it by reflex.
Harl nodded toward the nearest wheel. "Rub that along the rim edge. Light. Squeal draws eyes."
Eryk crouched and unwrapped it. The fat was hard with cold. He rubbed a thin line along the place where metal kissed wood, hands careful and precise.
"Too much and it slips," Fenn said, voice low.
Eryk froze.
Fenn tapped the rim once with two fingers. "That's enough. Finish it thin."
Eryk did, and when he stood his hands smelled faintly of animal and resin and the road.
Sella stood at the edge of their small knot of bodies. Hood up. Eyes on the lane.
She did not look at Eryk for long.
"You move with the carts," she said.
Eryk did not know if it was warning or assignment.
Before he could ask, she added, "Do not step into the inner lane unless Brann tells you. The rules here don't care if you learned them late."
Then she drifted away, swallowed by rope and shadow.
Eryk let out a slow breath.
A few carts down, the fish charm man coughed once. It sounded raw and wet.
Eryk's head turned before he could stop it.
The man's eyes lifted.
For a heartbeat they locked on Eryk like a hook finding flesh. The question sat there without words.
Why him. Why not me.
A stupid word rose in Eryk's throat.
Let him.
He pressed his tongue against his teeth until the word stopped shaking.
The man looked down again, and whatever had been between them slipped free, leaving only ache.
Brann returned through the rope opening with the captain at his side.
They looked as if they had not slept either. Their faces were controlled. Their shoulders were not.
Brann stopped at the lead cart and lifted one hand.
The band tightened around the gesture. A meeting without a circle.
"We move," Brann said. "Company job. Escort."
A murmur started. Brann cut it with a look.
"Three days. River road first, then inland. We are attached to their wagons, not their pride. We do not argue with their clerks. We do not put hands on their guards. We do not give them a reason to count us twice."
Harl lifted a finger. "What if they count wrong."
Brann's gaze held him. "Then we pay the difference in patience."
Harl sighed as if patience was a personal insult.
Brann pointed toward the inner lanes. "Captain and I walk you to the handover. We get our token, we get our route, we leave before the camp finishes waking."
The captain's eyes swept the outer ring once, quick.
Her gaze passed over Eryk. It did not linger. It still felt like a measurement.
"You," she said, nodding at him.
Eryk straightened.
"You stay on the cart line," she said. "If a clerk speaks to you, you answer with the smallest truth you can. If a guard speaks to you, you answer fast. If anyone else speaks to you, you do not answer at all."
Eryk swallowed. "Understood."
"Good."
Garr shifted closer by a half step, putting his bulk between Eryk and the rope line as if it were nothing.
Fenn returned to his axle.
Harl checked the pot lash again and muttered at it like it could hear.
They rolled forward into the inner lanes in a tight file behind Brann and the captain.
The inner lanes felt different underfoot.
Same dirt, different pressure. The ground was beaten flatter by more wheels, more boots, more impatience. Rope lines made corridors. If you stepped outside them, you became a problem. Problems got corrected.
Company men watched from platforms, heads turning with slow certainty. They were not scanning for danger. They were cataloging.
Eryk kept his eyes forward and his hands where they could be seen.
They reached a wider lane where three wagons waited.
Two were heavy with crates under canvas. The third carried barrels and a low iron-bound chest bolted to the bed. Oxen stood at the front, heads down, breath steaming, tails flicking lazily like they did not understand the value of what they pulled.
A Company clerk stood beside the wagons, board in hand, stylus ready.
Two guards flanked him with clean boots and dull eyes.
The clerk looked up as Brann and the captain approached.
"Mark," he said, and the word was not a question.
Brann produced the folded slip.
The clerk read it and nodded once. "Escort confirmed. Assigned to Wagon Two through the river road turn. No deviations."
"Understood," the captain said.
The clerk's eyes flicked to Eryk.
The stylus hovered.
"Additional," the clerk said.
Brann's jaw tightened. The captain spoke first.
"Stray," she said. "Under our supervision."
The clerk made a small sound that tried to pretend it was neutrality.
"Additional mouths cost," he said.
Harl breathed out softly behind them. "So does breathing, apparently."
One clean-boot guard turned his head toward Harl.
Harl sealed his mouth with admirable speed.
The captain held out a single copper.
"Additional hands," she corrected. "He carries water and keeps quiet."
The clerk stared at the coin.
He did not take it.
His stylus scratched the board instead.
"Additional," he repeated, stamping the word into paper where it could live longer than anyone's patience.
Then he looked back at the captain. "He does not ride. He does not enter the wagons. If he slows the lane, he is removed."
The captain nodded as if she had expected nothing else.
Brann's eyes flicked to Eryk. A warning without words.
Eryk kept his face still.
The clerk spoke low to one of the guards. The guard reached into a pouch and produced a strip of gray cloth stamped with a dark symbol.
A token.
Permission that could be revoked.
He handed it to the captain.
She tucked it away without looking pleased.
"Go," the clerk said. "Gate opens in ten minutes. Miss it, you wait. Wait, your route changes. Route changes, your pay changes."
They turned away.
Harl muttered, "He talks like the road is his."
Fenn answered quietly, "Here it is."
They aligned their carts with the Company wagons. The band moved with practiced economy, checking lash points, shifting weight a handspan here and there so it sat where it belonged.
Eryk watched Garr nudge a barrel left by a finger's width.
No show. No strain.
A correction now to avoid a disaster later.
Useful weight, Eryk thought.
Weight in the right place.
Fenn beckoned him in. "Hold this."
Eryk took the strap end.
Fenn looped it around a crate corner and tightened it. "If it slips, you hear it. If you hear it, you fix it before it becomes loud."
"Yes," Eryk said.
Fenn's eyes softened for a fraction, then flattened again. "Good."
A horn sounded deeper in camp, low and short.
Not alarm.
Announcement.
The gate was opening.
The convoy began to form. A Company rider moved to the front, cloak clean, posture stiff. Two guards took their positions on the sides. Brann and the captain walked the line, checking faces, checking hands, checking that no one had decided to be clever today.
Eryk took his place beside Wagon Two near the rear corner, close enough to brace if needed, far enough to keep clear of the wheel.
As the wagons started forward, the fish charm man stood.
He stepped toward the lane as if drawn by movement, hands lifting, palms open.
A guard caught him by the shoulder and shoved him back into the outer ring dirt. The motion was quick and practiced, like closing a door.
The man stumbled. The fish charm swung hard against his throat.
His eyes found Eryk again, fast as a knife flash.
Eryk's body leaned toward him without permission.
Then Brann's words returned, cold and simple.
If you are in the way, you get stepped on.
Eryk stopped himself.
He kept moving.
Behind him the guard snapped, "Sit."
The man sat.
The convoy rolled on.
The rope gate ahead shifted as guards pulled it wide. The opening looked too much like a mouth.
The captain raised her hand and the line tightened.
"Keep pace," she said. She did not raise her voice, but it carried. "No talking. No drifting."
They passed through.
Eryk expected the air outside to feel different.
It didn't.
Cold was still cold. Dirt was still dirt. Only the watching changed. Behind them, eyes stayed on their backs until the gate closed and the camp swallowed its own lanes.
Ahead, the river road stretched pale under early light, wheel ruts cutting dark grooves into earth.
Eryk walked beside Wagon Two, ankle burning, hands steady on the strap he had been told to watch.
He did not look back.
He kept his eyes on the road and the wheels and the thin slice of space where he could exist without being counted twice.
As the convoy settled into motion, the captain fell back until she walked beside him for three steps.
Without looking at him, she said low enough that only he would hear, "If you break, break forward. Do not fall behind."
Then she moved away again, and the convoy rolled into the morning like it had always been meant to.
Not safe.
Only moving.