The scaffold was as rickety as she’d feared. It swayed back and forth in the wind and banged against the cliffside like a novice drummer. Two of the refugees made their careful way down ahead of her, clinging to the metal pipes for support against the sudden shudders of the tower and the uncertain footing of the rain-slicked wooden ramps.

  She and Declan had done their best when they’d assembled it, but they’d been working with limited materials. It stretched nearly fifty feet up the side of an unnaturally sheer rock face, and was only anchored in a few places to tree roots protruding from the relatively thin layer of topsoil on the upper fifteen feet or so. Below that, the smooth granite of the forest’s bedrock offered nothing to tie off to.

  The hard-baked clay of the desert four stories below was starting to soften with the rain. She could only hope that the softening mud would support the weight of the tower long enough to get everyone down. Her stomach fluttered with every jolt and sway of the structure.

  She added connection runes as she went. They would dissipate in less than ten minutes, but they’d add a little more stability for as long as they lasted. Not much, but hopefully it would be enough. She started counting the seconds in her head.

  She felt the thud of more feet hitting the tower above her and picked up her pace. Anais was spacing people out so that there were never more than four people on the tower at a time. When she reached the bottom, there were six people already there, each holding scavenged weapons and watching the desert with wary eyes.

  Char used Assess Foe on them and saw that they were all in the mid to low teens, level-wise. They could hold out against the monsters in the forest biome, but even the lowest-level monsters down here in the desert would be stronger than they were.

  The unpredictable winds of the building storm were keeping the Deathbarb Vultures away, and hopefully, the rains would discourage any roaming fire elementals. The Myriapods would be the biggest danger, for now. They had the numbers advantage, at least. So far, the Voracious Myriapods had only attacked solo, never in groups. But with only a couple of encounters, she couldn’t trust that to always be true.

  Turning her attention outward, Char scanned the desert. It was already getting close to noon, but she didn’t want to stop and rest here. The day was half gone, and even with the rain, she could feel the desert heat building. Time weighed on her as the storm built. The people she was escorting didn’t have her endurance, though. She couldn’t push them too hard.

  A yell and thud from behind her pulled her head around and made her heart leap. Thirty feet up the tower, a woman was sprawled, half lying across one of the pipes, and half hanging over empty space. A board on the ramp had slipped loose, opening a gap. The woman had nothing but bare pipes under her, and even from thirty feet away, Char could see that her eyes were screwed shut, and she was too afraid to move.

  Char started running.

  The wood was slick under her feet, and her pounding steps made the tower shake worse than before. She forced herself to slow down. It wouldn’t help to save one person if the whole thing fell down in the effort. When she came to one of the refugees coming down a narrow ramp and realized that she wouldn’t be able to safely pass him, she gave up on the ramps and started to climb.

  Her preternatural grace made the climb look easy, but the wet pipes and the whimpers of the woman above made it feel like a gamble she shouldn’t have taken.

  There were shouts from above, now. Others had noticed the woman’s predicament and were yelling for her to hang on and calling for rope. Her stomach clenched at the sound. This many people weren’t exactly quiet, but this much noise was going to call monsters to them.

  Char pulled herself up one more level and found herself on the platform just below the woman. “Hey,” she called, trying to keep the near-panic out of her voice. The woman was trembling and breathing hard. Fear had her firmly in its grip. “Let’s see what we can do to get you down from there. The first thing I need you to do is take some deep breaths. You don’t want to hyperventilate. Can you do that? Deep breaths. Try to count to four as you inhale.”

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  Char struggled to keep her voice calm and even. As she spoke, she glanced through her inventory, looking for anything that might help. There was nothing. She’d used up all of the cargo straps she had, and the last of her rope had been sacrificed to steady the scaffolding already. They would have to do this the hard way.

  “Alright, you’re doing good. Keep counting as you breathe. Now, I’m going to grab your leg, so don’t be startled when you feel my hand, okay?” The woman’s torso and hands were lying on one slanted pipe, her knuckles white with a death-grip on the metal. Her left leg was resting on another pipe, but her right leg dangled loose, threatening to drag her down.

  Char was strong, but physics was still a reality. Her strength wouldn’t matter if the woman slipped while Char was holding onto her. Their combined center of gravity was over open air. She would pull both of them off, and it was a long way to the ground.

  There was about three feet between the platform’s edge and the dangling leg, and Char had to lean out to get a grip on it near the ankle. She kept her own left hand clamped firmly around a pipe while she leaned out to grab with her right. Her fingers brushed the other woman’s jeans, and she had to stretch a little farther to get a grip. Her stomach fluttered the whole time, and sweat prickled the back of her neck.

  “There we go. I’ve gotcha. Now, I’m going to rest your loose leg on the pipe here, so the pipe’s doing the work of holding you up. That should take some of the pressure off your fingers. Keep breathing deep. You’re doing great.” Lifting the dead weight of the leg was awkward, but the woman was too frightened to jerk or squirm, which helped. “What’s your name, hon?” she asked as she got the leg up and rested it on the pipe.

  The woman was now stretched across two inclined lengths of pipe about three feet apart. Her torso and most of her weight was on the outer pipe. If she opened her eyes, she’d have been looking out over the desert.

  “K… Kylie. I’m Kylie.”

  “It’s good to meet you, Kylie. I’m Char. Now, we’re going to let these pipes do most of the work, and I’m going to keep a hold on you, but I’m going to need your help, too, if we’re going to get you down. I don’t want you to let go, but I need you to slowly slide your right hand a few inches down the pipe. We’ll do this a little at a time, and you never have to let go of the pipe. I’ll hang onto your legs. Okay?”

  Char could feel the woman trembling. It took Kylie a long moment before she nodded. Her eyes stayed closed. She started to slide her hand, but barely moved it a full inch before her body tensed up, and she clamped down on the pipe again. Then she shook her head.

  Time was slipping away from them. Char ground her teeth and fought for calm. Snapping and yelling at Kylie would only make this worse, but they needed to move faster. The connection runes she’d placed were starting to fail, and the scaffold was starting to feel less stable.

  “Kylie, you can do this. It’s only a couple of feet to the platform. Do you feel my hands on your legs? Yeah? I’m not going to let you fall. I’m going to guide you down. I just need you to slide your hands down, one at a time. Slide your right hand, then your body, then your left hand. A little at a time, and we’ll have you down and safe, okay?”

  Kylie’s jaw was locked closed by fear. All she could do was shake her head.

  “Kylie, I know this is terrifying, and that’s okay. Being brave means moving anyway, and you need to move now. I’ve got you. Right hand slides… good. Now your body… slowly… you’re doing it. One step at a time, we’re getting you down safe. Keep your grip, trust me. Just one move at a time.” Every lesson about survival, about staying calm under pressure, every rescue video she’d ever watched were all playing through her mind. She emulated those rescuers now. Steady, in charge, calm; even though her heart was beating a mile a minute and her hands wanted to shake.

  Char had magic and superhuman strength and dexterity, but it was the ordinary, mortal, human connection that was going to get them through this. It was a reminder that Char took to heart. Inch by inch, she helped Kylie keep moving.

  A few minutes later, though it felt like it had taken hours, Kylie had her feet on the platform. She wrapped her arms around Char like a scared child and didn’t want to let go. Char gave her a minute, hugging her back, letting her feel steady, but the thuds of other feet on the scaffold reminded her that they needed to keep moving.

  One of the guys who’d been keeping watch below came up with the board that had slipped, and Char took it from him. She handed Kylie off to him to escort her down. She used another connection rune on the board, then made her own slow way down, stopping to liberally use connection runes on the other boards to hold them in place.

  Then she went back up. She wanted to be down on the desert floor to watch for monsters, but that wasn’t going to work. The connection runes were running out too fast because of the extra weight pulling on them. She’d need to keep them refreshed, or there would be more rescues like the last one. Or deaths.

  The weight of so many lives felt heavy on her shoulders. She had hoped to get everyone down quickly and get at least to the construction site, if not all the way to the rest area, before the sun went down. It was going to be a race, but they couldn’t rush this part. Not without risking too many lives.