Oops, I Accidentally Started the Industrial Revolution - Fat Belongs to the Ropes

Thirty mouths, twenty rotting tub2  Fat

Belongs to the

Thirty mouths, twenty rotting tubers, and five moons of white frost creeping down the crag.

The arithmetic of the

Den was written in empty bellies and frozen breath.

Skell’s daily sled brought just enough starch to keep the orphans from turning into corpses before the winter trials, but starch built no muscle.

Without fat, half the cave would be stacked in the rear flues before the

Rime-Thaw.Corin skirted the lower terrace markers at noon, his knees aching from yesterday’s fight on the scree.

Brant trotted three paces behind, nose low, grey down bristling against the sulfurous stench blowing out of the

Basin.The swamp was a black, bubbling silt-bed choked with rotted ironwood stumps.

Stagnant pools burped pocket-flames of swamp gas, and the mud ran deep enough to pull a grown man down by the hips.Behind a dead willow trunk,

Corin watched grey, armored beetles the size of dinner plates clamber over a fallen log.

As the midday heat hit the mud, the creatures exuded a frothy, tar-like discharge from their tail vents.

The foam dried quickly in the canyon wind, forming light, porous domes that trapped air pockets.Corin waited for three beetles to waddle into the tall reeds before darting across the firm gravel spit.

He pried four dried black shells off the log with his stone chisel.The first dome crushed into powder in his calloused fingers—too brittle, dried out by three days of sun.

He handled the remaining three with delicate care, tucking them into his reed satchel.Testing them in a rainwater pocket revealed the catch.

A plain piece of hollow bark soaked through and sank in twenty heartbeats under a pebble’s weight.

When he lashed sinew around the second beetle-foam dome and dropped it in, water seeped through microscopic pores in the shell, pulling it under.Corin cursed softly, wiping his bruised knuckles.

He scraped a smear of rancid animal grease saved from his morning tuber hide-wrap, working the fat thick over the foam’s porous surface.He dropped the greased dome back into the puddle with the sinker pebble.The black bulb bobbed stubbornly at the surface, riding the ripples without sinking an inch.Half a mile of churning red mud and mountain melt roared through the basalt gorge below.

The spray tasted of iron and crushed rock.

Mountain hunters called it the

Flow because anything dragged into its red muscle turned to slurry against the sunken reefs.Corin crept down to a narrow limestone shelf three feet above a foaming eddy.

Fifty yards upstream, two border sentries lounged against a granite observation pillar, spears propped across their shoulders.

They cast a single, dismissive glance at an eight-year-old playing near the water’s edge with a wolf pup, then returned to chewing bitter stim-bark.Corin’s right wrist throbbed where he had struck

Dreg’s solar plexus the afternoon before.

He ignored the pulse of pain, uncoiling fifteen feet of three-ply river-grass line he had spent three nights braiding in the dark.

To the end, he bound the greased foam float above a heavy granite sinker.He had no iron hooks.

He used a two-inch needle carved from a split terrapin rib, sharpened at both ends, tied through its belly with a knot designed to turn crosswise when pulled.He impaled a fat, wriggling stone-worm onto the bone needle.

The grub oozed zinc-smelling slime over his bleeding fingers.He swung the weighted line in a tight circle and pitched it thirty feet into the vortex.The greased float spun in the red foam.Ten breaths passed.

The deafening roar of the river filled the canyon.

Brant sat rigid against his hip, hackles raised.The black float twitched once.Then it vanished straight down into the red murk.The grass cord snapped taut, slicing instantly through the skin of

Corin’s palms.

The sheer, terrifying weight of the strike jerked his thirty-pound frame toward the churning edge.”Brant!

Anchor!” Corin gasped, the breath knocked from his lungs.The pup lunged backward, jaws locking around the looped tail of the cord bound to

Corin’s belt.

Four small paws skittered across the slick limestone, digging into hairline fissures for leverage.Corin threw his hips back, heels jammed against a lip of rock, his starved shoulder joints screaming as the line sawed into his raw palms.

Blood slicked the braided grass.

Whatever thrashed in the deep red current possessed the raw power of a river monster, pulling his legs toward the drop.

His left foot slipped on wet moss—He drove his heels deeper into the shale, gritting his teeth until his jaw popped, channeling every ounce of leverage his small frame possessed.The surface erupted in a fountain of red spray and flashing white bone.Three feet of yellow-armored malice flopped onto the limestone shelf: a

River-Carver.

Its spade-shaped head bore overlapping bone plates, its undershot jaw packed with triangular teeth clicking together like iron traps.

The muscular tail slapped the rock with enough force to crack slate, driving the snapping jaws within inches of

Corin’s bare ankles.A heavy shadow fell over the shelf.”By the high hearth,” a deep voice grunted.Hakk, one of the sentries, dropped down the observation ledge with his spear leveled.

Beside him came

Torv, his mouth stained red from chewing stim-bark.Both men stared at the thrashing beast, their eyes wide with disbelief.”You hauled a carver out of the

Flow?” Torv demanded, thrusting the butt of his spear toward the fish.

The jaws snapped sideways, shearing a two-inch gouge clean out of the hardened ash-wood shaft. “From the shelf?

How?”Corin knelt in the spray, cradling his raw, bleeding hands against his chest. “Float stays up.

The bone needle locks in the gullet.”Hakk let out a short, barking laugh like dry timber snapping. “Grass and bugs!

Look at the white fat on that belly!”Torv didn’t hesitate.

He pulled an eight-inch flint butchering blade from his hip, pinned the thrashing fish behind its armored gill-plates with a heavy leather sandal, and drove the stone blade down through the base of its skull with a practiced crunch.The fish shuddered and went limp.Working with the rapid economy of mountain veterans, the two sentries peeled away the armored dorsal scales and opened the belly from vent to throat.

They kicked the oily entrails into the current to keep bigger predators away from the shelf.Beneath the bone scales lay thick, translucent slabs of glistening white fat and firm muscle.Torv pulled a fire-stone and dry lichen from his pouch.

Three quick strikes of flint sent sparks into the tinder, and within five minutes, white fish steaks were sizzling over hot river stones, filling the canyon breeze with the intoxicating, sweet aroma of roasted grease.They ate on the ledge, oil running down their wrists.Sinking his teeth into the hot, rich flesh,

Corin felt a wave of physiological relief wash over his brain.

His starved body drank in the dense calories like parched soil drinking rain.”You take six pounds back to the den, kid,” Hakk said, wiping his mouth with a hairy forearm as he tossed the filleted carcass into

Corin’s bark pack. “Leave the head on the rocks.

And if you bring extra worms tomorrow, the watch won’t see you playing by the water.”Night had closed over

Crag by the time

Corin pushed aside the wicker hurdle and stepped into the

Den.The central fire pit sputtered with thin, bitter smoke from wet pine.

Around it sat twenty-five children, huddled in shivering knots, their faces hollow in the gloom.On the distribution slab sat

Marek, his jaw swollen purple where

Skell had struck him the evening before.

Beside him sat three older boys.

They had already claimed the three largest rotten tubers, leaving the withered scraps scattered in the dirt for the smaller orphans.Corin walked straight into the center of the hall, ignoring

Marek’s sullen stare.He reached into his pack, grabbed the severed, yellow-armored skull of the river carver by its eye sockets, and slammed it onto the distribution stone.*THUD.*The heavy jaw cracked against the granite.

Even in death, two rows of razor-sharp teeth gleamed under the dying embers, stained with dried river slime and gore.Behind the head,

Corin unrolled a broad green leaf holding six pounds of firm, white, fat-streaked fillets.The cave went dead quiet.Two dozen children froze mid-chew.

Eyes dull with starvation dilated instantly, locking onto the glistening white meat with an intensity bordering on frenzy.

A few of the younger ones whimpered, their stomachs cramping audibly at the smell of hot fat.”That’s a river-demon,” gap-toothed

Janno whispered, scrambling backward until his spine hit the rock wall. “He went into the dead water…””I pulled it out from the ledge,” Corin said, his voice cutting through the damp air like a stone edge.He stepped up onto the slab, standing opposite

His stone knife stayed in his belt.

He pointed directly at the white meat.”Skell brings the tubers,” Corin said. “I bring the fat.

Starting tonight, nobody touches white meat unless they pull on my lines.

Sit in the corner with

Marek if you want rotten starch.

Stand on the line if you want grease in your belly every sunset.”For a suffocating moment, nobody moved.

The terror of the forbidden river fought against the agonizing ache in their ribs.Stammering

Cob crawled forward on his hands and knees.

His shoulders shivered, his eyes wet with pure hunger.”C-Corin,” Cob stammered, struggling to shape the words through his chapped lips. “I…

I can split the reeds.

I know the three-ply braid.”Corin picked up a thick slice of raw white fat and dropped it into

Cob’s trembling palms.”Eat,” Corin said.Cob shoved the fat into his mouth, weeping as he swallowed it whole.Within ten seconds, the slab was swarmed.

Twenty-four children dropped to their knees in the dirt, hands outstretched, a ragged chorus of submission rising in the dark.Marek remained in the corner, holding his single rotten tuber, his swollen jaw locked in silent, bitter defeat.Dawn broke freezing over

Crag.Outside the

Den, twenty-four orphans stood in the grey morning light, breath puffing like smoke signals in the thin air.Corin stood on the distribution rock with a piece of charcoal and four flat slate river stones at his feet.

Brant sat beside him, belly full of fish trimmings, grey ears perked forward.”Five squads,” Corin announced, marking the front rank with his charcoal stick. “Five boys to a squad.

Meet your tally before noon, or your squad eats tubers, not fat.”He pointed at

Gault, whose calf was wrapped in moss and twine where

Brant had bitten him.”Gault.

Fourth squad on the

When he scratches the dirt, you dig.

I want thirty live stone-worms in the bark bucket before mid-morning.

Let a worm break in half, and your share goes to the dog.””I’ll dig,” Gault said quickly, greasy hair flopping over his eyes.

The taste of white fat from last night was still fresh in his gullet; he would have clawed granite with his bare nails for another piece.Corin turned to

Second squad on river-reeds along the lower shelf.

Take the dark green ones where the spray hits.

Split them with your thumbs, dry them on the flat rocks, and braid them three-ply.

A line snaps on the river, your squad skips dinner.””T-three-ply,” Cob repeated, his chest swelling. “Strong as elk-gut,

Corin.””Squad

One pulls the haul-lines with me at the eddy,” Corin continued. “Squad

Three carries water bladders and gathers dry tamarack for the smoking racks.

Five guards the cave terrace.”He stopped before

Marek, standing at the tail end of the line, head bowed, face grey with shame.”Marek,” Corin said.The older boy flinched, bracing for the blow clan custom demanded an incoming leader deliver to a fallen rival.”You’re in

One,” Corin said. “You have the broadest shoulders here.

When a three-foot carver hits the line,

I need weight on the rocks.

Pull hard, eat first.”Marek looked up, his unswollen eye wide with disbelief.

He swallowed hard, his throat clicking, then dropped his gaze and gave a heavy nod.”I’ll pull,” Marek muttered.Corin slung his bark satchel over his shoulder, checking the stone knife at his hip.”Move,” Corin barked.For the first time in nine hundred years, the orphans of the

Den marched down the mountain not as starving scavengers begging for scraps, but as an organized vanguard setting out to harvest the deep.