Travelers crowded the passage, abandoning cabins. They tangled and fought in panic. Orders were shouted, prayers raised, cries echoed.
“There!” Kathryn pointed.
Tylar spotted the flash of bronze. It was Master Gerrod, brilliant in his armor. He stood braced in a doorway a few spaces down the tilted passageway. One metal hand gripped Rogger by the shirt collar, keeping him in place.
Across the passage, Eylan shoved several folks out of her way with the handle of a long ax. The Wyr-mistress’s dark eyes found Tylar and narrowed. Her efforts grew fiercer. Her duty had been to act as his bodyguard, to keep his valuable seed safe from harm. She seemed furious at how difficult he was making her chore.
Tylar and Kathryn hurried to the others.
He turned to Rogger and Gerrod. “We must get to the captain’s deck.”
Another explosion bucked the ship savagely. It rolled to port, throwing everyone to the wall. Cries grew sharper in alarm. Tylar snatched Kathryn around the waist. He felt her heartbeat pounding. He stared through the open door of a passenger’s cabin and out its window.
With the ship rolled over, the city appeared beneath the flippercraft. Tall towers stretched close. He spotted townsmen on the streets, near enough to see their faces staring up. He knew what they were seeing. A flippercraft, trailing a tail of smoke and fire, about to strike the city.
Then the ship swung back even, taking away the view below-only now the craft’s nose dipped more steeply.
A hand grabbed his elbow, as hard as any shackle.
He turned to find Eylan hauling him up.
Tylar attempted to shake free. “My seed will have to wait.”
She scowled at him. Using her free arm, she stopped one of the crewmen with the butt of her ax handle, pinning the young man to the wall. “Take us to the foredeck,” she demanded in a voice that offered no mercy.
The crewman balked, near blind with panic.
Not a good sign.
“I may be able to help the captain.” Tylar grabbed the man by the shoulder, shoving the ax handle away. “I have Grace that may serve to save the ship.”
The man’s eyes fixed to him, to any hope, then nodded.
Gerrod and Rogger joined them. With Eylan in the lead, roughly knocking folks aside with the flat of her ax, they forced their way forward.
The crewman unlocked the hatch of the captain’s deck. “We’ve lost all aeroskimmers. We’re riding on the dregs of Grace. If you can do anything…”
Tylar led the others into a mirror of the stern common room. A deck overlooked a curved wall of glass, the captain’s eye. But instead of open decking, the space was occupied by an arc of control seats. To the right and left, men fought to wield the starboard and port aeroskimmers. Smoke poured from one side, flames lapped on the other.
In the center, directly ahead, the helmsman sat, strapped to a chair that protruded out over the window, like the bowsprit of a ship. The position gave the man a full view of the city hurtling toward them. His feet worked a set of pedals, his hands a vast wheel. Smoke framed his form. A spat of flames danced under his toes.
It was deathly quiet as the team worked to save the flippercraft, to save the passengers, to save themselves. The captain stood behind his helmsman at the foot of the bowsprit. His brows darkened at the sight of the newcomers.
Tylar had no time for pleasantries. He hurried forward.
Below, the city filled the window.
Tylar recognized immediately the desperation of the captain’s plan. The Tigre River lay directly below them. The captain was dropping the flippercraft into the river, plainly hoping to cushion their crash, and in turn, spare the lives of the townsfolk below.
But there was a problem with his plan.
Directly ahead, a massive structure blocked the river. Nine towers and a keep. Chrism’s castillion. They were falling too fast. With the aeroskimmers out, they could not swing around. It was a dead man’s drop. They might strike the river, but like a skipped stone on a flat pond, they would crash headlong into the keep itself. Though the castillion was raised up on giant pillars to allow river barges to pass beneath, it was not high enough to accommodate the bulk of the flippercraft.
“Captain,” Tylar said, “where’s your main plumb to the alchemical tank?”
The captain pointed to the left. “We used all our reserves. We have nothing left.”
Tylar was already moving. Kathryn followed, along with the captain. They reached the plumb feed used to fill the tanks. It was a column of thick glass, sealed at the top. The entire crew’s eyes were on them.
Tylar ordered the captain, “Open the plumb.” He turned to Kathryn and bared his wrists. “Your sword. Cut deep.”
To her credit, she did not balk. The blade slid free with a flash of silver. With a speed borne of desperation, she thrust her blade’s edge across both wrists. She was not gentle. She sliced to bone. Tendons severed. Blood poured.
Tylar swung his arms over the open feeding tube. His blood flowed down the glass, heading for the mekanicals in the ship’s belly.
Rogger appeared at his side. “Your Grace’s aspect is water. Not air. This is no Fin.”
“It’s about to become one.” Tylar nodded to the window, hugging the tube, wrists on fire. The Tigre River swelled out the window. The castillion lay an arrow’s shot away.
Tylar closed his eyes and willed his streaming blood. He pictured the crimson river reaching the main mekanicals that flew the ship. He recalled the explosive effect his raw blood had on the Fin as they fled Tangle Reef.
Pure, undiluted power.
He prayed it was enough.
He cast his will along with his blood to the heart of the flippercraft. He flowed his Grace through the mekanicals and over the keel of the craft.
Water…
Into an ocean he had been born, birthed as his mother drowned in a sinking scuttlecraft off the Greater Coast. He touched that place, drew upon half memories buried deep within. Water flowed back with his first sensations of this world. He was pushed from warm womb to cold sea.
Falling, falling, falling…
He wailed, babe and man. His mouth filled with water, his lungs. Deep in his chest, beyond blood and bone, he felt the daemon respond, stirring and waking. Here, too, water swelled.
Once again, he drowned in it, lived in it, breathed it.
This was his Grace, gifted by Meeryn.
He opened his eyes and stared out at the window. Water filled the world. A moment from striking. But they were one and the same: ship, river, and man.
“Hold fast!” the helmsman screamed.
There was no need. The river accepted its own, opening beneath them, drawing them to its flowing bosom.
The flippercraft fell smoothly into the river’s embrace, sinking rather than striking, drawn beneath its waves, joining the strength of its currents.
“The wheel’s responding!” the helmsman choked out, trapped between horror and hope.
Rogger yelled back at him. “The castillion!”
Though they had landed, caught by the river itself, Lord Chrism’s keep still rushed toward them. The window was three-quarters submerged, but there was enough view out its upper section to see the castillion’s massive stone pylons and the lower half of the keep.
“Take the ship down!” Rogger screamed, running for the helmsman.
Tylar nodded, too weak to respond… or stand. Hugging the plumb tube, he slid down its length, smearing blood. He felt arms catch him. A warm breath touched his ear.
“I have you,” Kathryn said.
He nodded again. Yes, once you did…
Vision narrowing, he saw Rogger yelling at the helmsman, but no words reached him. Still, he watched the waterline climb the window. The flippercraft submerged toward the bottom of the deep river.