The castillion pillars swept toward them, dark shadows in the river. The ship hoved over, turning slightly in the current. The pillars passed to either side. Sunlit waters became murky depths as they dove under the castillion. A grinding scrape shook the ship, coming from topside, as if the upper skin of the flippercraft were being sheared away.
The craft shook and rattled.
Then sunlight bathed down over the hurtling ship.
A cry pierced the pounding in Tylar’s ear: “We’re under and through!” Cheers followed.
Tylar closed his eyes. He still felt arms around him. He fell into them, gratefully and fully-then slipped away.
“Help me with him!” Kathryn screamed.
She lifted Tylar into her arms, drawing on shadows to give her strength. But she was surprised at how light he was, an empty shell of his former self. Blood ran down his arms, soaking through her cloak.
The captain had beached the flippercraft into a section of docklands, crashing through a few small ferryboats, riding up over a stone pier, and burying its nose onto the shore. Its stern still lay in the water, pulled by the currents. The river threatened to carry the craft back out again.
They did not have much time.
The captain shouted orders, attempting to rein in the growing chaos.
A jam of passengers blocked the exit from the captain’s deck. Passengers pushed forward from the sinking stern. Some carried baggage in their arms or atop their heads. Others simply clawed and cried their way forward, attempting to reach one of the two flank doors.
Behind them, water flooded in from the shattered rear window, climbing higher and higher, washing up the ship as the river pushed into all compartments. All that had kept them from drowning earlier had been the air trapped inside the flippercraft. And now smoke choked the air, thicker since their landing in the Tigre. River water had doused the flames in the lower holds, but smoke still rose from the smolders and flaming oil slicks.
Kathryn hugged Tylar to her breast, his head hung back, neck exposed. So pale, so pale…
She needed to get him to safety. There was no time even to bandage his wrists.
Eylan came to Kathryn’s aid. Using the haft of her ax like a cudgel, she forged a brutal path out the captain’s cabin and into the hallway. Rogger fell in tow. Gerrod already stood at the hold’s doorway, gripped fast with the strength of his mekanicals, a boulder in a river. Once Kathryn reached him, he joined Eylan in wading through the crowd, aiming for the starboard hatch. Sunlight blazed there.
“We must reach the streets as swiftly as possible,” Gerrod said. “The entire garrison will be down here to investigate.”
Kathryn followed in the pair’s wake. Rogger came behind her.
But still the crowds resisted. The water grew deeper, climbing to midthigh. Kathryn did not know when she started crying. But the tears were hot against her cold cheeks. Don’t die… not now…
Tylar still breathed, but raspy and coarse, too shallow.
They needed to hurry.
The ship rolled, pushed by the current. Wood ground on stone. Water sloshed, folk fell, some going under, trod on by others. Gerrod helped a little girl, pulling her out of the water by the scruff of her collar. Her father gratefully accepted her back, eyes wide with the panic they all felt. None wanted to be aboard the flippercraft if it should be dragged back and under the river.
The doorway was packed tight with the press of bodies.
It seemed they would never get through.
Then men appeared to either side of Kathryn. They were the ship’s crew, armed with staves and poles. She recognized the leader of the men who had guarded the captain’s deck.
“Stay with us,” he hissed at her.
With barked yells and much poking and striking, the crowd was beaten aside. The crew reached the starboard door and set up a post there. They forced order upon the point of their staves. The way opened. Kathryn and the others were waved through. With some semblance of calm established, the flow of escaping passengers quickened.
Kathryn glanced to the leader of the crewmen.
He met her eyes. “We’re in your debt. All of you.” His eyes settled to the slack form of Tylar. When he looked back up, there was only sorrow there. He, like Kathryn, knew death.
But Kathryn didn’t have to believe it or accept it. She jumped into the river. Waist-deep in its current, she trudged toward shore. By now, half the city seemed to have gathered along the levy.
Off to the left, a glint of armor shone through the rambling crowd.
A troop of castillion guards.
Gerrod led their party away, drifting down the river to the right. They reached shore and climbed out. “Quickly. This way,” he said and set off at a fast pace, heading into the dark and narrows of the wharfs.
Eylan stepped to Kathryn’s side. “I can take him,” she said in a soft voice, very unlike her usual brusqueness.
Still Kathryn shook her head. “I can’t…” She continued with Tylar, held up by shadow and sorrow.
“We need to find an alchemist,” Rogger said. The thief, soaked from crown to heel, looked like a drowned river rat. “Firebalm will heal his wounds in a heartbeat.”
“Where?” Kathryn gasped. She did not know the city well.
“No,” Gerrod said, stopping in the shadows of an alley. “We’ve no time.” He reached up and pulled down a shirt drying from a window line. His mekanical fingers ripped strips. “Bind his wounds. That will hold for now. And we don’t want to leave a blood trail for any hunters to track.”
As they packed and cinched the wounds, Gerrod’s caution proved warranted. A troop of castillion guards swept down the neighboring street. Kathryn used the alley’s shadows and cast her cloak over their huddled party.
“Something has the city stirred up,” Gerrod said after the guards passed. “The response to the crash was too swift. All the city’s garrisons must have already been on the street.”
“Why the activity?” Rogger asked.
Gerrod gained his feet. “Word of the godslayer’s arrival must have reached the wrong ears.”
Kathryn agreed. They had no way of knowing how things had fared back at Tashijan. Once she was found to be missing, it would take Argent ser Fields only a short time to discern they had fled by the dawn flippercraft.
With Tylar’s wounds bound, they set off again.
“Where now?” Rogger asked.
“To where we were originally headed,” Gerrod answered. He pointed upward, to a pair of towers a quarter reach away. It was the Conclave of Chrismferry. “We came to question a healer… now we need him even more.”
Dart crowded the window with Laurelle. They stared off toward the castillion and the Tigre River. A trail of smoke rose from the near shore. Moments ago, all had heard a deep low boom, thunder in sunlight. Dart had been nearest the window. A quick glance out revealed a geyser of water exploding up from the Tigre, not far from where the river disappeared under Chrism’s castillion.
A distant crash of stone echoed.
From their height and position, Dart watched something massive shoot out from under the main keep, a huge boat, nothing like she had ever seen, a wooden whale. It trailed fire and smoke, rocketing forth. Then it vanished behind the dockworks on this side of the river. The subsequent crash could not be mistaken, billowing up with fresh smoke. The strange craft had struck the wharf area.
“A flippercraft,” Yaellin had said dourly.
Dart scrunched her brow. A flippercraft? What was one of the air ships doing in the river? Had it fallen out of the skies?
Laurelle stayed close to Dart. For too long, both had been jangled by the terror and hopelessness of their plight. Holing up here offered no comfort. Now stopped, tensions grew as their reality sunk home. They were outcasts, fugitives. A life of easy luxury and respect had been shattered in one night.
Dart pushed open the window, needing fresh air. Laurelle leaned against her. Her fingers found Dart’s.