the Wyr maps and knew the straightest path to an island deep out in the flooded forest, where the rogues were snared.
The Wyr maps were vital.
The flooded forest was a maze of soggy hillocks, slower mossy mires, rocky outcroppings, flat expanses of open water, and twisting currents within the larger breadth of the floodwaters.
Tylar limped to Rogger’s side. He leaned on the back of the chair.
“Are you sure you won’t run us straight into a tree?”
Rogger glanced back. “Do you mean I’m supposed to avoid those?”
The boat suddenly rocked. The bow’s nose rose as Malthumalbaen clambered aboard. He looked ill at ease. The flitterskiff was all air and water. Born of loam, he looked little comforted by this means of travel. Or maybe he had witnessed Rogger’s bobbling struggle with the strange craft out in the water.
Malthumalbaen sprawled in the skiff’s stern, filling the space, one hand on each rail.
With everyone aboard, Tylar took the bench behind Rogger and pointed forward.
“Let’s go.”
“Hold tight!” Rogger twisted a knob to open the flow of alchemies.
The seat vibrated under Dart’s rear. She peeked over the rail as the paddles began to beat, churning water, wafting them forward. Then they beat faster and faster, blurring away. The force of the churn drove them forward- then up. The skiff rose to the tips of its fluttering paddles, lifting the keel free from the drag of the water. Unfettered, the craft sped like its namesake: the flitterfly. It buzzed over the water, skimming the surface with its paddles.
They raced faster than a horse could gallop.
Leaning close, Rogger took care to keep an eye on the trees. As directed by the Wyr-man, he stuck to the flattest water, avoiding rocks and floating logs with careful turns of the wheel.
“Do you have to go so skaggin’ fast?” Malthumalbaen groaned.
Rogger called back. “While we’ve got clear water, I’m burning alchemy. But according to that Wyr-master of the boat, we’ll be wishing for open water before we reach this island.”
Tylar shifted forward, speaking in Rogger’s ear. Dart could not make out his words, but from all the pointing, Tylar was directing Rogger’s path as keenly as possible in this watery wood.
Dart sat back. Her hand rested in Brant’s. She hadn’t planned to put it there, but there it was. They watched the passing hinterlands together. The moons had appeared again as the rains ended and the clouds blew apart. The greater moon had joined her sister, casting enough light off the water to see fairly well.
But strange luminescences glowed in the dark. Glittering green mosses appeared, like those in the dry wood, and also red shining molds on tree trunks, and glowing yellow puffs that exploded out at them as they passed.
But beauty in the hinterlands also hid horror.
“Don’t breathe any of that,” Rogger warned, nodding at the glowing puffs. “It sets in your lungs and births worms that will eat their way out.”
Dart sank lower in her seat, glad now for the craft’s speed.
Still, the Wyr-master proved right. Within half a bell, the trees grew closer and closer, bunching around them. Rogger was forced to slow. Their keel sank back to the water as the alchemies were trimmed.
Their speed remained swift, but not the maddened flight of before.
Rogger sped them through the thickening woods. As the trees grew closer, the way darkened. Rogger circled around one of the spars of rock that jutted out of the landscape. Here the waters grew sluggish as the currents of the floodwaters eddied around the pinnacle. Thick rafts of algae and weed choked the slower waters and stifled the paddles.
They were forced to proceed no faster than a man could row, lest they risk breaking some of the paddles.
And still the trees grew taller, the canopy thicker, blocking all moonlight.
Tylar lit a small torch to check his map.
“I could use one of those up front,” Rogger griped. “I can barely see past my nose, let alone this pointy bow.”
Brant squeezed Dart’s hand and let go. “I’ll do it,” he said and scooted down the bench.
He collected one of the larger torches, lit it off of Tylar’s brand, and moved forward to join Rogger. Brant steadied himself with a hand on the port rail and held the torch high. The firelight stretched across the water.
Able to see, Dart glanced up. The canopy overhead was draped with giant striped vines. The firelight played along their bellies, making them seem to shift and slide. Then a scaled head snaked down out of the twist, hissing to reveal fangs as long as her outstretched hand.
The firelight stirred others, warming their scales.
Dart squeaked in alarm, sliding off her seat to the planks below.
Other eyes noted what roosted in their rafters. One of the serpents uncoiled and slid out of the tangle, crashing to the boat’s center with a writhe of muscles, as thick around as Dart’s leg.
She grabbed the rail, ready to leap into the water.
But Malthumalbaen sighed, snatched the snake by the tail, and whipped it over his shoulder, as if tossing away a gnawed bone. Its coils splashed into the waters behind them.
He returned to resting his chin on his fist.
“It’s only a little snake,” he mumbled.
Rogger eked more alchemy through the mekanicals. With a whisper of paddles, they sped out from under the serpents’ nest. Clear of the pinnacles, they found a less clogged section of the flooded forest, where the currents were swifter.
Brant kept his torch burning.
Dart eventually calmed enough to return to her bench.
Rogger guided them through a watery maze of rocks and hillocks. “Straightest path, my arse,” he grumbled.
Tylar checked the map to the territory. He looked far from convinced that they were on the right track. He looked up and frowned. “If we could see a few stars…”
Despite the dangers, Dart appreciated the occasional handsome view that opened up. A long lane of water lilies that balanced tall-stemmed flowers atop green pads as wide around as Dart was tall. Hanging nests of violet- breasted swifts, so tightly packed that they looked like grapes on a vine. As their boat passed, the birds took to wing without a single peep. But their passage set their hollow nests to bumping against each other, sounding like tuned wood pipes, wafting out a beautiful warbling.
Up ahead, a tall tree swung into view, rising in distinct tiers as if trimmed by the hand of man rather than random growth. Brant’s flames revealed thousands of small blooms, white as snow against the green leaf, all tucked in for the night.
As they swept closer, Dart watched one bloom open its petals. A fat little head beaded out toward them, eyes reflecting crimson. The petals spread wider to reveal wings.
Not hanging flowers.
Bats.
As their earlier passage had fluttered the swifts from their nest, the firelight did the same here, shaking the bats from their roost in a single explosion of wings. But unlike the swifts, the bats weren’t fleeing.
“Torches!” Tylar yelled.
The flock swept toward the boat.
Malthumalbaen moved forward, rocking the boat, to grab two brands. Dart snatched one. In a breath, fires flared across the boat. Unfazed, the bats struck with needle-toothed fury. They landed on shoulder and arm, chest and leg. Teeth bit into skin, claws dug through cloth. Malthumalbaen was assaulted the worst, being the tallest and largest target.
Or maybe it was that he held two torches aloft.
Dart remembered how firelight woke the bats.
Maybe it angered them, too.
Testing this thought, Dart swatted a bat from her neck, then plunged the flaming end of her torch into the water. The fire died with a hiss of steam. The flurry of wings shifted away from her. One bat on her arm leaped
