platform to the beach. I went up first, and peered towards Casta Canto. The air was heavy with the tang of sweating horse. A road led up beyond the harbour and a small, timbered plaza, towards the main part of town. There were large drying sheds on both sides, and all the space between was a heaving sea of equine bodies.
The scene was a mass of confusion. There seemed far too many horses to have departed the ferry.
I realised why.
There were other horses, almost as many as had just crossed the river, and these with riders, coming towards us from the far side of town. The two parties had met and ground to a halt against each other, with much raising of voices and waving of arms.
It was fortunate for us, because otherwise Moaradrid's men would have been on us in seconds.
'Run!'
I took my own advice, not looking to see if Estrada and Saltlick followed. The boat we'd picked out was the last on the docks. It crossed my mind that we might be better to hide, but I'd no idea whether they'd seen us. Even if they'd missed Estrada and me, could they have failed to notice Saltlick? And there was another worry. The closer I got, the more I doubted the fragile craft could take his weight.
I realised, when we arrived panting at the far end of the pier, that we had an even more immediate problem. Just getting Saltlick into the boat was going to be a tribulation. A glance told me Moaradrid's party had made it through the opposing traffic. There were a dozen of them, and they were too engaged to pay us any attention. They'd dismounted to lead their mounts onto the ferry, and were having as much difficulty as the merchants had had performing the exercise in reverse.
Our luck couldn't hold much longer.
'Saltlick, you go first.'
If he was going to capsize our vessel, it was better to find out now. As he made tentative motions toward the craft, it looked as though that was exactly what would happen. It bucked alarmingly when he put the least weight on it. Water sloshed in every direction. He tried one foot then the other, first standing then crouching. I could see his mounting panic. Each attempt sunk our one hope of escape a little further.
Despite my anxiety, I remembered Estrada's lecture. I actually felt a little sorry watching him, for all that his clumsiness was about to cost our lives.
Therefore, to everyone's surprise, it was Estrada who settled the predicament. 'Damn it, Saltlick, get in!'
No physical blow could have brought so drastic a reaction. Saltlick fell with a crash into the boat, which lurched up almost end on end, before his mass drove it down with a colossal splash. It seesawed back and forth, each time taking on more water, each time looking as though it must inevitably be sucked under the waves. Saltlick bailed furiously all the while, with cupped hands as big as a bucket. I couldn't tell if he was helping or making things worse.
It was a minute at least before the conflict was played out. Saltlick sat drenched, in a hand's span of water. But the boat was right side up on the river. Estrada and I hurried to clamber in. I was sure we'd be the final straw. Yet somehow, the beleaguered vessel stayed afloat, with a hair's breadth of waterline.
I hazarded a glance behind. Moaradrid's troops had made it aboard the ferry and it was now perhaps a quarter of the way to the far shore, struggling along with its usual lethargy. They had clustered at the front, where there was less risk of being mangled by a stray hoof.
'I don't think they've seen us,' I said — just as one pointed in our direction. 'Oh shit,' I corrected. 'We're safe as long as they don't have…'
The first arrow plunked through the surface beside us.
'Saltlick!' cried Estrada, thrusting the oars at him.
He stared at the shafts, as though she'd handed him a pair of live snakes. An arrow rebounded from our stern and shattered, spinning past us in pieces.
'Row!'
Estrada was becoming frantic. Saltlick, though he looked just as distraught, didn't move so much as a finger. A third missile carved splinters from the mast just above our heads. I gazed at Saltlick's hands, clutching the oars like skewered ham hocks.
I remembered what Estrada had told me.
How often did giants row boats?
'Like this,' I called, mimicking the motion back and forth. More arrows splashed around us, and he gazed at me, baffled. Then understanding dawned. His first stroke nearly tore both oars from their rowlocks, and we leaped forward almost our own length. The second was a fraction more controlled. By the third, Saltlick was starting to compensate for his own strength.
'They're still too near,' moaned Estrada.
She was right. Our sudden motion had thrown off their aim, but it wouldn't take them long to correct. We were too overladen, too low in the water. We'd never get up enough speed, for all Saltlick's strength.
So why was no one shooting?
I dared another glance. I was rewarded by a sight so unexpected that I had to turn around, risk of sinking be damned. The ferry was in chaos. At one end, the horses had kicked the barrier into toothpicks, and a couple were already thrashing in the river. At the front, less than half of Moaradrid's men had managed to stay aboard. The others were swimming with the horses, or clutching the rails to stay afloat.
I couldn't tell what had brought such commotion, until I noticed how the chain was sagging, the raft dragging against it into the flow. I followed its length and saw the smoke, a black column seething from behind the harbour buildings. I remembered the wooden tower that housed the ferry's mechanism. A tremendous crash reached us in the same moment, and the smoke cloud redoubled. The chain drooped drastically, and then flopped into the water. Freed from servitude, the ferry chose the path of least resistance. It lurched away with the river, heading northward, moving ten times faster than it ever had before. Its few remaining passengers, human and equine, decided that swimming for the near shore was by far the safest option.
It was over in a less than a minute. By the time I'd taken it all in, the chain was at the bottom of the river, and the ferry had disappeared around a curve. The only evidence was the smoke still climbing thickly into the still air, and the bewildered figures dog-paddling towards the bank. What had happened? Surely it couldn't have been an accident.
I saw the riders, and understood. They were a halfdozen, streaming in single file up the waterfront towards us, heads down, weapons drawn. They veered into the trees at the point where Casta Canto gave way to the forest, hardly slowing. A moment later, the last had been consumed by the deep arboreal shadows.
They'd been travelling at speed, a good distance away. I wouldn't have recognised them but for one detail. For the briefest instant, their leader had glanced in our direction — and there was no mistaking that florid, eye- patched face.
Castilio Mounteban had saved our lives again.
CHAPTER 13
Though the day was still cold, the water was glassy and calm beyond Casta Canto. Willows dredged their leaves from the banks. Waterfowl steered around the leafy curtains and each other in complex, aimless patterns. Sometimes a boat would pass, usually a scow moving cargo to or from distant Altapasaeda. The sight of two people in a nine-tenths-sunk skiff being clumsily rowed by a giant drew questions, jeers or, most often, stares of speechless alarm.
When we had the river to ourselves, there was nothing to hear except the sough of wind in the trees and our oars slapping rhythmically through the surface. No one had much to say after the incident with the ferry, and it made for a strange sort of silence, tense and uncomfortable.
Saltlick appeared to be rapt in his newfound occupation, though perhaps his look of absorption had as much to do with trying not to upset our beleaguered craft. He couldn't have stared more intently into the distance if he'd been powering the boat by sheer force of will. Estrada had been gazing at the forest since Mounteban and his companions had vanished, as though she expected them suddenly to burst forth again. Mounteban had confused the
