The sky had clouded over during Ris’kin and my trek back down the mountain, casting the camp in shadow and making the river look darker and more ominous than it had previously. Despite the threat of rain, the peak of the mountain—where the hidden city sprawled inside its secret crater—was caught in a stray beam of afternoon sunlight, lit golden like a tantalizing promise.
Soon enough we’ll be up there, and the journey will finally be over. I’ll have my powers back, and everything can go back to normal. Just a little further.
“D’you think the wagons will make it to the top?” asked Benin. The mage had washed his robes for the first time since we set off; the damp cloth was steaming in his aura of heat, already almost dry. “The trail we found wasn’t exactly smooth.”
I’d been thinking along the same lines. Though we were still operating under a deadline, that only applied to setting my gem in place and sanctifying my new altar. According to Bekkit that would be enough to mark the exodus as successful, end the timer, and restore my god tiers and abilities. The wagons could wait.
Even the chariot wouldn’t need to pass. If it came to it, I could just ask Coll to carry the ark to the top, so long as Gneil accompanied him to fulfill the sanctification ritual’s requirements. Still, it was better to be prepared.
“Coll, do you think you could go on ahead and find a clearer path up to the summit? Or maybe hammer one for us.”
That last part was a joke—mostly—but Coll just nodded amicably and splashed across. The water came up to his knees at its deepest part, which meant it shouldn’t be more than chin-deep for my gnomes.
The badgers and wagons should be able to cross without issue. So long as we made sure the children and less able-bodied denizens rode the wagons, and maybe roped the rest of them together so they wouldn’t get washed away by the current.
The emberfox paced along the water’s edge, clearly in some distress at the prospect of crossing. Both Benin and Ris’kin attempted to calm her. Though she no longer snapped at the mage when he came near her, she still clearly favored her fellow foxkin; in the end, my avatar picked her up gently and set her atop the chariot. Gneil gave the emberfox a reassuring smile and then resumed tending to Bruce, whom he was preparing to yoke to the chariot for this final leg of our journey.
I was more than a little uneasy at having the fiery little fox situated so close to my wooden ark, not to mention my acolytes. However, it seemed Pyra’s flames only damaged her surroundings when she wanted them to. I hoped. Ris’kin’s calming presence nearby also helped.
Benin had remained in place and had now taken Pyra’s place pacing along the bank. Rather than scouting with Coll, an endeavor in which we all knew he’d be a hindrance more than a help, he’d elected to remain in my Sphere and protect my denizens, perhaps still feeling some guilt about his absence when the dire badgers had attacked, but also because he wanted to spend time training with Bekkit. All of that meant that, like the majority of the gnomes, he’d yet to make the crossing himself.
It was time. Steelpaw was already stepping into the river. At my prompting, Gneil had rearranged the wagons’ passengers so they were no longer in color groups. Instead, the first two wagons contained only children and nurses. They would cross first, accompanied by two scouts and six warriors. Days of scouting had revealed no immediate dangers on the opposite bank, but if there was anything I’d learned by now, it was that there was no such thing as being too careful.
As soon as the second wagon, pulled by Flea, entered the water, Binky followed of his own accord. The young badger had calmed considerably throughout the exodus, and was usually too tired after the day’s exertions to pursue his favorite pastime of harassing the spider. In return I’d noticed Binky was always close by, keeping his octet of watchful eyes over his former nemesis and protecting him as fiercely as he did the gnomes. The two owlets riding on the back of Flea’s wagon hooted cheerfully at the spider, who acknowledged them with a cordial wave of his furry palps.
The relatively relaxed atmosphere was broken when one of the children screamed. The accompanying warriors waded over as quickly as they could, peering into the water at where she was pointing, but it seemed the alarm had been raised for nothing.
The child who’d cried out—Pan, I realized—continued to call to the surrounding warriors, pointing at the water around them, but they shook their heads and ignored her. A nurse beside Pan gently reprimanded the child, then put his arm around her in an attempt to calm her down. In the second wagon, though, Emrys was frowning—his old warrior instincts kicking in, perhaps. He peered down at the river suspiciously.
Despite the alarm, both wagons reached the opposite side without further incident, as did the two that followed.
The chariot made it halfway across before stopping abruptly. Gneil frowned, then shrugged and urged Bruce to pull harder. The badger strained, and for a moment the chariot looked as though it was about to break free of whatever held it.
Then there was an ominous crack.
Stop! I told Gneil.
“What’s happened?” asked Ket. She, Bekkit and Benin were each watching one of the other carts, with instructions to immediately report any sign of danger or other issues.
I dipped beneath the water, my god’s-eye vision permitting me to travel through any surface within my Sphere. Peering through the silt that had been disturbed by our
