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.
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.
