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.
Across the short way to the river, shouts reached them, along with the shrill whistles of the water wagons. A pair of mekanical flutterseats whisked out from under the castillion and sped over the water. They bore the gold and crimson of Chrism’s guard.
“What do you think happened?” Laurelle asked.
“A crash,” Yaellin said behind them. His voice had hardened.
Laurelle glanced to him, hearing his worry. “What… do you think it concerns us?”
Yaellin answered with a darkened countenance. He kept his sword upon Paltry, even though the man’s hands had been bound behind his back and tied to the bed’s head rails.
Dart kept her vigil at the window. It was as if now the very skies were falling.
Paltry stirred on the bed, working his shoulders. “It was the flippercraft bearing the contingent from Tashijan, wasn’t it?” he said with thick disdain. “Your friends. Your allies. Those who came to help you.”
Dart glanced back at Yaellin, praying he would discount Paltry’s words. Instead, Yaellin remained silent.
Paltry laughed, but with no humor, only satisfaction. He took strength from their despair and glanced to Dart. “The abomination will be slain. I failed once in my duty. But now the great weight and wheel of Chrismferry will crush you.”
As his words sank home, Dart’s heart stopped beating. I failed once in my duty. She pictured kindly Master Willym falling atop her, his blood washing hotly over her. Murdered. A bolt meant for her.
Laurelle realized the same. Fire entered her voice. “ You! You hired the assassin.”
“And it was gold poorly spent. I took great care to hire the best blackfoot, to get him placed in the shadows, to arrange his flight afterward. And what did I get for my efforts? The abomination still lives.” His gaze poisoned upon Dart.
“You killed Master Willym,” Dart said coldly.
“An unfortunate consequence. But the old man had been burned by Grace for so long, he didn’t have long to live.”
Dart remembered the former Hand’s last word.
Beware…
Had Willym known about Chrism, suspected something? Had he tried to warn her? She remembered, as she struggled from beneath him, a last glimpse into the dying man’s eyes. A sudden clarity and horror. She had thought it was the sight of his own death-but now she knew what it was. It was the break of some charm, a curse lifted, a yoke shattered. Willym had been ensorcelled, his will and memories bent. Such black alchemies were not beyond the corrupted. Only his death had set him free.
Had the same been intended for her? She pictured Chrism and Mistress Naff sneaking from her room and shuddered.
“You’ll never escape,” Paltry continued, drawing back Dart’s gaze. “There’s nowhere you can hide for long.”
A sudden knocking proved his words, firm and hard, shaking the door.
“Open the way!” a voice commanded, ringing with authority.
