James Clemens - Shadowfall

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.

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.”