Page 78 of The Endless War

He needed to take away that option.

Ripping the knife in his boot free, he sawed at one of the mooring ropes. As it started to fray, he shoved the blade between his teeth and swung beneath the bridge.

The mooring rope snapped, the bridge tipping sideways and spilling one of the soldiers into the water. Bermin shouted, scrambling for a handhold.

And letting go of Zarrah.

She screamed, but Keris caught her with his legs, her weight nearly pulling him loose. Her hands clawed at him before latching on to his belt, her ankles hooking around his neck. Upside down, she clung to him. “Hold on,” he shouted, the blade between his teeth cutting his tongue.

“As though I have a goddamn choice!”

The bridge swung from side to side as Bermin’s soldiers struggled to keep their grip on the tipped planks, Bermin clutching the mooring ropes with one hand and reaching wildly for Keris with the other. Keris edged away from him, his arms shuddering from the strain of supporting his own weight and Zarrah’s as the bridge swung back and forth.

Bermin crawled after him. “I’m going to kill you both,” he snarled. “Rid the world of you, to hell with what she says. She doesn’t control me!”

A thousand quips about mothers, sons, and apron strings filledKeris’s head, but he couldn’t speak clearly with a dagger clenched between his teeth.

Zarrah abruptly heaved on his belt and unhooked one of her ankles from around his neck. Keris shouted as his trousers edged over his hips, but then she had a leg over one of the mooring ropes, her ass hitting him in the face each time the bridge bounced.

“Climb!” he shouted, again cutting his tongue, blood dripping down his chin. But it didn’t matter as Zarrah’s body strained upward, fingers latching on to the rope.

“Got it!”

Her weight disappeared from him, and letting go with one hand, Keris took hold of his knife. Spitting blood, Keris sawed at one of the three remaining moorings, laughing wildly as it snapped and the whole bridge twisted, spilling two more soldiers into the water, though the Prince held on.

Only two ropes to go.

Bermin’s face twisted, seeing Keris’s plan, and he crawled along the bouncing length of boards and rope, reaching.

“Get to the other side!” Keris shouted at Zarrah.

But Bermin was moving faster.

Ignoring Keris, he reached for Zarrah’s ankle, cursing when she kicked him but then catching hold of her boot.

Keris let go with one hand to use his knife to slash at the Prince, but the weapon only glanced off the man’s leather armor.

“Cut the ropes!” Zarrah shouted, struggling to get free of her cousin’s grip. “Hurry!”

Keris sawed at another rope as Zarrah warred with Bermin over her boot above him, the bridge jerking from side to side, doing its best to spill all three of them into the water below.

The rope abruptly snapped, and everything dropped with a jerk, a single remaining mooring stretched between cliffs the only thing holding them above the water.

And Keris hanging nose to nose with Bermin.

“Stab him!” Zarrah screamed from where she dangled, but his knife had been lost to the water below.

Bermin reached for Keris, fingers catching hold of his sleeve. “You’re going to kill us both, you idiot!” Keris shouted, but Bermin only grinned.

“I will go to the Great Thereafter with honor because I do so sending you to hell.”

His fingers tightened on Keris’s sleeve, clearly intending to use his weight to rip both of them from the bridge and send them plunging to their deaths.

Then an arrow sliced between them, severing the last remaining rope.

For a heartbeat, Bermin’s grip on his sleeve kept them together; then the fabric tore.

Keris sucked in a desperate breath as he and Bermin fell away from each other, his fingers squeezing the rope as he dropped with terrifying speed toward the water below.

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