Page 57 of Winds of Destiny

Now I fear that every second’s delay plays right into my father’s plans.

I turn toward the door, step outside—

And immediately block a blow from a pike meant to take my damn head off. I would strike back, but three more attempts on my life come in rapid succession—stab, thrust, slash. One of them gouges a chunk out of my forearm, but I evade the others, cursing at myself the whole time. I left myfuckingshield on myfuckingmount and now I’m going to befuckingassassinated by my own—

“Hrkk.” That’s the last word of the first man who tried to kill me as he chokes to death on a knife. Turo is with me, on the attack almost faster than I can see, and he’s better than any shield. He gets another man down before I get my head back into the fight, and then… Well, I would never call killing my own people a joyful task, but in this case, it’s a satisfying one.

The key to defeating someone with a long weapon is fightinginsidetheir range. These are pikemen, which tells me they’re members of my father’s personal guard. He trained as a pikeman himself, and prefers the weapon to all others. His people are strong and skilled, but they’re specialists and they’re trying not to hurt each other. Two decent blows with my axe and I’m inside their circle, and then it’s a matter of staying close enough to one to cut him out of his armor, like cleaving limbs from a tree, while the others are too afraid of hitting him to strike me.

Then on to the next one.

Then the next.

There are too many of them, though, and too many people around who could become casualties, especially the headman, who’s doing an excellent job of getting in the way as he entreats us not to fight. He’s going to get impaled by one of the guards if Turo and I can’t get out of here, fast. I don’t see the rams. Maybe I can call them, or—

Turo knocks my shoulder with his and points at a different means of salvation.Oh, of course.I nod, and he dives back into the fray, knocking pikes aside with frenetic determination as I grab the packs I abandoned when I was first attacked. I run through the path he’s cleared, leap onto the boat that’s tethered at the mouth of the lake where the water becomes a river, then point my blade at the boy tending to the lock the boat is sitting in.

“Drop the barrier!” I shout, and he, open-mouthed and trembling, nevertheless does as I ask. I turn just in time to see Turo’s thigh spray blood from a pikeman’s luckystrike as he runs toward me. The urge to go to him is strong, but I make myself wait until he’s close enough for me to grab, then haul him aboard the boat a second before it starts to move. One of the Dellians gets desperate enough to throw his pike—I grab it out of the air, spin it, and throw it back at him as hard as I can.

The last thing I see before our boat tumbles down the river is the tip exiting the back of the guard’s head.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Turo

It turns out that steering a boat down a turbulent river in order to make our escape is the capstone of what has turned out to be a rather awful day. The first rush of water is almost overwhelming, threatening to capsize us before I drag Kai to the back of the boat to rebalance the weight, but that’s barely enough to keep us upright. The water is moving too quickly and the shores are too close for us to do more than hold onto the back of the boat and pray we don’t get smashed apart on our way down to the Plains.

I’ve seen boats moved up and down this river before. The process is meant to be slow, laborious, and above allsafefor the boats in question. Our progress is none of those things.

Crash.Our right sidewall strikes a particularly pointy bit of mountain hard enough to rip a hole in the wood. Water sloshes in and washes back red, and I suddenly remember that I’m bleeding…again.

Brilliant.

We hit the other wall, and there’s just enough space for the boat to spin in a dizzying circle before we smash into a new set of rocks. One of the boards on the bottom of the boat is loose now—we’re going to have a critical hole in a minute if we don’t do something. But what? I’ve been in boats before, but never while they were racing down a shallow river trying to break themselves into pieces. Fuck it, we’re going to have to abandon the boat and jump. I hope my leg holds out.

Wait.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I demand when Kai suddenly stands up, rocking the boat precariously as he lunges for his pack.

“Keeping us from being smashed into paste,” he grunts as he pulls his spear free. He hoists it up, blunt side facing out, and—

No. No way. We’re going too fast for him to use it to direct the boat; he’s going to break his arms. “Kai—”

“We’re almost down, I can get us there,” he says, and just as we come up on a turn, he slams the front of the stave into the rocks just ahead of us. Miraculously, the boat responds, veering away from the wall instead of crushing us to it before bouncing off.

It takes me a few more minutes to see how he’s pulling it off—it’s all in the timing. If he can hit fast enough and hard enough, he can move the boat. It doesn’t mean we avoid all damage, but it does prevent any more pieces from breaking off.

It’s not easy—water splashes off rocks and into our faces as we go, making some obstacles impossible to see—but eventually the rush subsides and the waters calm.

Holy shit.

We made it to the Plains. Our pace has gone from wild ride to lazy amble in the space of seconds. The river widens, and in the distance I can see the glint of the inland sea. We’re not so far from the edge of it here.

“Ow.” I hiss and startle when Kai suddenly sets a hand on my leg, bandages ready to go in the other hand. “What? Stop it, I’m fine.”

“You’re still bleeding after almost an hour,” he says, not bothering to look up at my face as he clamps me in place and begins to wind clean cloth around the wound. His hands are red and shaking—bruised to hell and back. “They probably used nimreel on their blades—it keeps the blood from clotting unless you apply a lot of pressure.” Which he was providing,ouch. “It will go away on its own soon.”

“I could wait it out.”

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