by Wen Spencer
“What about your word of honor?”
“I lied.” Jerin struggled with her handcuff. “You meet people at their level, or the liars and murderers of this world will drag you under.”
Cira smothered a laugh. “I can't believe you! Did Queen Mother Elder really agree for you to marry her daughters?”
“I don't see how being raped would be preferable to lying.”
The cuffs came undone and she rose, rubbing her wrists.
“What should we do now?” he started to ask, but she caught him and kissed him. Her mouth was warm and sweet, and he realized that he was half in love with her.
“Why did you do that?” To his shame, he wanted to do it again.
“You're teaching me never to give up.”
He wasn't sure if this was a good thing. He pulled himself free, needing to put distance between them before he gave in to kissing her again. “So what do we do?”
“Get in the bed,” she said with a grin.
His heart leaped and a flame of arousal went through him. “What?”
“Pretend like you're still handcuffed. I will too.” She glanced about, then picked up a heavy stone paperweight, and gave him an evil grin.
He sat down, put his hands back above his head, and tried to be calm. Cira settled at the foot of the bed, her eyes glittering with contained excitement. Minutes stretched out until they seemed unbearable. Then finally Meza stepped through the door.
She carried a glass of lemonade and a bowl of biscuits covered with sausage gravy. Jerin's stomach growled at the smell. In tense silence, he and Cira watched as Meza came across the room, unaware of the danger to her, intent on not spilling the nearly full bowl. As she set the food on the table beside the bed, Cira rose, drawing back the paperweight.
Meza must have caught the motion in the corner of her eye. She started to turn, and Jerin lunged out, grabbing hold of her hands. Her eyes went wide in shock, and then Cira struck her. It was a hollow noise. Meza's eyes rolled back, showing their whites before they closed, and her knees folded.
Jerin jerked his hands away from her as she crumpled, and covered his mouth to hold in the dismayed cry that was trying to escape. Cira bent over Meza, quickly and ruthlessly binding the woman. When Jerin trusted himself, he took his hands from his mouth and whispered, “Is she dead?”
Cira glanced up and her eyes saddened. “No! No. I'm sorry, honey, I would do anything to spare you this.” Cira undid Meza's gun belt and strapped the six-gun to her waist, tying it down low for a fast draw, and then checked the pistol. “Let's get out of here.”
The Destiny was steaming directly up the center of the massive Bright River, making it nearly a quarter mile on either side to the shore. The sun was in the final throes of setting, and the river reflected all its vivid blood reds and fire yellows.
Holding Jerin's hand tight, Cira guided him through a maze of cotton bales and crates stacked on the Destiny's decks to the railing. There they crouched in the growing shadows.
“Can you swim?” Cira asked him.
Jerin looked uneasily out over the quickly moving water. “Some. I—I don't think I could get to the shore. It's too far and the current's too strong.”
Cira nodded as if this was a fair assessment. “Truthfully, I don't think I could either. We'll have to get up to the pilothouse and take control of the ship there. I wish I knew how many women Kij left on board.”
“Why do you think Kij got off?”
“I'm afraid to guess, honey.” Cira patted his hand absently.
Waved ashore by the Queens Justice late the morning after she left Mayfair, Ren heard her first news of Jerin. A whore matching Jerin's description and a scarred woman had been taken from the docks at gunpoint earlier that day. Investigating gunshots, the Queens Justice had found the kidnappers freshly murdered. There were signs at the murder site that a paddle wheel had tied off there, and the Destiny had been one of four ships spotted that morning. Seven women dead, river trash, used and disposed of.
Raven asked questions of her own, but Ren stood numb, barely hearing the replies. She knew everything that mattered. Jerin wasn't one of the dead, the Porters had recaptured him, and the Destiny had several hours' lead on them.
“She was riding high and fast, full steam,” the region captain of the Queens Justice shouted as the Red Dog made to cast off. “You can burst your boiler and still not catch her.”
“This just gets worse and worse,” Raven growled beside her. “I pray to the gods that Kij does not murder Halley out of hand.”
Ren swung around to face Raven. “What? When did Halley enter into this?”
Raven lifted an eyebrow. “Jerin was with a scarred woman.” Raven ran a finger down her face. “Pearl-handled six-guns, riding a big roan.”
Ren gasped. “Halley! How in the gods did she free Jerin?”
Raven lifted her shoulders. “If she's been tracking your sisters' killers, then she might have infiltrated part of Kij's networks. She wasn't one of the dead. Kij must have both of them.”
Ren cursed quietly. Marines packed the gunboat, allowing her no room to vent anger or fear. “The Destiny is the safest place for Kij to commit this treason. It's a floating island, easy to defend. I doubt she'll be taking them off until they reach Avonar. We're hours behind them, but they'll have to stop for the locks.”
“Kij most likely has things set so the Destiny won't have to wait for the queue.”
“Even Kij has to wait for the locks to fill with water. It takes several hours to work through the locks. On horseback, we could reach the end of the locks before the Destiny steams out.”
“Your Highness.” Raven used her title like a whip. “Kij knows that's when she's most vulnerable and where you're most likely to catch up with her. She'll have the trap there.”
“She has Halley and Jerin!”
“If you get yourself killed, Your Highness, no one will be able to rescue them. You've got the gunboat. Put it to best use!”
Ren let out her breath in a long sigh. “You're right. You're always right. We'll keep to the gunboat.” Halley! Jerin! Sweets gods above, protect them!
The pilothouse sat on the topmost deck of the Destiny, a shack perched at the center of the vast flat space. A lone Porter sister stood at the wheel, gazing out over the bow of the ship as Jerin and Cira crept from the stern. As planned, Jerin crouched outside, hidden behind the half wall. Cira drew her pistol, quietly worked the door latch, and then stepped inside.
Instantly things went wrong. There were multiple startled cries, a crash and splintering of wood, and a gun went off, the bullet whining into the night. Jerin risked a glance over the wall.
There had been a second, unseen Porter in the room, apparently lying on the back bench. She had rushed Cira, knocking the pistol from her hand. The two now grappled in the tiny room, smashing back and forth. The pilot gripped a hand to her arm, blood seeping between her fingers.
As Cira and the other crashed through the door, the pilot lifted a flap on a wall-mounted tube. “Koura! Mitzy! Get up here! We've got trouble!”
From the tube, a tiny startled voice queried urgently. The engine crew shoveling coal had been alerted!
The pilot awkwardly drew her pistol and hurried out after Cira and her sister.
“Cira, watch out!” Jerin shouted, standing up.
The pilot turned, bringing up the pistol, then recognized him and froze. Cira twisted suddenly, the Porter sister's pistol in hand, and fired. In the gathering dark, the muzzle flare bloomed bright again and again. The report echoed, bank to bank, repeating up the river hollow.
He and Cira faced each other, gun smoke swept off by the stiff wind. A moment of silence passed between them, and then Jerin said, “The engine crew is coming.”
“Everyone on the ship is coming.” Cira snapped into motion. Holstering the pistol, she muscled the younger Porter sister up and over the railing edge. There was a distant splash. “We have to steer the ship to shore.”
But t
he wheel was broken, smashed in the fight. Cira swore. The great paddle wheel was slowing down, the untended engines were dying, and the thud of heavy boots thundered up the many flights of stairs toward them.
“We're going to have to swim anyhow.” Cira caught his hand and they headed for the stairs, hoping to beat the oncoming crowd. Two coal-blackened women appeared at the top of the stairs. Cira wheeled in front of them, racing back toward the pilothouse, cursing softly.
Like black wolves the women came, splitting up to run them down. One snatched up Jerin, lifting him from the ground, while the second tackled Cira to the floor. Jerin struggled in his capturer's grasp, reaching over his head to try to gouge out her eyes. She jerked her head back from his questing fingers, and shifted him into a choke hold. As grayness rushed in, he heard a splash, and then Cira was there, pistol in hand.
If the woman had thought, she could have kept him as a shield. She threw him, instead, at Cira. Cira caught him with her left arm, firing as soon as she was sure he was clear of the gun. His ears rang from the retort, and he clung to Cira, trembling. Cira panted, nose running with blood. She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, clearing the blood, wincing at the pain.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Jerin nodded.
“I'm out of bullets with this gun.” Cira tossed the pistol aside. “Let's get Meza's pistol—I dropped it in the pilothouse—and get out of here.”
Jerin nodded.
Cira led him back to the small structure and hunted through the wreckage to find the pistol. Jerin saw a flicker of shadows and called out a warning too late. Alissa Porter struck Cira with a short pole. Cira fell, unmoving.
“You!” She pointed at Jerin with the pole. “You, I'll deal with later.” She switched the pole to her left hand, freeing her right hand to pull a long knife. “Right now I have a serious mistake on Kij's part to correct.”
“No!” Jerin scrambled to the pistol on the floor. His hand closed on the gun and he started to bring it up when Alissa backhanded him with the pole. The pistol went clattering across the floor.
“I will kill you if you don't stay put!” Alissa shouted, bringing up the knife in warning.
“Leave her alone!”
“Stay out of this!” She moved toward Cira, eyes on him.
Jerin remembered then the derringer in his hidden pocket. He scrambled backward, out of her striking range, clawing for the tiny gun. “Leave her alone!” he shouted again, pulling it out and aiming at Alissa.
Alissa's eyes went wide at the sight of the pistol. “How the hell—put it down!”
“Get away from her!”
“Put it down!”
“Get away from her!”
Alissa made a sudden motion, one he recognized as the start of throwing her knife, and he pulled the trigger. In the small enclosed space, the tiny gun sounded like a cannon. Blood sprayed the glass behind her. She looked at him, surprised, made a slight mewling sound, then collapsed.
Suddenly the night seemed too still, too empty. Jerin stood, a wisp of smoke coming from the derringer's barrel.
I've killed her.
For several minutes he stood, unable to move, the violence of his action shocking him to his core. Then, desperately, he wanted to go home.
He glanced about the room, filled with unconscious and dead bodies, guns, knives, and broken ship parts. The wheel spun freely, the boat giving no indication that it connected to anything anymore. If they couldn't turn to follow the river as it wound its way through the hills, they would crash on the shore.
Jerin looked out through the pilothouse windows. They were drifting downriver, stern first. The stern lantern marked the back of the boat. The water shimmered black, reflecting faint starlight. A thicker black marked the trees on the right and left banks. The boat rode roughly in the center of the river. Downriver, he could make out nothing but a faint frill of white cutting across the darkness ahead of him.
He stared at the line for a minute before he realized what he was looking at. It dawned on him that there was no horizon. No hills. No trees. As if the world suddenly ended a mile downstream—and he was rushing toward that edge. Like a sleepwalker, he opened the wheelhouse door and heard the deep endless roar.
The waterfall!
He glanced again to his left, downstream this time. Glimmering on the shore like evening stars, the lights of the lock and the town of Hera's Step shone at once dangerously near and yet unreachably far.
“Oh, Holy Mothers,” he breathed as the thunder grew louder.
His mind raced from point to point on a straight line. There was no one in the engine room who could start the paddle wheel turning. The current was taking them downriver. The steering wheel was broken. The ship was going over the falls. He and Cira had to get off the ship.
He knelt and shook her. “Cira! Cira, get up! Get up!”
“What is it?” Cira asked groggily, getting to her knees.
“We've got to get off the ship. It's Hera's Step! We're going over the falls!”
Cira stared out at the lifting spray, and then glanced to the shore. “We'll never make it in time. The current will take us over before we swim ashore.”
“We have to try!”
“It will be safer to go over with the ship.” She caught hold of the whistle cord and pulled. “Find something to weigh this down!” she shouted over the howl. “We need to bleed off steam before we go over, or we might be scalded before we're drowned!”
He tugged the coat off of Alissa, tied one sleeve to the dead woman's wrist, and then stretched the other sleeve up to tie the whistle cord down. Cira gave him an odd look, then nodded. Then they hurried out of the pilothouse to the center of the two-hundred-foot boat, opposite the great side wheel. Cira shouted something, unheard over the endless howl of the steam whistle.
“What?” Jerin shouted.
Cira pulled him close and shouted directly at his ear. “It will go stern first, but then it will spin toward the side wheel! Hold tight to the rail, but let go toward the bottom! Don't let yourself be trapped under the boat as it flips over! Do you understand?” When he nodded, she hugged him fiercely. “Jerin, I love you!”
And there was no time for anything more. The roar of the waterfall drowned out even the howl of the steam whistle. The spray enveloped them like a cold rain. The stern speared out over the vast empty darkness, and then, as Cira had predicted, the weight of the great paddle wheel slued the boat sideways. The deck canted as the whole ship tipped, and they hung from the railing as if from an overhead tree branch. For a moment, they dangled over the chasm, the foaming water at the foot of the falls hundreds of feet down, and then the ship dropped.
For almost a minute it seemed they fell, weightless, the river's roar louder than their own screams. Then, with a brutal smash, they hit the cold darkness. Jerin tumbled over and over in the freezing black water with no sense of up, his lungs aching. Finally he broke surface. There were stars above, so he wasn't under the Destiny. Huge forms glided around him, parts of the boat rushing with him downriver in disjointed confusion.
“Cira!” he shouted, flailing and striking wood. “Cira!” In front of him, something had caught fire, and flames danced liquid down to the waterline. He realized the blaze was growing larger, that it was caught on the rocks or something, and that he was rushing toward it with all the mass of the Destiny behind him.
Dusk was falling as the Red Dog made its way the last few miles toward Hera's Step. The banks rose until the gunboat steamed through the gorge cut by the waterfall into the escarpment over thousands of years. Slowly the river narrowed, and seemed to change to a place of menace, the granite cliffs throwing shadows over the boat, and huge boulders, lining the shores, blocked any landing. Amplified by the towering gorge walls, the low rumble from the distant waterfall sounded like the roar of a great beast.
Ren paced the top deck at the edge of the pilothouse shielding. “We'll close with the first ship in the lock queue and use it to unl
oad half the marines, then back off to safety.” She nervously covered the plans they'd laid, looking for a weakness. “The marines will cross to shore and take control of the locks. When they give the clear signal, we move into the locks.”
It would, however, be full night when they arrived at the locks. The marines faced a battle on unfamiliar ground in the dark. More of Kij's damnable luck and careful planning, no doubt.
“Ship to starboard! Ship to starboard!” The shout was followed by a deep boom and the scream of grapeshot.
Ren ducked behind the wood shielding. The sharp metal tore open a marine beyond the shielding, her blood spraying the wood decking.
There were shouts of dismay. Ren risked a look over the wood shield. A gunboat steamed out of the shadowed creek mouth, a wall of woven tree branches screening it from casual glance. A gout of black smoke rose from the ambusher's smokestacks, indicating Kij'd banked her fires to hide her trap, and now was frantically stoking up her boilers. Black, low, nearly featureless, the Porter gunboat glided like death toward them. It was an ironclad gunboat, its decks and hull covered with iron plates several inches thick. Ren had seen one only on paper, and now realized her own gullibility and naivete. Kij had talked her out of building the ironclads, said they were a waste of money in a time of peace. In all the speculation of what Kij had prepared as a trap. Ren had not once recalled the conversation, not even after the attempt to steal the heavy naval guns.
In the massive gunports, the barrels of the Prophets looked like oversized rifles. It would be a close battle—Ren without heavy armor. Kij without heavy guns.
“Hard to starboard! Bring the forward cannon to bear! Sink the bloody bitch!” Ren shouted.
The forward gunners ran out the bow cannon even as the ironclad spat another screaming round of grapeshot. Their distance was such that the grapeshot had time to spread over a wide pattern before striking. It peppered the decks, chewing away planking where the wood thinned. Screams of pain came from all quarters, mixing with the moans of those already wounded.
