جهان پشت سر 6

SIX

Ashe

Sometimes I wonder if the differences are more than I realize between Silver and Red. I’ve never known a Silver, or cared to know one before. There is the blood, of course: the color and what it gives. Abilities I cannot understand or comprehend. Great speed, control over water or fire or metal, animals, weather, or superior strength like Lyrisa’s. But beyond that, is there more? Are they born different from us, more rigid and cruel and violent, or do they become that way? I used to think the former. Now I’m not so sure.

I’ve spent many a sleepless night on the river. I’m used to the exhaustion. Either Lyrisa is too, or she’s talented at hiding weakness. I guess both.

The sun rises on familiar banks and growing signs of civilization along the widening river. The confluence is a major point of crossing, and docks start to peek out among the roots and rushes of the Freeland banks. To the north, the Lakelands are still mostly fields, though the road is coming. It winds down from Sanctum farther north, to dead-end at the point where the Ohius and the Great River meet. Here Lakelanders can enter the Freelands if they so dare.

I wonder where the prince and his cackling hunters might be. Are they watching us now? Are they close? I hope you’re enjoying this, jackass.

Other boats, big and small, joined us as the night lifted, giving way to dawn. Some are barely more than rafts poled by children, a pastime I knew well once. They swarm near the keels, hoping for castoffs. I toss a few apples, the familiar ritual bringing comfort.

In his scurry, Big Ean waves to a few, calling them over. He’s doing as we planned, passing on news of a Lakelander prince nearby, a fine prize for any who might think to rob or ransom him. The wet and tanned kids spread the word eagerly, paddling back to their docks or farther into the boat traffic.

Lyrisa isn’t a pale, porcelain-skinned Silver, the kind who might be spotted from yards away. Her skin is darker, like cold copper, but she still takes precautions. I don’t know where she found a hat, but she tucks her hair up and away. Despite the ill-fitting uniform, she could pass for keel crew and not a princess. As she finishes the transformation, I nod at her, and even Riette offers a bob of approval.

The sun is hot already and I can feel the humid press of the day. I can only imagine what a long summer we’re in for.

I shade my eyes and look for the telltale sign of the confluence—a strip of brown water against the horizon, the muddy churn of the Great River meeting the gray blue of the Ohius. While my normal route would take me farther out into the middle of the river, where the current is strong and fast, I keep the keel as close as I can to the Freeland banks. It slows us down but keeps us at least half a mile from the Lakelands, and out of the kind of deep water a nymph could turn against me. Should the worst happen, at least we have a chance of making it to shore.

There’s a bustling market town just south of where the rivers join, part of it built out over the water. If I can get us there before Orrian strikes again, put in at the docks . . . Will I leave her? It seemed like an easy decision last night.

I clench my teeth. I’ll cross that bridge if it comes. For now I focus on the water right in front of us, and what to do if Orrian appears before we reach the market. The crew is in on the plan, with everything in place. Lyrisa too, though she only knows a piece.

The pistol never leaves my side, and we’re careful to place our rifles at the rails, hidden just out of sight. For once, I wish I were gunrunning too, with a vast store of ammunition at our disposal. As is, our supplies are terribly finite.

The confluence gets closer by the second, and my heart races with the current driving us forward. It takes all my restraint not to maneuver farther out into the river, away from the bank traffic, where I can open up the motor and fly. I don’t know how much more of this my nerves can take. An hour? A minute? It’s excruciating.

I nearly jump out of my skin when a fellow keel captain shouts hello, his own boat turning out into the river.

Lyrisa abandons her post at the stern to stand next to me again, this time the rifle tucked close under an arm. Her eyes dart along the bank, taking in the docks and the meager settlements set away from the water. I doubt she’s seen anything like it.

“You remember the plan?” I ask.

Her nod is curt, focused. And almost insulted. “Of course.”

“We’re putting word out about Orrian, and I told Hallow to do the same ahead of us.” The river rushes on, quicker by the second. “News travels fast in places like this.” It comforts her, if only a little. “Good. Let’s hope we’re lucky.”

“I’m not a fan of either.”

“Hope and luck?” She grins a true smile. “Me neither.”

I think it’s her smile that sets him off.

The river explodes around us with a roar like a thunderclap, sending walls of water ripping up into the clear blue sky, caging us in for a split second of terror. It’s as if a giant hand has slapped the surface of the river, disturbing the current all around us. The water falls as quickly as it rose, smashing down in a scream that drenches us to the bone. Gill’s pole snaps in his hand and Riette throws hers to the deck, replacing it with her rifle. Big Ean already has his sights trained on the Lakelander banks, so far to the north. Too far for any gun we possess.

Lyrisa knows better.

“In the Freelands!” she shouts, pointing to the bank, so close I could almost reach out and touch it.

I whirl and my body goes cold.

I count eight of them, seven Silver nobles ringing the unmistakable Lakelander prince standing in the shallows. One of the Silvers—a woman—has dogs, two drooling hounds, their noses pointed at the boat and Lyrisa.

Orrian Cygnet is skeleton thin and pole tall, limbed like a nightmare. His skin is pale and sallow, his dark hair wet and slicked back against his skull in a tight braid that pulls at his face. I can’t see the color of his eyes but I can see his smile, wicked and sharp. His clothing is dark blue, a river color. I’ve never feared the color blue before, I think wildly.

He’s armed with a gun and a sword, just like his companions, though his greatest weapon is all around us.

“Come now, Lyrisa, you’ve had your fun,” he crows, his attention only on the princess.

She doesn’t condescend to answer, keeping her head high. Even as the keel halts on the current, impossibly still on a moving river.

Around us, the boats and rafts scuttle like insects, pushed away by the ripples of Orrian’s power. White-faced and slack-jawed Rivermen watch in terror or turn their crafts to flee, all of them knowing the telltale signs of a nymph with a temper. On the shore, the few Freelanders traveling on foot slink into the trees, disappearing.

My hand strays to my hip, and I loose my pistol as slowly and quietly as I can. The Silvers don’t seem to notice. Orrian’s friends laugh coldly among themselves, passing a bottle of something back and forth. One of them twirls a dagger in his hand. If we moved fast enough, we might be able to shoot dead three or four of them. But the rest would fall on us like falcons on a rabbit and tear us apart.

For the first time, Orrian shifts his focus to the crew, lowering himself to look at Reds. He sneers across my boat before his eyes land on me.

“By the gods, you smugglers get younger every year,” he laughs.

Like Lyrisa, I say nothing. It incenses him.

He takes a step into the water. No, not into. Onto. He climbs the river like stairs, a new burst of current rising to meet him as he ascends to stand right in front of me. Eye to eye.

“I’m speaking to you, boy,” he sneers, slapping me across the face without much strength. It isn’t meant to hurt me, but humiliate me. I know that. My cheeks burn.

Behind me, I can hear the crew jostle and move, reaching for their weapons. Orrian’s pack does the same, moving farther into the water. Just as Lyrisa guessed, he’s the only nymph in the bunch.

At the rail, Lyrisa tightens. “Orrian,” she warns.

It only feeds his anger, as well as his amusement. He slaps me again. “Since when do you care about Red rats, Lyri?” The horrible prince sneers at her. “Such a stupid girl, thinking you could outrun me. Outrun Kirsa and her bitches,” he adds, laughing toward the hounds on the bank. The Silver woman ejects something between a giggle and a bark, her hounds reacting in kind.

Then Orrian raises his hand for a third time and Lyrisa moves, lightning fast, her hand grabbing his wrist. The threat is plain as day. She could tear his entire arm off if she wanted. “Pick on someone your own size,” she spits in disgust.

Orrian sneers but doesn’t move. He could subdue her with the river, but not before inflicting terrible pain on himself. I was right. He’s a coward through and through.

They stare at each other with such hatred I fear it might set the boat aflame.

Good.

“Now that we’re all acquainted . . . ,” I sigh, raising my pistol. In the shallows, Orrian’s nobles tense, ready to spring. Until I put the gun to Lyrisa’s temple, cold metal against skin. “Let’s get down to bargaining, shall we?” For a moment, all is still. Lyrisa’s face drains of color; her eyes flash to mine, wide and afraid, her lips moving without sound. And Orrian brays a laugh, drenching us both with spittle. Lyrisa doesn’t loosen her grip, but she slackens in shock, staring at me with such pain and accusation I nearly falter.

“Ha-ha!” the prince howls, still standing upon his watery step. “What a show this has been. Oh, bravo, rat—bravo!” Then he looks over his shoulder, to his friends cackling and laughing as loudly as he is. “Did you hear that? Lyri probably paid this rat too, and now he’s trying to sell her back to me! You’re a smart one, I’ll give you that,” he adds, swinging back to me with a wagging finger.

“I’m a survivor,” I tell him, and he laughs again.

“Then tell me, survivor,” he sneers, “why don’t I just take her right now, flood your wretched excuse for a boat, and leave you drowning behind me?” I blink at him like the answer is so obvious. “Because I’ll kill her. There are no magnetrons with you, and a bullet moves pretty quickly at this range.” Then I glance at his wrist and Lyrisa’s fingers still tight on his skin. “Pretty sure she might take your hand with her too.” He bares his teeth, an animal denied an easy kill. With a will, he steps up and over the rail, wet boots slamming against my deck. Lyrisa is forced to step back, me moving with her, her back square against my chest. But she never loosens her grip.

“Let me go, Lyri,” he hisses into her face.

Her grip only tightens, and a sheen of sweat coats his brow. She’s hurting him, just enough to remind him of what a precipice he stands upon. Behind him, his nobles move farther into the water, crawling up the sides of the keel to jump onto the deck. They outnumber us almost two to one, odds no Silver needs against Reds. Riette and Gill keep their gun sights on two, but they’re terrified, barrels trembling.

Lyrisa doesn’t break, even with Orrian standing over her and my gun jammed against her skull. She’s caught and caged, and still refusing to yield.

Behind me, the crew moves as we discussed. Toward the cargo hold, the trapdoor below propped ajar by Big Ean’s boot.

“Lyrisa,” Orrian says, his voice changing so quickly it shocks me. Now his words are honeyed, and he says her name with loving reverence. Like the princess, he slips behind a mask too easily. It frightens me. “Let’s put this behind us, my dear. It’s natural to be afraid before a wedding, to fear a new country and a new life. I’m willing to forget this, or, better yet, thank you for it!” He gestures to his friends with his free hand, his grin manic. “We haven’t had such fun in ages. So let me go, give the man what’s left of the coin in your belt, and let’s get off this stinking boat. Hmm?” “So few of you,” she replies, her eyes darting over the noble faces leering at her. I suppose she knows them all. “And weaklings too. Barely worth the blood in their veins. Drunks and imbeciles. I’m surprised this is the best you could do, Orrian. I thought you a prince?” “You strongarm bi—!”

With a growl, she twists her hand and snaps his wrist, the sound of bones breaking somehow louder than his resulting scream. He falls to his knees, clutching a hand now hanging off the joint, kept in place only by skin. The sight nearly makes me vomit, but I keep my bearings, moving the pistol from Lyrisa’s head to Orrian’s.

His nobles are already lunging, their weapons and abilities ready. Behind me, Big Ean flicks his lighter open, the clink of metal as warming as my mother’s voice.

I squeeze, blasting off a round.

But the gun jams.

“Shit,” I whisper.

Orrian’s eyes are like a hurricane at the Gates, ready to rip me apart. The river rises behind him, born of all his fury, a wall eager to crush me.

I’m sailing through the air before I can register what’s happening, hurtling for the deeper water off the bank. Then I realize: Lyrisa tossed me as easily as a doll. I barely have time to heave a breath before I crash into the water, narrowly missing a child’s raft. I learned to swim when I learned to walk, and I fight back to the surface easily, breaking through in time to see Big Ean, Riette, and Gill leap from the side of my keel, their bodies silhouetted against the spread of flame.

And I’m left to hope Lyrisa did the same, jumping into the water as the cargo hold filled with spilled oil and alcohol caught fire. She knew the plan. Well, almost all of it. I had to improvise a bit. I hope she’ll forgive me for holding a gun to her head.

The wave falls in on itself as the keel burns, signaling the end of Prince Orrian. Burned or torn apart by a strongarm or both. Screams rise with the smoke, impossible to decipher. I swim as fast as I can, legs kicking, arms pumping, to close distance.

On the river, other boats stop to watch, and one of the river kids is good enough to slow her raft next to me, letting me grab hold. She steers the small motor with one hand, lazy and at ease despite the pillar of smoke up ahead.

When I get close to the bank, the crew are already fighting out of the shallows, torn between triumph and defeat. We lost the keel, but we lived. Exhausted, I let the river girl pull me up to them, and Big Ean offers a hand, half dragging me to my feet.

We look back together at the now-crumbling hulk of my boat. It exploded quickly, faster than I anticipated. Anyone aboard would surely have been incinerated. A few yards away, one of the hounds bales mournfully, before the pair runs off together.

My chest tightens, a sharp pain springing to my eyes.

“Did she . . . ?” Gill murmurs, but Riette waves him off.

Together, we wait for one of the Silvers to fight their way out of the river. An enemy or a friend, we don’t know. I hope for Lyrisa, hope her luck was as good as mine. But the boat sinks and no one comes.

I wish I could have shown her the Gates.