'Bridge,' Mradhon gasped, working with Haught to run with their burden as best they could. 'Stepsons want this bastard, they get themselves out there and hold that Ils-forsaken bridge.'
It was a long way through the streets, a long, long course, the noise of their footsteps, of their ragged breathing like the movement of an army. Moria ran ahead of them, checked comers.
Then one moment she failed to bob into sight again. Haught began to pull forward, doubling his pace. Mradhon resisted.
Then Moria reappeared, dodging round the comer, flat shadow, her hand up as if the knife was in it, and another shadow came shambling round wide of her, standing in the way - Mor-am was back.
'B-b-boat,' he said. His breath came raw and hoarse. 'Sh-she says - this p place. 0 g-g-gods, c-come on.'
'The river's up,' Mradhon hissed, the limp weight sagging against his shoulder, the feel of chase behind. 'The river's up to the bridge bottom, hear? No boat can handle that current.'
'Sh-she says. C-come.'
Mor-am lurched off, dragging one foot. Moria stood where she was, plastered to the wall. Wrong, a small faint voice was saying inside Mradhon Vis, a prickling of his nerves where Moria's twin was concerned. And another voice said she. The river. Ischade.
'Come on,' he said, deciding, and Haught shouldered up his side as they headed after Mor-am.
Moria cursed as they passed and came too, jogging along with them in the dark, under the dripping eaves. She took the lead again, serving as their eyes in this winding gut of a street.
Now there were sounds, many of them.
'Behind us,' Haught gasped; and where they were Mradhon could not have sworn, but it sounded like behind. He threw all he had into running, pulled a stitch in his side as Haught stumbled and recovered, and now Moria was gone again, in the turning of the streets.
They staggered the last alley and on to the downslope to the river, splashing through the outpourings of Downwind's streets, past a low wall and down again. 'This way,' Moria said, materializing again out of the brushy dark, in the sound of the river, which lay like a black gulf downslope. Mradhon went, steadied his footing for Haught's sake. There was the reek of blood from their unconscious burden, and now the taste of it was in Mradhon's mouth, coppery; his lungs ached; he was blind except that Moria was at his nght telling him come on, come on, down to the river, to the flooded dark, the curling waters that could snatch any misstep and make it fatal. He flung his head up, sweat running in his eyes, sucked air, staggered on the uneven stony shore and nearly went to his knees on the rain-slick rock.
There was a boat. He saw Mor-am struggling with it, and Moria running to it, a black shell amid the brush, not distinguishable as a boat if he had not known what it was. There was a muddy slide: boats were launched here, from Downwind, in sane weather, when the river was tamer. But this one hit the water and rode calm, stayed close as if there were no currents tearing at it, as if it and the river obeyed two madly different laws.
'G-get him in,' Mor-am said, and coming to the edge, Mradhon took the limp weight all to his side, going into water to the knee to reach the boat, staggering as he flung the body down. The boat hardly rocked. He gripped the side of it, stood there, uselessly, to steady it. Haught crouched on the muddy shore, head down, breathing in great gulps.
'Sh-she said w-wait,' Mor-am said.
Mradhon stood, still leaning on the side, his feet going numb and the sweat pouring down his face into his eyes. Go out in this against orders - no. He saw Moria collapsed, head and arms between her knees, in the clearing of the sky that afforded them some starlight; saw Mor-am's hooded shape standing further up, holding to the rope. When he glanced across the river, he could see Sanctuary's lights, few at this hour, could see the bridge, sane and reasonable crossing.
And from the man they had carried all this way, there was no sound, no movement - dead, Mradhon thought. They had just carried a corpse away from Moruth; and everyone was robbed.
Stones rattled, high among the brush. Heads lifted, all round; and she was there, coming down, gliding down the rocks like a fall of living dark, making only occasional sound. 'So,' she said, reaching them. She put out a hand and brushed Mor-am. 'You've redeemed yourself.'
He said nothing, but limped down to the water's edge, and Haught and Moria were on their feet.
'Get in,' said Ischade. 'It will take us all.'
Mradhon climbed aboard, stepping over the corpse, which moved, which moaned, and his nerves prickled at that unexpected life. Greater mercy, he thought, with this stirring between his feet, to use the sword: he had seen deaths such as this Stepson faced when the wounds went bad, the gaping socket of the missing eye thus close to the brain - it would be bad, he thought, while the boat rocked with the others getting in. He reached over the side, dipped up water with his hand, passed it over the Stepson's lips, felt movement in response.
Ischade's robe brushed him as she took her place. She knelt there all too close for any comfort; she bent her head, bowed over, her hands on the wounded face. There was suddenly outcry, a struggling of limbs beneath them ... 'For the gods' sake!' Mradhon exclaimed, his gorge rising; he thrust at Ischade, shoved her back, froze at the lifting of her face, the direction of that basilisk stare at him.
'Pain is life,' she said.
And the boat began to move, slowly, like a dream, the while the wind swirled about them and the river roared beneath. His companions - they were hazy shapes in the night about Ischade. The wounded man stirred and moaned, threatening instability in the boat should his thrashing become severe. Mradhon reached down and held him, gently. The witch touched him too, and the struggles took harder and harder restraint. The moans were pitiful.
'He will live,' she said. 'Stilcho. I am calling you. Come back.'
The Stepson cried out, once, sharply, back arching, but the river took the sound.
It was a boat, running on the flood. Erato saw it, his first thought that some riverfisher's skiff had come untied in the White Foal's violence.
But the boat came skimming, running slowly like a cloud before the wind across the current, in a straight line no boat could achieve in any river. Erato stirred in his concealment, hair rising at his nape. He scrambled higher amongst the brush, disturbed one of his men.
'Pass the word,' he said. 'Something's coming.'
'Where?'
'River.'
That got a stare, a silence in the dark.
'Get the rest,' Erato hissed, shoving at the man. 'They're going to come ashore. Hear me? Tell them pass it on. The back of the house: that's where they'll come.'
The man went. Erato slipped along the bank at the same level, towards the brambles, which served as effective barrier. The house they watched - they did not venture liberties with it, did not try the low iron gate, the hedges. Try reason, he thought. He was in command. It was on him to try reason with the witch; and it had to be the witch out there: there was nothing in all sanity that ought to be doing what that boat did. He moved quietly, gathered up men here and there while the boat came on.
The bow grated on to rock and kept grating, pushing itself ashore, and the Stepson moaned anew, leaning against the gunwales of the boat.
'Bring him,' Ischade said, and Mradhon looked up as the witch stepped ashore, on the landing which rose in steps up to the brambles. He flung an arm about the Stepson, accepted Haught's help as he stood up, as now the Stepson fought to get his own feet under him, more than dead weight. The boat rocked as Mor-am went past and stepped out, close to Ischade. They went next, stepping over the bow to solid if water-washed stone footing, and Moria came up by Haught's side, while Ischade stood gazing into the dark beside them.