A Brother's Price Part 28

The Destiny Destiny was steaming directly up the center of the ma.s.sive BrightRiver, making it nearly a quarter mile on either side to the sh.o.r.e. The sun was in the final throes of setting, and the river reflected all its vivid blood reds and fire yellows. was steaming directly up the center of the ma.s.sive BrightRiver, making it nearly a quarter mile on either side to the sh.o.r.e. 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 Destiny's decks to the railing. There they crouched in the growing shadows. 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 sh.o.r.e. It's too far and the current's too strong."

Cira nodded as if this was a fair a.s.sessment. "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 ash.o.r.e by the Queens Justice late the morning after she left Mayfair, Ren heard her first news of Jerin. A wh.o.r.e 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 Destiny had been one of four ships spotted that morning. Seven women dead, river trash, used and disposed of. 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 Destiny had several hours' lead on them. 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 Red Dog made to cast off. "You can burst your boiler and still not catch her." 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds 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 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." 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 Destiny won't have to wait for the queue." 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 Destiny steams out." steams out."

"Your Highness." Raven used her t.i.tle 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 G.o.ds above, protect them Halley! Jerin! Sweets G.o.ds above, protect them!

The pilothouse sat on the topmost deck of the Destiny Destiny, a shack perched at the center of the vast flat s.p.a.ce. 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e."

But the 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 h.e.l.l-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 s.p.a.ce, the tiny gun sounded like a cannon. Blood sprayed the gla.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e. "We'll never make it in time. The current will take us over before we swim ash.o.r.e."

"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 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 ma.s.s of the Destiny Destiny behind him. behind him.

Dusk was falling as the Red Dog 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 sh.o.r.es, blocked any landing. Amplified by the towering gorge walls, the low rumble from the distant waterfall sounded like the roar of a great beast. 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 sh.o.r.es, 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 unload 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 sh.o.r.e 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 d.a.m.nable 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 ma.s.sive 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 b.l.o.o.d.y b.i.t.c.h!" 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.

With a thunder that vibrated to Ren's very core, the forward cannon fired. On a column of smoke and fire, the ball hurtled the gap and struck a glancing blow along the ironclad's stern.

"We'll have to hit them dead on to punch through their plating!" Raven shouted.

"Lieutenant!" Ren called to the marines' commander, then paused as grapeshot roared from the other ship. Kij was firing her cannons in series, trying to keep Ren's soldiers from sharp shooting the gunnery crews. "Have your women fire at will!" Ren shouted into the relative silence. "Aim for the gunports!"

It was a slaughter, her women trying to sharp shoot in the deadly hail, dying before they could get their shots off. The aft gun was useless. As the fore gun was run out to fire, the ironclad turned, forcing them to take another glancing shot. The ball careened off the thick plating. Beside Ren, the pilot fought the fast current to try and close with the ironclad while keeping clear of the boulder-strewn sh.o.r.es. They circled, wary as knife fighters, moving upriver as they cut each other with cannon fire.

"There's the PortageRiver mouth!" the pilot shouted. "But I can't get past her! She's forcing us up the BrightRiver, toward the falls. It runs shallow from here on up! Either we'll run aground or we'll be forced under the falls!"

Ren swore. The ironclad's steep side offered no purchase for her marines to board, and closing with Kij's ship would only increase the damage that the grapeshot would do. They were running out of river, though, and soon would be at the foot of the falls itself.

"Do you hear something?" Raven shouted.

How can you hear anything over this h.e.l.lish noise ? Ren tried anyhow. Over the thunder of the cannons and the endless roar of the waterfall, there was a high-pitched sound, ceaseless, growing louder. A steam whistle, she recognized suddenly, blowing without stop, and coming closer. ? Ren tried anyhow. Over the thunder of the cannons and the endless roar of the waterfall, there was a high-pitched sound, ceaseless, growing louder. A steam whistle, she recognized suddenly, blowing without stop, and coming closer.

"Where is that coming from?" Ren asked.

"Look!" A marine on the deck suddenly cried, pointing upriver toward the white curtain of water. "The falls!"

Half a mile upriver, and hundreds of feet up, the underbelly of a boat speared out over the edge of the falls. It came and came, unending, its steam whistle screaming a death keen that was now being caught and echoed back by the granite cliffs of the gorge. A hundred feet of hull showed before the side wheel appeared at the brink, and the whole ma.s.s pivoted on its weight. Sluing sideways, the boat started to fall, and the cannon fire picked out the lettering on its side wheel. Destiny Destiny.

Ren shouted in wordless protest. Jerin! Halley Jerin! Halley!

With a curse, the pilot swung the wheel hard, turning suddenly without regard to the ironclad. "'If that hits us after it comes over the falls, it'll take us under!"

The ironclad too was turning, trying to escape the ma.s.sive ship now tumbling over the falls.