“They’re still coming!” Frantically, Simna tugged on lines and tiller, trying everything he could think of to augment their sluggish pace.
Himself fully restored, Ehomba quietly contemplated the skeletal spectacle aft. “Easy for the dead to be brave.”
“Complimenting them is not likely to save us,” the swordsman snapped.
His tall companion smiled over at him. “Keep your hand on the tiller and your mind on the sail, friend Simna. Bravery and intelligence do not always go hand in hand.” He turned his attention back to the onrushing skeletal horde. “Oura says that after they have been dead for a while, people tend to lose their mental edge. They may remember well the little things, but the greater picture starts to escape them.”
Simna frowned, and despite the herdsman’s admonition turned to look at the waters behind them. What he saw raised his spirits far more than any gust or gale.
Charging forward without pause, those members of the Brotherhood of the Bone intent on punishing the retreating living who had dared to take back one of their own struggled out into the current of the wide, deep river. Struggled out—and began to sink. For while the living carry within their bodies the means with which to accomplish natural, unforced flotation, the long dead do not. Bone sinks. Confronted by this inescapable fact, mounts and riders closed no more than a few yards between themselves and the escaping windwagon before, despite their frenzied determination, they began to slip beneath the surface.