Judging by the sudden interest the coldhearts had in him, Ryan decided he’d been selected as a consolation prize.
Down the precipice, Jak had reached the boat. The albino dashed belowdecks and came back up with a water bucket. He ran across the two corpses left on deck and dipped up a bucket of water. By the time he sluiced it across the deck, trying to combat the flame, the coldhearts had closed in on Ryan. There was nowhere to go.
KRYSTY’S VISION BLURRED from the pain throbbing inside her head. She heard Phlorin’s voice whispering in the back of her mind, but she didn’t understand a thing the dead woman said.
She knew at once that Ryan was in danger, though. She felt it with every fiber of her being. Pausing on the last set of rough timber steps, she peered back up at the drop-off.
“Dear lady,” Doc said from in front of her, “is something wrong?”
“Ryan,” she replied in a dulled voice, struggling in vain to pull her vision into focus. “He’s in trouble.”
As if to bear out her words, a riptide of shots opened up above. In the next moment, Ryan’s body came tumbling over the edge, arms and legs flailing.
“Oh, Gaia!” Krysty’s breath locked in her throat as she watched Ryan fall, then disappear under the raging river. Then she felt Doc’s hand on her forearm, tugging her along, Dean behind her, pushing forward.
“No time,” Dean said. “He’s going to be all right, but that river’s going to pull him along. We’ve got to get the boat moving. It’s his only chance.”
He’s dead, whore, Phlorin cackled in the back of Krysty’s mind. Dead and gone. You’re never going to see him again. He’s never going to have the chance to defile you again, never have the chance to defile one of the Chosen again.
Krysty refused to believe that. If Ryan was dead, she’d know. Her gift would allow her that. Gaia would see to it that she knew.
But she stared out at the rushing water and felt only icy cold hope nestled around her heart.
“Krysty,” Doc said gently.
She let him lead her, managing the steps with real effort. Somehow Doc got her into a run, and she felt the rope ladder sway beneath her feet. Only then did she notice the smoke aboard the boat.
RYAN PLUMMETED into the river feet first, absorbing most of the shock through his boot heels. The water, though, was still cold enough to take his breath away. His left shoulder was on fire. Before he’d managed the leap from the dropoff, a bullet had found him. He didn’t know how bad the wound was, but the pain was enough to cause him problems with the arm.
His gear and the Steyr slung over his back worked to drag him under. Water filled his boots, near freezing in intensity. For a moment, he figured he was going to smash into the river bottom, not knowing for sure how deep it was where he’d been able to jump, and not knowing how far down his drop would put him.
By the time his downward momentum was spent, his lungs felt like bursting, burning for the need for oxygen. He looked up but he couldn’t see through the dirty water enough to know where the surface was.
He made his left arm work, stroking upward. With the current carrying him along, he knew he wasn’t going to come up anywhere near the boat. In fact, after struggling with the river, he thought it was going to be a miracle if he came up at all. The current seemed intent on dragging him five or six feet forward for every foot he pulled himself up, dragging him back down again.
Black spots were floating in his vision when he made it to the surface. He wheeled desperately, trying to get his bearings. As deep as he was, tossed by the current and savaged by the cold, he spotted the boat’s masts. But they were staying put and he was moving away from them fast.
“KEEP THEM COVERED, Millie,” J.B. said.
Mildred knew the Armorer wasn’t talking about the coldhearts pouring down the rope ladders. Bullets peppered the water and the boat, but Morse and his boys were the ones J.B. was talking about.