The Narrow Crossing

The roar came again, nearer this time, and something struck a wall hard enough to loosen mortar from the tower ceiling.

Deacon lifted his crossbow toward the window. There was still no clear target, only movement behind the gray curtain of mist. A roof collapsed somewhere in the eastern streets. Stone crashed, followed by the heavy, deliberate tread of an animal large enough to regard buildings as undergrowth.

“We are leaving,” he said.

Jandar leaned past Zook to look outside. “I thought that was the plan.”

“It is now the immediate plan.”

“An important distinction.”

Zook had already moved away from the window. He gathered his pack and checked the narrow stairs below them. Mills followed, his lute wrapped against the damp. Xil stood by the door, one hand resting against the old stone as if he might feel the creature coming through it.

Vegon lingered at the window. He could make out a ridged back moving between two ruined buildings. The creature’s head passed behind a shattered arch before he could see its shape clearly. The animal did not seem to have noticed them.

“Whatever it is,” he said, “it may be hunting.”

“Then I hope it has found breakfast elsewhere,” Mills answered.

They went down quietly. Deacon led them through the old doorway, and Zook took the lead as soon as there was room to move. He chose streets bordered by higher walls, moving from one stretch of cover to the next. Twice they stopped when the heavy footfalls turned in their direction. Once they waited behind a fallen statue while a shadow crossed the mist at the far end of a square.

Jandar kept his rapier free. He was back to himself, restored by Xil’s prayer, but the memory of having his mind stripped from him had not yet faded. He did not speak while the shadow passed. When it was gone, he nodded toward the street Zook had chosen.

“Good route.”

“I know,” Zook said.

“I was complimenting you.”

“I know that too.”

The creature’s roar finally dwindled behind them. Nobody suggested going back to identify it. There were enough dangers on the island without giving every one of them a name.

Beyond the last clustered ruins, the land broke into steep, wooded ridges. The way toward the coast was not a straight road. Old paths had fallen away, gullies cut across the slopes and the mist hid distances that looked simple until they were underfoot. What Zook found was a track that would take them around the broken ground, though it led first to a deep gorge.

They heard the river before they saw it.

It sounded too distant to be dangerous, a steady rush beneath wind moving through the trees. Then the forest opened and the earth fell away. Far below, water cut a white line through the dark rock.

Mills walked to the edge, looked down once and immediately stepped back.

“That is a long way.”

“About a hundred and twenty feet,” Vegon said after studying the drop.

“Thank you. It is a much more comfortable distance with a number attached.”

The bridge stretched across the gorge on old ropes and weather-darkened boards. It was scarcely wide enough for two people to stand abreast, and that would have been foolish even where the planking was sound. In several places there was no planking at all. The ropes passed from post to post along the edges, swaying whenever the wind found them.

Deacon examined the nearest anchorage. Zook studied the opposite bank. Beyond the bridge the track vanished into thick woods, the trees standing close enough together to conceal anything waiting there.

“One at a time,” Deacon said.

Jandar set a boot on the first board. It complained beneath him.

“An encouraging beginning.”

He felt the bridge shift under his weight and looked down at the white river. Once, aboard ship, a fall like that would have meant cold water, a broken limb if he was unlucky and an argument with his crew afterward. Here the river was narrow and full of stone. There would be no argument.

Then the trees behind them moved.

Not with the wind. Great trunks shuddered and leaned as something drove through them, snapping branches and tearing foliage from the canopy. A second disturbance followed farther along the ridge.

Jandar heard it first. He turned his head.

“More than one.”

A massive reptilian head rose between the trees. A mouth full of long teeth opened and the bellow struck the bridge like a gust. Behind it came another, just as enormous, its hind legs crushing brush beneath it.

Two of them.

Zook stared for the briefest moment. They had killed one of these terrible beasts before. That knowledge did nothing to make two of them smaller.

“Across,” Deacon ordered.

The company began moving. The bridge took their weight and shivered. A gap in the decking forced the first of them to leap, and the narrow passage made every pause a problem for those behind. Mills kept one hand on the rope, the other clamped around the strap of his lute. Vegon muttered an incantation and his shape shrank unnaturally, his clothes and pack contracting around him as he hurried toward the missing boards.

The nearer beast charged to the edge of the ravine. It stopped short of the bridge, its enormous head swaying as it considered the thin span. The second came up behind it and roared over its shoulder.

“I believe they are considering the engineering,” Jandar said.

“Move,” Deacon told him.

“I am moving.”

“Faster.”

Jandar leaped the broken section, caught a side rope and twisted himself back into balance. Below him the river seemed to turn. On the far side, the trees stirred again, but this time the movement was smaller and deliberate.

A wall of darkness appeared at the far end of the bridge.

Xil had drawn it between the party and the unknown shapes among the trees. The black sphere swallowed the opposite anchorage and part of the trail. For a moment it also swallowed the sight of whatever waited there.

Then an arrow came out of the woods.

It passed close to Xil’s face and struck wood behind him. A second buried itself in his arm. He held his place, jaw clenched, while the magical darkness remained.

“Archers,” Deacon said.

“Yes,” Xil replied tightly. “I noticed.”

Figures emerged at the far edge of the blackness: armored, insectlike things carrying bows and spears. They had the same hard plates and unnatural movements as creatures the company had encountered deeper on the island. The attack came from both ends of the bridge now: immense predators behind them, armed enemies ahead and a hundred-foot fall beneath.

The bridge had become a trap.

Zook threaded his smaller frame past the others and reached a place where he could use his bow. He loosed at an archer through the shifting mist. The first shots went wide, striking the rock near the far end. He swore under his breath, took another position and looked for a better line.

Mills reached him and braced himself beside the rope. He could do little from there, but he helped Zook hold a clearer position while the bridge swayed beneath them.

An arrow struck Xil again. Then another. Poison burned through the wounds, and his concentration broke. The darkness folded inward and vanished, revealing the enemies gathered on the far bank.

“Now we can see them,” Jandar said.

“And they can see us,” Deacon replied.

Deacon raised his crossbow and fired. The bolt struck one of the attackers hard enough to stagger it. He worked the mechanism again even as more arrows came down the line of the bridge. The narrow footing made movement awkward, but the fighter kept his aim steady.

Vegon tried to gather lightning. The magic resisted him, the old corruption catching at the pattern as he shaped it. He let the spell collapse before it tore loose, changed his approach and sent fire toward three of the insect warriors. The blaze spread over their hard shells. They recoiled, crackling under the heat.

“Not the bridge,” Deacon warned.

“I am aware of the bridge.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

Behind them, one of the enormous reptiles prowled along the edge of the gorge. A crossbow bolt stood in its hide. It reared back with a furious roar and placed another huge foot against the crumbling lip.

Jandar glanced behind him. His sword was useless against a beast on the far bank, but he still had a hand crossbow and a good view along the gorge. He steadied himself against the rope, fired and watched the bolt strike the creature. It rocked back on its hind legs before lunging forward again.

The earth beneath its foot broke.

A slab of rock tore away from the cliff. For one impossible instant the beast remained upright, its head whipping toward the bridge and its jaws opening around a roar. Then its enormous weight carried it over the edge. It struck the rock face as it fell, breaking stone loose in a cascade. The bridge shook from the impact below.

The river exploded white around the falling body.

Mills flattened himself against the rope. “Did it take the bridge?”

“No,” Zook said, peering down. “Not yet.”

The reptile moved in the river, far below, and the current caught it. Its struggle became smaller as the water carried it downstream between the rocks.

“One,” Jandar said.

“There were two,” Deacon reminded him.

“I can count.”

The second beast remained on the near bank, its attention divided between the company and the place where the first had fallen. It snarled but did not follow onto the bridge.

Ahead, an insect warrior advanced with its spear lowered. Jandar turned from the gorge, bounded over a gap in the boards and came at it from the side. He struck and disengaged before the spear could trap him against the rope. It was not a battle he could win by standing still. Every stride had to become a change of angle; every opening had to be taken before it closed.

Zook found his shot at last. His arrow struck one of the attackers as it tried to move past Deacon’s line of fire. Then he dropped low, rolled across a broken plank and rose on the far side with his bow still in hand. The bridge lurched beneath him. He barely seemed to notice.

The archers scattered toward the trees. Some continued firing. One arrow cut a strand in a side rope and left it fraying against a post.

“Please tell me that is not important,” Mills said.

“It is rope,” Jandar answered. “On a bridge.”

“That does not answer me.”

“It answers you quite well.”

A fresh shot struck Jandar as he moved. Pain and sickness twisted through him. He bent forward, catching himself against the rope, and for a moment could do nothing but fight his own body for control. The insect warrior nearest him raised its weapon.

Deacon fired past him. His bolt drove into the attacker and spoiled its advance.

“Still standing?” he called.

Jandar swallowed hard. “Against my better judgment.”

“Then keep moving.”

The second giant reptile paced along the distant edge of the ravine. It seemed briefly ready to turn toward the bridge again, then withdrew among the trees. The sound of its passage faded into the forest. Zook watched it go, made an unnecessary long shot after it and saw the arrow disappear into branches well short of the creature.

“I wanted to make certain,” he said.

“Of what?” Vegon asked.

“That it was leaving.”

Deacon had no time for the exchange. An archer moved along the narrow shelf bordering the far bank, trying to find a better angle. Deacon placed two bolts into it. The creature staggered backward, heels scraping loose stone, and vanished over the edge.

Far below, there was another splash.

Jandar straightened, recovered enough to move, and met the next attacker with his rapier. He struck once, turned beneath a wild return thrust and crossed past it to clear space for the others. The enemy fell behind him.

Xil endured another wave of pain from the arrows lodged in his body. He kept his feet and lent what aid he could, but he was bloodied and fighting the poison as much as the attackers. The power gathering around his hands was weaker than he wanted it to be.

Vegon tried a precise spell against the last of the insects. The Weave shifted beneath his grasp. The familiar working broke apart, but another pattern surged into its place—a compact force that leaped from his fingers and slammed into the creature. The wizard stared at his hand, briefly surprised by his own success.

The insect fell.

Silence did not come immediately. The bridge creaked. The river rushed below. Far away the surviving reptile gave one final roar, distant enough that none of them mistook it for a returning charge.

Deacon kept his weapon trained on the far trees while Zook searched for movement. Mills helped Xil sit on a patch of firmer ground. Jandar leaned against a tree and waited for his stomach to remember its proper business.

“Are you going to live?” Mills asked him.

“That depends. Have you begun a song?”

“Not yet.”

“Then there is hope.”

Xil pulled an arrow free and winced. Deacon turned toward him at once.

“Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“You look terrible,” Zook said.

“Thank you.”

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant.”

They took stock of the crossing. One reptile had fallen to the river and been carried away. The other had retreated. Several of the insect warriors lay dead; the rest had been driven from the path. Xil had taken the worst of the arrows. The bridge, astonishingly, still hung between the cliffs.

Mills looked back across it. “We should not use that again.”

“No argument,” Deacon said.

Jandar studied the far trees, where the mist still curled around the broken trail. He had seen an enormous beast fall without anyone having to stand beneath its jaws. He had seen enemies forced from cover by fire and bolts. He had also spent too much of the fight trapped on narrow wood with nowhere to use his speed.

He touched his rapier, then looked at Deacon’s crossbow.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I think the world is developing an unreasonable objection to my preferred distance.”

Deacon checked his bowstring. “The world has good judgment.”

Jandar smiled faintly. “You wound me.”

“Not as often as everyone else does.”

Beyond the bridge, the trail wound toward higher ground. The harbor was still somewhere beyond the folds of the island, and there was no telling how far the mist would allow them to see. They had crossed the gorge, but the land ahead offered no promise of an easier way out.

Zook went first, already searching the mud for tracks. Deacon followed, watching the woods. The others came after, Xil between Vegon and Mills, Jandar at the rear where he could turn quickly if anything followed.

Behind them the bridge moved in the wind, empty now. One damaged rope rubbed against a stone post, and the sound was almost like a slow, careful saw.

No one looked back.