Naamah's Blessing

that did nothing to belie his underlying seriousness. He regarded us with those uncanny yellow-and-blue eyes and tried unsuccessfully to fight off a violent bout of shivering, his teeth chattering. “I’ll only be a burden to you.” He clenched his jaw to silence them, gritting out his words. “Leave me. I’m not jesting. This is a bad idea. Save the others who aren’t as far gone.” He coughed. “If you want to give me a fitting tribute, gather a few flowers of surpassing beauty to strew over my impending corpse before you go, won’t you?”
    Bao poked him with the butt-end of his staff. “No. Don’t be stupid. Now get up and get in the canoe.”
    Balthasar smiled bitterly, holding out one trembling hand. “What if I can’t?”
    “I’ll carry you,” Bao retorted. “Shall I?”
    It was a test of wills, and I daresay it may have been the first Balthasar Shahrizai lost in his lifetime. Beneath Bao’s unrelenting stare, he heaved himself upright with a considerable effort, wavering on his feet. Bao handed him his bamboo staff and Balthasar leaned on it, breathing hard, his breath rasping in his lungs, his free hand on Bao’s shoulder to steady himself. “You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you?”
    “He is,” I agreed.
    Bao looked sidelong at me, a world of fond intimacy in a single glance. “No more than you, Moirin.”
    For what felt like the hundredth time, we launched our canoes. At Septimus Rousse’s sensible suggestion, we had redistributed our company so that every canoe held but one of the fever-stricken men, seated in the third slot.
    In the first hour of our journey, we paddled along the serene face of the river. It rained for a time, and then the skies cleared once more. And then the river began to quicken. The banks rose and narrowed, the current picking up pace. Protruding boulders began to place obstacles in our path, water breaking around them in telling patterns.
    At first, I tried to pay attention to the entire company, but once we entered the rapids, it was impossible. Stony walls rose around us, the river hurtling us onward beneath their shadow. In the prow, Bao called out orders.
    “Left!” he called, digging his paddle in at a sharp angle. “Now right, right, hard right!”
    The river rose and fell, crashed and thundered.
    Everywhere, spray spurted, stinging my face.
    I narrowed my eyes and kept paddling. Behind me, Balthasar huddled and shivered. In the stern, Brice planted his paddle as ordered, grunting with the effort of trying to keep us in a clear channel through the raging waters.
    In the prow, Bao had risen to his knees, paddling fiercely on either side of the canoe, maneuvering us around boulders. Master Lo’s magpie had always claimed he could do whatever was needful. As ever, he was as good as his word. Our canoe shot through the rapids like a cork.
    We emerged into a scene of tranquil beauty. Beneath towering cliff walls covered with emerald moss, the river widened once more, turning placid despite the influx of a slender waterfall that spilled over the crags, sparkling in the sunlight. Ahead of us, Eyahue’s canoe was making landfall on the rocks at the base of the cliff.
    Instead of following him, Bao turned us sideways to the rapids behind us, idling on the water and watching to make sure the other six vessels made it safely through the dangerous passage.
    The first four made it through without incident, canoes bucking and plunging like wild horses, shooting through the final gap into the calm bay.
    The fifth was not so lucky.
    The fellow in the prow, an Eisandine fighter named Gaston Courtois, misjudged the angle of his approach. There was a sharp, splintering crack as the canoe struck the rocks on the starboard side. The force of its momentum carried it into the calm waters, where it drifted slowly into two pieces, the entire hull split in half. Dazed men clung to the pieces of their broken vessel while four sets of armor sank slowly to the floor of the river.
    And behind them, the sixth canoe was making its inexorable way through the rapids, unable to slow its progress.
    “Get out of the way!” Bao cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.
“Get out of the way!”
    Gaston Courtois and the fellow behind him heard Bao and kicked frantically, propelling their half of the broken vessel clear of the gap.
    The other half floundered, one man barely able to cling to the splintered wood, the other helping him keep his head above water, neither able to get