We hid in the tall grass by our logs. We didn’t have to wait long for a log raft to nose its way around the river bend. Four prisoners struggled to paddle while a soldier in a glistening helmet stood in the middle.
I held my breath until I recognized the red hair curling out from under the helmet.
“Shayn,” Kiera whispered.
I waited until the raft was closer, then I stood and whistled. The prisoners stared at me with wide eyes. Three men and one woman. Gaunt and starved of hope.
“Bring the raft to him,” Shayn ordered.
They hastily obeyed.
Maz and I leaned out and tugged the raft to our bank. Shayn was already kneeling by the woman’s feet and unshackling her.
Kiera gestured to her. “Come. You’re free to go.”
The woman’s eyes filled with tears, and she clasped hands with Kiera, who pulled her onto the bank. “Th-Thank you. Thank you,” she kept murmuring over and over.
“You’ll find some clothes a short walk that way.” Kiera pointed toward our old campsite.
“And some food,” Nikella added.
Maz and I helped the other three prisoners off the raft and gave them the same directions. I watched them disappear, that stubborn seed of hope growing in my chest.
“Four down, only a few hundred to go,” Kiera said.
I smiled down at her. “Easy.”
Shayn helped us lash our three logs onto the raft with thick leather straps and buckles. Then he snapped the hated metal cuffs around our ankles, using an extra set he pulled out of his pack for me.
Unease slithered back into my veins as I stared at the chain connecting them. A prisoner once more. Perhaps I was always doomed to die as one.
I shook myself.No. You won’t die. You won’t let them die. You are free. You are free.
But the words were like a weak dam fighting against a mighty river.
We took up our paddles and awkwardly maneuvered our larger raft back into the current.
What followed was a sort of fever dream. Always cold. Always wet. Always wearing the gods-damned shackles. Steering the raft east, yet Calimber never seemed to get closer.
We talked little, miserable as we were. We stopped even less. Shayn handed out the hard bread and dried meat the fortress had allotted him. Sleep... sleep passed me by like the never-ending river.
We encountered a checkpoint two days into our journey. The soldiers on the wooden bridge lowered a barrier until Shayn hopped off the raft and handed over his paperwork. The soldiers scrutinized him and the paper and peered at each of us.
“This says three male and one female prisoner,” one soldier said.
Kiera tensed next to me, and I clenched my oar, ready to use it as a poor weapon if necessary.
Shayn shrugged. “The girl was causing trouble, so I took her off the fort’s hands.”
The soldier stared at Kiera for a moment longer, something unpleasant in his gaze. But then he returned Shayn’s paperwork. “The mine will beat that trouble right out of her. Off you get.”
The soldiers raised the barrier and waved us forward. I forced my quivering muscles to relax.
Gods, I hoped that was the worst of it.
As each day brought us closer to Calimber, the number of patrols along the river increased. They shouted to Shayn, who answered their questions with ease. Whatever the man’s faults, I was glad Henry had chosen him for this.
Nikella ducked her head every time one of the patrols passed. But they never examined us too closely.
