“How much can I move them before they explode?” I asked.
“They’re designed to be in the water. You can jostle them, but I would be hesitant to hit them with something solid.” In the lantern light, his eyes were a flash of brown. “If you’re careful, you might be able to get all of them. It would go quicker with more of us in the water.”
“And how many of you are comfortable swimming at night in a river current?” I asked, my voice flat. “I imagine Namati’s men would be extremely comfortable. But the rest of you?”
None of the soldiers stood up, none voiced their confidence. I nodded, swimming away. Now that I knew I didn’t have to be quite as careful, I was able to bring back the next in less time. After that, I developed a system.
The explosives had been placed every ten feet so that they would be impossible to avoid. It took me until the constellations shifted and the great hunter fell below the horizon to clear the first line, and I went back and forth along it twice to make sure I hadn’t missed one before I cut the line in the middle, letting the two ends flow with the river water.
My muscles were beginning to burn when I started the second line. I tried to keep my focus, but I could feel myself slowing. My muscles trembled and twitched, and my heart clenched when I accidentally knocked my elbow into one of the canisters.
I could practically feel Yorîmu slap the flatof her blade against my back. She would have said there was no point in doing the job if you were going to do it so carelessly you would end up dying anyway.
But she wasn’t here. No one was here. I was alone in the water, and even if the blood monks said we could trust the men in the boats, I had no idea if I could trust them with my life. WithTallu’slife.
I didn’t need to look up to see that the stars were slowly turning overhead, reminding me that dawn was coming and our hope of escaping the river in darkness was fading. All my hopes were fading.
If we stayed too long, perhaps Kacha would send more boats, perhaps Bemishu had built enough of his airships to drop the canistersonus, and then all my work wouldn’t matter, as little as all my years of training had mattered in the end.
After bringing up another canister, I croaked that I needed a rest. The soldiers immediately dragged me in the boat, one of them wrapping me in a blanket as another held out a canteen of clean water.
None of them said anything, and the soldier who had been taking the bombs apart carefully wrapped the electrical rocks so they wouldn’t be jostled.
“How many more?” one of the soldiers asked. He looked up at the sky as he spoke, his eyes tracing the path of the moon.
I glanced up. The stars here were different, but by my judgment I had spent half the night already.
“I have another line to go, and half of the one I’m working. That’s if he hasn’t hidden another further down.” I spit over the edge of the boat, the burn in my throat so sharp that I did it again. Then I swallowed the clean, cold water. “Food?”
One of the soldiers immediately reached in his own pocket, drawing out a small wax bag. He handed it over and I unwrapped it with trembling fingers to find dried meat. I didn’t recognize it from any of our meals, so he must have been saving it for himself.
I started to hand it back, but he politely declined, using a palm up gesture that indicated it was a gift.
“I can swim,” he said. “That was what they asked before assigning me—if I could swim, but I do not think I could do what you are doing, Your Highness.”
There was a tone of wonder in his voice that I was more familiar with when soldiers talked to Tallu. It was as though I was doing something impossible and it made them question if I was truly as human as they were.
I didn’t stay long in the boat, knowing that every minute I was out of the water, my muscles were growing tighter, my exhaustion taking deeper hold. As soon as I could, I was back in the water. I wasn’t surprised to hear another splash, then another. Four soldiers joined me.
“Show us how,” one of them whispered. Even with the rush of the water, a voice carried a long distance in the quiet night.
“I’ll cut the canisters loose,” I said. “You take them back. Carefully. If I lose my right arm, you had better hope you die, as His Imperial Majesty will not be gentle in his anger.”
Two of the soldiers laughed, and I led them back to the trawling line. It was much faster work with their help. Being able to focus entirely on loosening the knots meant that I was able to slip a bit of magic in, using ice to make the rope brittle enough that my blade cut through faster.
In half the time it would have taken me on my own, we had finished the line and a half I had left.
“I’m going to check ahead,” I whispered. My shoulder ached, my muscles twitching. I swam ahead, as far as I could, waiting for the next impact, waiting to feel the trap, but there was nothing, there were no other lines.
I floated on my back for a moment, forcing my legs to find the strength to keep me in place. The constellation that made up the lioness and her cub was just touching the edge of the horizon, thespear of the matriarch chasing them, even as she sat in her throne of stars. We were out of time.
I swam back to the boat. The soldiers hauled me back in, wrapping me in the blanket again, then turned the boats back to our small fleet.
I stared out at the darkened water, hearing the whispers behind me and knowing that I had gained their loyalty with the work of this night. They no longer followed me because General Saxu had ordered it. Now, they wanted to bemine.
My heart felt just as cold as my trembling flesh because I knew that, in the end, Tallu and I would have to betray them once we achieved our goal.
We reached Tallu’s ship only a couple hours before the break of dawn.
