Soulwoven

Chapter Sixty

~60~

Tall, gray cliffs flew past above Dilanthia Lonecliff’s head.

Freezing spray foamed up from the river Lumos and landed on any bit of skin she left exposed. High clouds blew in endless streams over the tops of the mountains above her. Even wrapped in her cloak, even pressed against Cole’s side, she felt cold.

Dil faced rearward in the bow of the canoe and watched Tsu’min handle the tiller at its other end. The Sh’ma’s left arm hung limp against his side. He was breathing hard. There was a cut on his cheek. Below him, the others huddled in a lumpy, brown mass of tattered cloaks and bruised bodies.

Except for Len.

Len was gone. Forever.

Dil swallowed and did her best to ignore the chills creeping up her limbs. Tsu’min should’ve known what was going to happen in that city, she thought. He should’ve told us that we’d have no chance.

The Sh’ma looked exhausted, but not surprised.

Dil tugged at Cole’s cloak, but all of his attention was on his brother. Litnig’s eyes had closed. His head had slumped against his shoulder.

So Dil sat and contemplated the fire-haired Sh’ma into whose hands she had placed her life.

Tsu’min’s eyes glowed white. His good hand moved the tiller deftly back and forth, and the canoe sped southward around jagged rocks and white-haired rapids.

A single, perfect snowflake landed on Dil’s sleeve.

And then the mountains shook.

A screech ripped through the icy stillness. The ground heaved from left to right and back. The river sloshed against one side of the valley and returned, then did it again, then devolved into a bubbling, chaotic tangle of waves and whirlpools. The canoe slid from side to side. Dil pitched forward and rolled into Litnig’s legs.

The screech faded. The shaking stopped.

Dil heard a snap, then a crack, then another and another, until the sounds had merged into a thunderous, rolling orchestra. She scrambled back upright. At first, she thought that the canoe had struck a rock and was breaking apart.

But it wasn’t the boat that was breaking.

It was the mountains.

No, she thought. No, no, Yenor, please, no—

Huge chunks of the cliffs and glaciers to the north crumbled into the river and threw fountains of water the size of houses into the air. To the south, Dil saw more of the same. The air snapped and popped like corn in a fire. The river grew black and frothy. The canoe jumped back and forth like a toy.

Dil clung to the side of the boat and tried to lean with the flow. Next to her, Cole kept one hand on the canoe and the other on his brother’s chest.

He looked terrified.

The canoe skidded off a rock and careened to the left. Tsu’min screamed something into the wind, and then the boat hit another rock, then another. A boulder dropped into the water beside Dil, and the wave it created poured over the bow and into her lap. Another large rock barely missed them.

Dil caught a glimpse of a place ahead where the valley widened and the danger seemed less.

Please, she thought. She slipped a hand over Cole’s thigh and squeezed. Please—

She heard a tremendous roar to her left.

The side of a mountain let go and dropped and slid and avalanched into the river in front of the canoe. When the debris hit the water, it launched a cloud of brown and white spray several stories into the air. The muddy fountain crashed over Dil with a wet slap. She tried to inhale and got a nose full of water.