Everyone was moving, with most of those on the dock running for the Pale Dawn, stepping over or around the body of Madoka in its pool of blood. Kora and the man who’d helped her let the crowd push past them; then they strode up to Alira and Amaru, who were standing beside a shaken Julara. “Alira saved your life,” Kora said.
Julara was trembling. “I know.”
“You’ll stay with me on the Pale Dawn,” Alira said to Amaru. “It’s right here.”
The elder nodded and began heading for the ramp.
Julara turned to go, then froze.
“Get aboard,” Alira ordered her.
“Alira—mistress, I …”
“What?”
“The gate,” Julara said. “The gate of the bay.”
They all seemed to turn at once. Though they could see nothing beyond the falling wall of water, each of them realized what the pirate was talking about. A massive gate stood between the Bay of Bones and the sea. It was kept closed to conceal them from the open waters. And if it wasn’t opened, it would seal them in.
“We can’t open it from down here,” Julara whispered.
Kora saw the filling decks of the ships. Sail lines and mooring lines were being loosed. All of it would be for nothing if they couldn’t leave the bay. And, at any moment, the Bloodborn would be streaming down the emptying walkways into the cavern.
“I’ll go,” she said.
Alira stared. “Kora, you can’t get back if—”
For the first time in her life—likely her last, she supposed—Kora ignored her mentor. She grabbed hold of Julara’s shoulder. “How do I open it?”
“There’s no oxen up there right now,” the pirate managed. “You can’t.”
“Tide’s moving out,” Kora said. “Can the ships push it open?”
Julara shook her head, numb. “It’s locked. On both sides.”
“I’ll go too,” the man beside her said. When Kora looked over at him, he shrugged. “Maybe we jump into the rigging when they sail past us.”
Kora gave him the slightest of nods before squeezing Julara’s shoulder hard. “Can I lift the latch? Can he?”
“Yes,” Julara said.
The man took a few steps toward the waterfall. “Come on, then! We’ve got to hurry!”
Alira was staring. There were tears in her eyes. “Kora, I—”
Kora hugged her quickly. “Just don’t forget your promise,” she said. And then she turned and ran ahead before she could change her mind.
The man caught up to her at the lift. “My name is Tevlyn,” he said as he stepped onto the platform. Then he seemed unsure, embarrassed. “Don’t know why I told you that.”
“I think I know why,” she said. Looking up, she saw the Bloodborn pouring down the ramps and ladders only a few levels above them. “My name’s Kora. I’ll go left. You go right over the bridge.”
Tevlyn laughed nervously as Kora unlocked the lift. “No need to take it slow,” he said.
She grinned, nodded, then yanked as hard as she could on the rising rope.
The floor leapt upward, and they both buckled to their knees. Empty levels sped past. Then levels with the torchlit faces and the reaching hands of Bloodborn.
They sped past them all, and Kora didn’t bother to slow at the top. There was no telling what awaited them. Speed and surprise were their only chance.
The lift reached the top with a crash of wood that threw them up and out onto the hard ground. Kora tried to roll, but she took the fall on her bad shoulder anyway. It made noises that she felt under the skin.
Tevlyn was already on his feet, kicking into a run. “Come and get me!” he shouted as he headed over the bridge and into the dark.
Her head spinning, fighting the urge to throw up, Kora clambered to her feet too. Cradling her screaming arm, she ran along the rim she’d only just left.
Tents were in flames, but there were no Bloodborn to be seen. They’d all gone down the ramps after their prey.
She passed the rock she’d sat upon while she’d looked up at the stars, and it made her glance up once again. The sky was just beginning to lighten.
Dawn was coming.
She ran on, past the tents and the outbuildings, past the point where the palisade closed in on the cliffs as they rounded the bay, where there was only a narrow path for her to follow, and she stayed close to the wall for fear of getting too close to the edge.
And then the wall pushed back away, and the path opened up. The sky was glowing even brighter now, and across the leveled space, she saw the watchtower where they’d met with Julara. She saw the mighty gates close beside it. And between, in the middle of a cleared circle of trodden-down earth, sat a massive, pegged wooden wheel, lying over on its side, with the chains controlling its half of the gate wrapped around it.
As Julara had said, there were no oxen in sight to hitch to the wheel and walk about that dirt circle. And for a moment Kora despaired over how she’d find whatever mechanism she needed to unlatch the gate and give the ships below a chance of pushing through. But then she heard the rhythmic wooden thump of the gate shaking against its locks as the waves shivered the doors from below.
She followed the noise to the huge wooden hinge at the top of the gate. There was an arm of the gate beyond the pivot point, she saw, and it was caught between a thick post and a log dropped into a hole in the earth. Pull the log, and the gate would swing freely.
There were pegs stuck into the log to help lift it out. Kora squatted down, and with her one good hand she grabbed the lowest of them and tried to pull it up. Straining, she could do little more than jostle it in the hole.
There was a grunt and a loud thud from the other side of the gate. Then Tevlyn’s voice called out. “Did you make it, Kora?”
She smiled and peered through the half-light, hoping to see him. “I did! And so did you!”
Tevlyn laughed. “Mine’s free. Did you find yours?”
Kora strained again. Again it hardly budged. “Found it! Can’t get it out!”
There was a pause, like he was thinking. “I don’t think I can get to you.”
Something about the way he said it made her look out along the line of the rim. She saw torchlight bobbing along the path to him. Bloodborn. They were coming along her path too. “Yeah,” she said. She tried and failed again.
“A ship!” Tevlyn cried out.
She stood and walked to the edge. The bow of a ship had pierced the waterfall. It had oars out, and they were pushing it hard. “It’s the Pale Dawn!” she called over to him. With luck, the Black Crow would be close behind.
The outgoing tide had already floated Tevlyn’s half of the gate open a crack. The Bloodborn were getting closer to them on both sides.
Again, she squatted down and failed to lift the log.
“The other ship! They’re both away!”
Kora cursed. Then she stood and pulled the sling from around her neck. Pain shot through her wrecked shoulder as it took the weight of her arm. She ground her teeth against the shock of it.
“They’re coming!”
She didn’t know if Tevlyn meant the ships or the Bloodborn. Either one. Both. Didn’t matter.
“Kora, hurry! You can do it!”
She bent down. She hugged the log like it was the lover she’d never had. She squeezed it, letting the pain run in tears from her eyes. She flexed, pushing the surges of shrieking agony down from her shoulder into the tightening grips of her hands and the ground beneath her feet. She heaved upward.
The log shifted, stuck, and then came free at last. She fell backward with it, and it rolled over her broken shoulder when she went down. She screamed out at the last of the fading stars.
The sound seemed to echo back to her not in screams, but in the laughter of the Bloodborn.
So close.
So very close.
Kora cradled her broken arm and stood.
She could see Tevlyn standing on the other side. The Bloodborn weren’t far away behind him, but he was smiling at her. Both halves of the gate between them were swinging free.
In the Bay of Bones, the Pale Dawn had straightened out her line and was approaching the gate. The Black Crow wasn’t far behind. But neither ship would reach the gate before the Bloodborn did.
The ships would get out. But the two of them wouldn’t.
Tevlyn seemed to have come to the same conclusion. As she watched, he turned his back just long enough to get to the other side of the log he’d pulled. He began kicking and rolling it to the edge.
A smart man, Kora thought. And though every movement hurt, she did the same. Their logs dropped down into the water far below. A small gesture of defiance, she supposed, but one that ensured the Bloodborn couldn’t lock the gates back up.
The ships would get away.
“Well,” Tevlyn called out, “do you have any ideas?”
Kora looked from him to the approaching Bloodborn to the too-far-away masts of the ships. She let out a long, steady breath.
Her shoulder, she thought, didn’t really hurt anymore. Maybe because it didn’t matter anymore. “Meet you in the middle?” she asked.
Tevlyn’s face was tight, but he smiled. “Sounds good.”
He took a few steps back from the edge. So did she.
The Bloodborn, perhaps sensing it, screamed and tried to close the distance.
But already, the two of them were running. And as the dawn broke over the island, they embraced in the sunlight and fell.