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And the shield went over the side.

Dalgatha slid between me and the goblin.

Galva screamed and grabbed at her grandfather’s shield.

She caught it.

Because she hadn’t wanted to drop her sword, she had reached across herself with her left hand so she was half-turned. The goblin saw the blood soaking through the dressing and through the chain mail on her belly.

He sprang forward and battered his ugly, helmeted head into her gut, and the freely bleeding wound beneath her hauberk, knocking her backward.

Knocking the Mouth of the Storm out of her hand and over the side.

Gone.

To her credit, she didn’t waste any more time chasing the precious, lost thing, but attacked.

Too close to stab, she battered the monster with the pommel of her sword, trying to break its spine. She might have done, too. I had cleared poor Dalgatha now and stabbed that blackglass sword at the goblin’s middle with all my strength. It went through his armor, through his innards, through the armor on the other side of him. And as the both of us collided with Galva, the point …

I’ll need a moment for this.

Just, yah.

Right.

Yah.

The point went into her.

I couldn’t tell where yet, but I saw in her face she was hurt again, and badly.

I ripped the sword free, pushed the filthy karking thing down, and stabbed.

And stabbed.

And stabbed.

And stabbed.

And stabbed.

And stabbed.

The cloud-ship turned slowly as it rose.

I cut the shirt from a dead half-giant, put the sweat-soaked, filthy cloth to her second belly wound, the one I gave her. The one that would kill her. There was no doctor in these ashy clouds, no witch, no herb-mad midwife. She held the cloth to her guts as I told her, but I think she was doing that for my sake.

She started to move herself, propping up on one elbow.

“Lie still,” I said, trying to keep the near tears out of my voice.

I failed.

She shook her head at my command and said, “I want to see.”

So, as gently as I could, I helped her to the lip of the deck, where she propped her free arm and put her chin on it like a little girl watching fish from the family boat.

She was untroubled.