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“Conrad, no,” Appius said, grabbing my hand. “If it breaks, you’ll fall.”
I looked at Appius, my insides doing funny things. I squeezed his hand in return.
“I know,” I said. “But Mara is right. We don’t have a choice. And honestly, I think we have a better chance trying the bridge.”
“I agree,” Lucius said. “As long as you go first.”
It might have been an attempt at a joke, and it might have been serious. Either way, I didn’t have time to worry about it. I adjusted my pack and rope, then stepped toward the end of the bridge.
“Wait!” Appius called chasing after me.
I turned, ready to explain all over again, but he said, “Use the rope to secure yourself to the suspension line.”
I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
Appius made a scolding sound, then reached around to my pack. I twisted so he could have better access to it, then was surprised when he pulled out a large, metal clip. I’d been baffled when he’d put clips like that in all of our packs, but when he also found the end of the rope wound crosswise over my shoulder to my hip, then looped the rope through the clip, I started to see what his aim was.
“Clip it to the bridge’s suspension chain,” Appius told me.
I still didn’t know what he was talking about.
He made another sound of impatience and finished tying a complex knot that secured the clip to the end of the rope, then he used the length of rope to lead me to the start of the bridge. I grinned for a moment at the image of Appius walking me like a dog, but my amusement turned to surprise a moment later.
Appius snapped the clip around one of several long, taut lengths of chain that ran along the top of the bridge’s side.
“You should probably fasten the rope a little more securely around your body,” he explained, “but this way, if you keep yourself clipped to the bridge as you walk across, you’ll be fastened to it. Then, if you lose your footing or come across a weak spot, you’ll be anchored, and you won’t fall off.”
My eyebrows flew up. “That’s genius,” I said. “Pure genius.”
“It won’t work,” Lucius said with a scowl. We all turned to him, and he went on with, “Those chains have other supports hanging off of them every couple of yards to keep the bridge together. You’ll get ten feet and then be stuck.”
I glanced back to the bridge. He had a point. There were, indeed, thick ropes attaching the base of the bridge to the suspension chains every fifteen feet or so.
“It’s not that complicated,” Appius said, rolling his eyes at Lucius. He turned to me and said, “That’s why it’s a clip. Whenever you reach one of the ropes, unclip, then reclip on the other side.”
I felt stupid for not seeing it immediately myself.
I looked at the bridge again. It would mean slow going to get across the huge expanse of the bridge, but I would rather take my time and be secured in case of a slip than rush across on a wish and a prayer.
“Well, here goes,” I said, reaching out and fastening the clip around the suspension chain.
I took a deep breath, then gingerly stepped out onto the shattered bridge.
Immediately, I saw the infinite wisdom of Appius’s clip. Half of the bridge might have been intact, but the planks that extended into nothingness from the undamaged side dipped and wobbled as soon as I stepped on them.
“Fuck!” Leander blurted, lunging to the end of the bridge as if he would catch me.
“That’s not nearly as stable as it looks,” Darius followed him.
“Yeah, I got that,” I gasped, my heart pounding in my throat. “And we still have no other option but to cross it. I’ll try sliding across while holding onto the suspension chain.”
It was the only thing that was going to work. Without the other half of the bridge, the planks weren’t stable. In fact, as I shimmied out to the first downward rope, my arms wrapped around the chain, I had a pretty clear idea that if I put any weight at all on the planks instead of the thick chain that ran underneath them, parallel to the suspension chain, it would destabilize the entire structure.
I reached the first downward rope and undid the clip, quickly refastening it on the other side. The chain was as thick as my wrist, and the clip was not quite twice that diameter. It was a bit tricky unfastening and refastening it, but I was able to do it.
By the time I made it to the second downward rope, I was still only about twenty-five feet from my friends.
“It’s possible,” I told them breathlessly, not looking down. “But it’s terrifying.”
