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Scully eyed me like a cornered dog. I unsheathed Sarrat and put it to his throat through the window. “Unlock. The. Door.”
He reached over and popped the lock on Thomas’ side. Thomas got into the cabin, confiscated the crossbow, tossed it onto the deck, and unlocked my door. I came around and looked at Scully’s impaled foot. Judging by what I could see of the shaft, the head had gone clean through his foot and about two inches through the deck. Good crossbow. He was lucky the bolt was wood and not metal.
I sheathed my saber, got my knife out, grabbed the bolt just above the boot, and sliced the shaft with my knife.
Scully yowled.
“Grab him,” I told Thomas.
Thomas grabbed Scully by the shoulders.
“You’re going to lift your foot off the bolt. I’ll help you.”
I clasped his boot, and Scully jerked back. “It hurts, you dumb bitch!”
“That’s the second time you called me that. I’m going to let it slide, since you’re in pain. Don’t say it again.”
“Why don’t we leave him like this until he gets us to the other side?” Thomas suggested.
“I doubt he sterilizes his bolt heads. Who knows what nastiness rode into his foot on that bolt and is now eating him from the inside? We’re not complete savages, Thomas.”
Scully got a wild look in his eyes and grit his teeth.
“Relax your leg and count to three,” I told him.
“One…”
I yanked his foot up. The foot came free. Scully screeched. Thomas muscled him out of the cabin and onto the deck.
“Can you drive the boat?” I asked Thomas.
“Yes. My dad had one.”
“You drive, and I’ll go watch our sharpshooter friend.”
I checked the passenger bench. The storage space under it yielded a first-aid kit that might have been older than me. I took it and walked out onto the deck. Scully had managed to pick himself up and was now leaning against the rail. His foot was bleeding, and a small puddle pooled by him on the deck.
The horse ignored him, while Cuddles gave him her “kicking” eye. If she wasn’t tied at the nose of the boat, she would’ve wandered over toward the cabin and stomped on his injured foot a few times for funsies. I’d seen her take that initiative before a few times.
The boat motor started slowly.
Scully did his best to stare a hole through my face. Sadly, his eyes lacked the lasers he required.
“You ain’t shit,” he finally spat out.
“You’re right, Simo Häyhä.” He wouldn’t recognize the name. My best friend had named a rifle after him, because he was the deadliest sniper in modern history. “I’m definitely not shit. But you might be. Also, I don’t have a hole in my foot. How about you work on that wound before your blood drips into the water?”
I tossed the first-aid kit at him. He caught it and bared his teeth at me. “Fu—”
A green tentacle as thick as my thigh shot out of the river, wrapped around Scully, and yanked him toward the water. Scully dropped the medkit and grabbed onto the railing, clinging to it for dear life.
I lunged forward, Sarrat jumping into my hand almost on its own, and slashed across the tentacle. Blue blood slicked the wound. Barely broke the skin. Damn.
Four more tentacles thrust out of the river, straight up, flinging water into the air. The tentacles slapped onto the deck, one coming straight for me. I dodged left, and it crashed half a foot from me, wrapping all the way across the boat.
I sliced at the tentacle. It was like trying to cut through a car tire. I could saw through it all day and not get anywhere.
Scully howled.
The little vessel groaned, pulled sideways. Cuddles and Thomas’ horse screamed in alarm.
I kept slicing.
Thomas’ face was a pale mask in the cabin. He was spinning the wheel, but the boat kept moving sideways.
Scully’s screech hit a hysterical note.
The boat careened, shuddering, the other side of it rising out of the water.
Screw it. I drew my blade across the back of my arm, wetting it with my blood, sealing the cut the moment after it was made, and stabbed deep into the nearest tentacle. Magic buckled inside me, and I spat the words out. “Hesaad! Harrsa ut karsaran!” Mine! That which is mine, break!
The power words tore out of me in a flash of pain and magic. My blood shot through the beast and detonated.
The river exploded. Water shot straight up like a geyser to forty feet high.
The boat landed back onto the surface, rocking.
Chunks of rubbery flesh rained down around us, hitting the deck and the mounts with wet thuds. I lunged toward the front of the boat, grabbed the two sets of reins, and held on.
I had blown my low profile out of the water, and it was now raining down all around me.
