The first arrow struck the third bell.
Its note rang across the channel, bright and offended. Anet caught the bell before it rolled overboard. Iven dropped flat. Sorell pushed the rudder hard enough to make the stern skid.
On the bank two men ran through the reeds. More followed behind them. The channel bent around an old mud island; beyond it Selka could see a reach of deeper water, safer if they could get there.
“Poles,” Sorell said.
Selka and Darr took the stern. Anet went forward, stepping around Ruun's feet. The god tried to move the water, but its wound opened and it sagged. The weight of the stone dragged the bow low.
“I'll get us off,” Anet said.
She planted her pole on the island's edge. The boat scraped mud. Selka pushed until her shoulders burned. Anet leaned farther, then stopped.
Selka saw the pause. Not hesitation: the body waiting for a breath that failed to come.
“Sit.”
“I'm fine.”
“Anet.”
“I've got enough.”
She put a hand against the pendant beneath her shirt, turned it once, and pushed again. The bow moved. For a moment Selka thought the girl knew better than her.
Then Anet's knees buckled. The pole slid out of her hands, trapping itself beneath the keel. The boat lurched to a halt.
An arrow struck the orange basket.
Sorell reached the girl before Selka could climb over the prisoners. She dragged Anet down behind the bow bench and fitted the mouthpiece. Iven worked the bellows. His face had gone blank with concentration, his handles making the same quiet movement Selka had heard in the loft.
Darr threw himself against the trapped pole. It would not shift. Selka crawled to the bow and put her hand on Ruun's shoulder.
“Only the pole.”
“I am trying.”
She had forgotten it could fail.
Kerr took Darr's spare pole and held it crosswise over the side. Together they levered the boat up an inch. Ruun pushed what water it had under the keel. The trapped pole snapped.
The boat broke free, turning broadside. For one dreadful moment everyone on the bank could see them. Darr raised an overturned chest as a shield. Another arrow lodged in it. Then the current took them around the bend.
Selka crouched beside Anet. Iven was still working. Sorell held the girl upright, one arm firm across her back. Anet's eyes were open; she tried to push the mouthpiece away.
“Wait,” Sorell said.
Selka reached for the pendant. Anet caught her wrist.
“I thought,” the girl whispered when she could speak, “I thought there was more.”
The reserve had been filled in Harrowmere. Away from the supply, it dwindled with every use. Selka had watched the same glow fade through childhood journeys, though there had always been somewhere to refill it at the end. She wanted to tell Anet that she should have known. The girl already knew.
“You got us off the mud,” Selka said.
“Then I put us back on it,” Anet said.
“Yes. You did both.”
Anet's face tightened. “You don't have to enjoy it.”
“I don't.”
She could have said more. She sat against the bench and held the bellows box steady while Iven worked. Sorell nodded to her once. Selka shifted her sore hand under the corner that kept rocking.
When Anet could breathe without the mouthpiece, Selka lifted the damaged bell. The arrow had scratched bronze but not split it. She struck it with a fingernail. The note was still wrong.
Her daughter gave a small, exhausted laugh.
“You hear it too.”
“I'm not deaf.”
Sorell returned to the rudder. Ahead, the channel narrowed beneath a fallen jetty. Sorell said she had brought the boat through it on the way to Reedgate, when its weight was mostly bells. Selka looked at Ruun's temple stone.
The god had its hand laid across the carved boat, guarding it.