Heron cut the lines and hurried to her place on the leading edge of the boat, reaching it just in time to pick up a board and push off against the row of buildings the current tried to carry them into. Samm was on the same side, his hands and arms still pale from the cold. Kira stood in the center, trying to soothe the horses; they whinnied in agitation at the instability of the barge, dipping and shifting exactly the way ground shouldn’t, and became even more spooked as the barge slammed into the small hardware store.

“Watch the buildings!” cried Kira, trying to keep Bobo from rearing up and breaking away from her.

“Go to hell!” Heron shot back, her teeth tightly clenched as she tried to keep the unwieldy barge, now firmly caught in the river’s sweeping current, from slamming into the building again. The river pulled them both into the buildings and out into the center, not quickly but powerfully; it was not a white-water river, but Kira was realizing that even a lazy river, when it got this big, had an immense amount of strength. Samm joined Heron at the back, and together they managed to keep the trailing edge of the barge from clipping the last building in the line, and suddenly they were out: free of the sunken city, free of the debris that cluttered the shores, free of the limited stability the buildings had granted. The barge spun slowly in the water, and the horses chomped and snapped in fear. Samm ran to help Kira control them, but Heron walked the edge, trying to keep herself at whatever part of the barge was the front.

“Sandbar,” she called out, kneeling to grip the side for balance, and the barge shook with sudden impact, sending Kira reeling for balance. Afa fell on his side, closing his eyes and clutching his backpack tightly. Samm and Kira separated, each taking two horses by the reins and leading them a few steps away from each other. The sandbar spun them in the opposite direction as they bounced away from it, and for a moment they straightened out. Kira found solid footing, readjusting her grip on the horses, and Heron called out again, more urgently this time: “Fallen bridge!”

“What?” shouted Kira.

“Just hold on to something,” said Heron, and suddenly the barge slammed into an outcropping of twisted steel supports, just barely visible above the water but solid and deadly below the surface. The horses screamed, and the barge screamed with them, metal scraping against metal. The barge tipped dangerously, then rocked back the other way as it rolled around the fallen bridge. Kira fought to keep control of her horses.

“We need to steer,” she called.

“Yes, we do,” said Samm, “but I don’t think that’s an option at this point.”