“You’d better hope you can swim,” said Heron, shooting her an icy glare as she leapt back to the edge, “because Samm’s saving Afa and I’m not saving you.” She stuck the board back into the water, correcting the spin but failing to guide the boat in any particular direction. They almost hit a promontory on the far side, but the same current that had pulled them away from the east shore was now working to keep them from the west one, and even when they finally cleared the debris field, their barge was creaking and sinking and caught in a powerful current. The river turned south with water already lapping around Kira’s feet, and she looked down the river to see that it was rounding a wide U-shaped bend before turning back east again.

“Keep steady on that rudder,” she called to Heron. “The river’s turning hard enough that we might get thrown onto the bank up there.”

“That’s not a bank, it’s a dock,” said Samm. “Getting thrown onto it will hurt.”

“Just . . . save Afa,” said Kira, keeping her eyes on the shore. The river moved surprisingly slowly for something so powerful, and it seemed to take them forever to round the bend. She worried they wouldn’t build up enough momentum to get across at all, but slowly the west shore grew closer, their leaking barge turning just slightly wider than the river was. We’re going to make ground, she thought. Right in the middle of that city. She could see it now, buildings and docks rising out of the overgrown riverbank, masked with trees and tall marsh reeds. The placement of the city seemed almost perfectly designed to catch things as the river carried them around the bend, and Kira briefly wondered if it had been built there for that exact purpose. Her thoughts turned more urgent as the shore drew closer, and the hope of landing became a certainty of crashing into the riverside wharf looming up to meet them. It was flooded, like most of the riverside cities, and Kira guessed their trajectory would carry them straight into a tangle of boats, logs, and other debris caught in a cluster of old stores and buildings. “Can we take another impact?” she asked.