Duncan finally broke the surface, gasping, treading water, trying to orient himself. He looked upriver and saw the school of sharks had already passed through, leaping like salmon upriver, smashing into random rafts as they went. He was relieved to see they weren’t targeting his men; rather, they just continued upriver, oblivious to what lay before them, leaping and landing, smashing whatever was in their way—eating a man if he was in their way, but if not, then continuing to swim. They clearly were driven to go somewhere, and the school stuck together, disappearing from sight as fast as it had appeared.

Duncan, treading water in the currents, surveyed the damage. About a third of their fleet had been destroyed, pools of blood filling the river, bodies floating, logs everywhere. Dozens of men were dead or injured, some moaning, writhing, others floating lifelessly on the surface. Duncan spotted the men from his own raft, saw his sons, saw Seavig, Anvin and Arthfael, and was relieved to see they had survived. Their rafts had been smashed, too, and they tread water not far from him.

All around him men fished out the survivors, yanking them up onto rafts, salvaging the wounded and allowing the dead to float downstream. It was an awful scene of carnage, a wave of death that had come out of a clear blue sky. Duncan realized that they were lucky to have survived at all.

Duncan felt the sting in his arm, and looked over to see that his right shoulder had been scraped badly from the shark’s skin. It bled, and though it was painful, he knew it was not life-threatening. He heard splashing and turned to see Seavig treading next to him, and he was horrified to see blood pouring from his friend’s hand, and to see he was missing two fingers.

“Your hand!” Duncan called out, shocked that Seavig seemed so stoic.

Seavig shrugged. He gritted his teeth as he tore a piece of cloth from his shirt and wrapped it around his bleeding hand.

“Just a scratch,” he replied. “You should see the shark,” he added with a grin.

Duncan felt strong hands grabbing him from behind and soon he felt himself being pulled up onto a raft. He sat there, breathing heavily, slowly regaining his composure. He looked up to the skyline and saw, closer than ever, the mountains of Kos, and he felt a fresh determination. His army, whatever of it survived, was still floating inevitably downriver, and nothing would stop them now.

The Thusius twisted and turned as they neared Kos, and the landscape changed dramatically. The towering mountains dominated this region of Escalon, their snow-covered peaks, covered in mist, looming over everything. The climate was colder here, too, and Duncan felt as if he were entering a different country.