BooksBarbecue
Back The Scar
Chapters (65)
  1. Prologue
  2. Part One: Channels
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Interlude I: Elsewhere
  9. Interlude II: Bellis Coldwine
  10. Part Two: Salt
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Interlude III: Elsewhere
  21. Part Three: The Compass Factory
  22. Chapter Fifteen
  23. Chapter Sixteen
  24. Chapter Seventeen
  25. Chapter Eighteen
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Interlude IV: Elsewhere
  29. Part Four: Blood
  30. Chapter Twenty-One
  31. Chapter Twenty-Two
  32. Chapter Twenty-Three
  33. Chapter Twenty-Four
  34. Chapter Twenty-Five
  35. Chapter Twenty-Six
  36. Interlude V: Tanner Sack
  37. Interlude VI: Elsewhere
  38. Part Five: Storms
  39. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  40. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  41. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  42. Chapter Thirty
  43. Chapter Thirty-One
  44. Chapter Thirty-Two
  45. Interlude VII: Basilisk Channel
  46. Interlude VIII: Elsewhere
  47. Part Six: Morning Walker
  48. Chapter Thirty-Three
  49. Chapter Thirty-Four
  50. Chapter Thirty-Five
  51. Chapter Thirty-Six
  52. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  53. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  54. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  55. Chapter Forty
  56. Interlude IX: The Brucolac
  57. Part Seven: The Lookout
  58. Chapter Forty-One
  59. Chapter Forty-Two
  60. Chapter Forty-Three
  61. Chapter Forty-Four
  62. Chapter Forty-Five
  63. Chapter Forty-Six
  64. Chapter Forty-Seven
  65. Coda: Tanner Sack

"It didn’t slow," Hedrigall said. "The avanc wasn’t slowing down at all. The avanc was speeding up.

"We were ten miles away, then we were five miles away, and then four, and the city didn’t stop, and didn’t slow down.

"The world was foreshortened… The horizon was only a few thousand yards away, and it was growing closer, and Armada was accelerating.

"I began to panic then." There was no emotion in Hedrigall’s voice, as if he had bled dry of it in the sea. "I began to fire off my flares, trying to warn you of what you must have known.

"Probably… probably there was panic then," he said. "I wouldn’t know; I couldn’t see. Maybe you were all mesmerized, glass-eyed and stupid. But I bet not. I bet there was panic, as the end of the world crept up. With my flares bursting over you, ignored.

"Three miles, two.

"I was unmoving for a long time. Frozen.

"The southerly wind was strong, so the Arrogance was lowering, stretching back away from the Scar as if it was afraid, as afraid as me. That woke me.

"Who knows what happened? Maybe you knew, before you died. I wasn’t there.

"Maybe it was the avanc. Maybe after weeks of obedience it broke free of the impulses being fed into it. Maybe some spine that was supposed to plug into its brain snapped off, and the beast woke, confused and snared, and it tugged to try to free itself, careering on.

"Maybe the rockmilk engines failed. Maybe some possibility spilt out from the Scar, a possibility that the engines didn’t work. Gods know what happened.

"When I looked down I saw flotillas of little boats being dropped over the sides of the city, and tiny frantic crews hauling at oars and throwing up sails to get away. But the sea fought them, and I saw their sails bellying in all directions. The lifeboats, the yachts, the little skiffs began to eddy in those waters and curl around the city, overtaking it northward, even as they fought to go the other way. But the currents and the waves pulled them on like they were hungry.

"It was only minutes before the first of them reached the Scar. I watched that little dinghy spinning toward the edge, and saw specks that must have been the people inside it jumping out into the sea, and then the stern of the boat tipped suddenly and went over and was gone. Into that airy emptiness.