Nina threw up her hands. “You’re welcome, you ungrateful wretch.”
“I’ll thank you when we’re aboard the Ferolind. Move.” He was already dragging himself up the boulders that lined the far side of the gorge. “You can explain why our illustrious Shu scientist looks like one of Wylan’s school pals along the way.”
Nina shook her head, caught between annoyance and admiration. Maybe that was what it took to survive in the Barrel. You could never stop.
“He’s a friend?” asked Kuwei in skeptical Shu.
“On occasion.”
Matthias helped her to her feet, and they all followed after Kaz, making slow progress up the rocky walls of the gorge that would lead them to the other end of the bridge above, and a bit closer to Djerholm. Nina had never been so exhausted, but she couldn’t let herself rest. They had the prize.
They’d got further than any crew. They’d blown up a building at the heart of the Ice Court. But they’d never make it to the harbour without Inej and the others.
She kept moving. The only other option was to sit down on a boulder and wait for the end. A rumbling began from somewhere in the direction of the Ice Court.
“Oh, Saints, please let that be Jesper,” she pleaded as they pulled themselves over the lip of the gorge and looked back at the bridge festooned with ribbons and ash boughs for Hringk?lla.
“Whatever is coming, it’s big,” said Matthias.
“What do we do, Kaz?”
“Wait,” he said as the sound grew louder.
“How about ‘take cover ’?” Nina asked, bouncing nervously from foot to foot. “‘Have heart’? ‘I stashed twenty rifles in this convenient shrubbery’? Give us something.”
“How about a few million kruge?” said Kaz.
A tank rumbled over the hill, dust and gravel spewing from its treads. Someone was waving to them from its gun turret – no, two someones. Inej and Wylan were yelling and gesturing wildly from behind the dome.
Nina let out a victorious whoop as Matthias stared in disbelief. When Nina looked at Kaz, she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. “Saints, Kaz, you actually look happy.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. But there was no mistaking it. Kaz Brekker was grinning like an idiot.
“I’m assuming we know them?” asked Kuwei.
But Nina’s elation dimmed as Fjerda’s answer to the problem of the Dregs rolled over the horizon.
A column of tanks had crested the hill and was crashing down the moonlit road, dust rising in plumes from their treads. Maybe Jesper hadn’t got the drüskelle gate sealed. Or maybe they’d had tanks waiting on the grounds. Given the firepower contained behind the Ice Court’s walls, she supposed they should count themselves lucky. But it sure didn’t feel that way.
It wasn’t until Inej and Wylan were thundering over the trestles of the bridge that Nina could make out what they were yelling: “Get out of the way!”
They leaped from the path as the tank roared past them, then came to a gear-grinding stop.
“We have a tank,” marvelled Nina. “Kaz, you creepy little genius, the plan worked. You got us a tank.”
“They got us a tank.”
“We have one,” Matthias said, then pointed at the horde of metal and smoke bearing down on them.
“They have a lot more.”
“Yeah, but you know what they don’t have?” Kaz asked as Jesper rotated the tank’s giant gun. “A bridge.”
A metallic shriek went up from the armoured insides of the tank. Then a violent, bone-shaking boom sounded. Nina heard a high whistling as something shot through the air past them and collided with the bridge. The first two trestles exploded into flame, sparks and timber plummeting into the gorge below. The big gun fired again. With a groan, the trestles collapsed completely.
If the Fjerdans wanted to cross the gorge, they were going to have to fly.
“We have a tank and a moat,” said Nina.
“Climb on!” crowed Wylan.
They boosted themselves onto the sides of the tank, clutching at any groove or lip in the metal for dear life, and then they were rolling down the road towards the harbour at top speed.
As they roared past the streetlamps, people emerged from their houses to see what was happening.
Nina tried to imagine what their wild crew must look like to these Fjerdans. What did they see as they poked their heads out of windows and doorways? A group of hooting kids clinging to a tank painted with the Fjerdan flag and charging along like some deranged float gone astray from its parade; a girl in purple silk and a boy with red-gold curls poking out from behind the guns; four soaked people holding tight to the sides for dear life – a Shu boy in prison clothes, two bedraggled drüskelle, and Nina, a half-naked girl in shreds of teal chiffon shouting, “We have a moat!”
When they entered the town, Matthias called, “Wylan, tell Jesper to keep to the western streets.”
Wylan ducked down, and the tank veered west.