“I said . . .” Eanrin cleared his throat. “I said yes. Yes, she is.” And he strode down to the bridge.
It swayed and groaned terribly when his feet touched it, and he wondered if Hri Sora had put some new protection on her realm and the bridge would break before he could even make the leap. It did not matter. In that moment, Eanrin began to understand something he had never felt the need to consider before the events of the last few days. Before he found the dragon woman sleeping beneath the caorann tree. Before he had seen the Hound.
“Make the leap, make the leap,” he muttered as his feet stumbled and staggered on the swaying bridge and his hands clasped at the ropes suspending it. “Make the leap, not for yourself. Not for yourself, Eanrin! Life is too long to live that way.” He glanced down the forever drop, and his stomach surged to his throat. “Oh, great merciful beards of monkeys!”
His heart beat a drummer’s quick march, and his limbs were like water. But he would have climbed over those flimsy ropes and hurled himself into rushing torrents in another moment, shouting for Etalpalli and hoping, hoping . . .
Footsteps reverberated along the flimsy boards. Eanrin turned. A figure appeared through the mist.
“Imraldera!” the poet cried.
She could not have heard him, not above Cozamaloti. But within a few more paces, she caught sight of him and paused. Then—miracle of miracles!—she smiled.
Perhaps it was a trick of the mist. Perhaps it was his own fool of an imagination inventing nonsense in the wake of his near death and harrowing journey. Eanrin did not care. With a whoop, he bounded across the bridge, little caring how it swayed under his weight. Her eyes widened, and she clutched at the ropes on either side, bracing her feet. He covered the distance in moments and they stood face-to-face, gripping the bridge and staring at each other. Her smile was faded to almost nothing, and her face was pale. Droplets from the heavy mist beaded her black hair.
“Brave girl!” Eanrin cried, though she could not hear him. “Brave, brave girl!”
Then he took her hand and led her back. For now, he wouldn’t think about returning to Etalpalli or of rescuing Lady Gleamdren. He wouldn’t consider how Imraldera might have escaped the Black Dogs or Hri Sora. She was safe, and she needed to stay that way. He must get her off the bridge as soon as possible and away from the River.
They met Glomar a few paces out. The bridge was too narrow. Eanrin motioned for him to turn around so they might all reach the land. But Glomar’s face lit with a brilliant smile, and he pointed and gestured wildly, paying no attention to Eanrin. He was speaking, but Eanrin could not hear him, nor did he bother to try understanding. “Yes!” he shouted back, equally inaudible. “Yes, she’s here and she’s safe!” He raised Imraldera’s hand to show that he held her. “Now back up, you lump of a badger, back up!”
Glomar wouldn’t turn. He continued gesturing and tried to push past Eanrin, making the bridge sway still more wildly. It gave a jerk and a drop, and everyone’s heart stopped. Only then did Eanrin look around to see what had excited Glomar so.
Lady Gleamdren, wet and ragged with a face fiercer than any dragon, stood but a few paces behind Imraldera, her face red with screaming things that no one wanted to hear. There was murder in her eyes as she looked from Eanrin’s face to his hand holding Imraldera’s.
Eanrin let go his hold. Swallowing hard, he turned back to Glomar, gave him a push, and the four of them hastened off the bridge and back to the Wood. As they scrambled up the bank, their ears cleared of Cozamaloti’s dissonance enough to be filled with Lady Gleamdren’s.
“Well, I like this! Look at the pair of you! Do you have anything to say for yourselves? You left me behind in that dragon-blasted, smoke-stinking city without a thought, you pigs, pigs, pigs!”
She continued on in this vein until they reached the shelter of the forest, still within sight of the bridge but far enough away that Eanrin could breathe easy again. He tried to focus on Gleamdren—who was difficult to ignore, standing just under his chin, her angry face upturned to his, gifting him with the full force of her wrath—but his gaze kept straying to Imraldera, who stood quietly a few steps back.
“And allowing a maiden to do a man’s work!” Eventually, Eanrin hoped, Gleamdren’s voice might give out. Not for a few hundred years, perhaps, but eventually. “And such a maiden too! A mortal? Have you no feeling, Eanrin? Have you no feeling at all? Are you listening to a single word I am saying to you?”
“Yes, delight of my eyes,” Eanrin said. “I am indeed. So is Glomar, if you care about that, which I’m sure you don’t, but you really should because he’s been a good sport through all this nonsense—”
Glomar growled, disliking the sound of his praises spoken by his rival. It did not matter, for Gleamdren burst out again.