Free The Way Into Chaos by Harry Connolly

their cuirasses and greaves gleamed in the gentle rain.  
    Treygar blurted out, “That’s Third Splashtown!” as though they might save the entire city. The name didn’t mean anything to Cazia, but she made note of their banner, a red waterfall on a black background. The unmistakable note of hope in Stoneface’s voice gave her hope as well.
    Behind them, a fleet squad of unarmored soldiers ran with bows and spears, moving to line up at an angle to the two squares. Cazia noted that many of them were women, and she wished she had been permitted to practice with a spear or a bow. They were going to fight the invader, and she flushed with shame that she could not be down there, too.
    “SHOCK LINE!” Treygar yelled down to them. “SHOCK LINE!”
    After a moment’s confusion at who was shouting at them, a man with a long brush along the top of his helmet--the commander, clearly--began barking orders, and the front line of spearmen braced the butts of their weapons in the cracks of the paving stones.
    The cart flew over them, picking up speed. “How much farther?” Lar called from below. Cazia leaned far out and saw the prince clinging to the rope with the crook of his elbow. Her stupid, awful imagination suddenly pictured him losing his grip and falling away--pictured his expression—and she had to look away. “Timush doesn’t look good,” he added.
    It was true. Timush was conscious but his skin was pasty. Cazia had never seen anyone go into shock, but she knew it could be as deadly as the point of a knife.  
    “Yes, my prince.” Treygar turned to Wimnel. “Find a place to set down. We have to get those injured men off the rope and we can’t drag them.”
    The driver glanced nervously back toward the city. “My tyr, we must find a road—”
    “We can’t fly all the way to Fort Samsit with the prince hanging by his fingers—”  
    “My tyr—”
    “--And two men who risked their lives for him dying at the end of a rope like common murderers!” Cazia was startled by the note of desperation in Stoneface’s voice. For a moment, he seemed to be concerned about Col and Timu.
    “My tyr, trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to set down here.” He nodded toward the marshy grasslands around them. “The cart wheels will get stuck in the mud and the disk wouldn’t be able to pull us out. We’d have to lift the cart free physically, then hover low while everyone loads on, and if we dipped too far down, we’d touch the mud and have to start again. It’s something the scholars don’t yet understand about this Gift, but we must set down on dry ground to take off again. I swear by Song and Monument this is the truth, Fire take me if it’s not.”  
    Cazia believed him, and by the way Tyr Treygar grimaced, she could see he did, too. A chill ran down her back. If Old Stoneface couldn’t keep his stoicism, what hope did they have to preserve anything? “We’ll all be Fire-taken if we don’t find a safe place to set down,” Treygar said.
    The Eastern Way would have been a safe place to put down, but it was behind them. By the time they circled back to it, they might find it overrun by beasts. Still, Doctor Warpoole began to insist they turn about, while Tyr Treygar refused to listen.
    Typical of Stoneface and the others to be arguing over who should be in charge when they should have been searching for a safe place to set down. Cazia looked out over the tall yellow grass, letting her vision go unfocused as she looked at everything and nothing. She’d always had strong eyesight, and her habit of watching the palace staff and guards without seeming to had taught her the trick of spotting the thing that doesn’t fit.  
    The grasslands were marshy and wet, yes, but there was dry ground out there, too, if you knew how to spot it.
    “We have to turn back to the south,” Doctor Warpoole said again. “The flat stones of the Eastern Way—”
    “There!” Cazia called, pointing to the north a bit.